SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

weezeralfalfa Accomplishes it's purposes of providing more Technicolor exposure of Fox's ravishing young starlet: Gene Tierney, while providing a drama relating to the then current training of pilots, primarily for the Army Air Corps. Gene , at 22, looks especially beautiful in this film, as in the later Technicolor "Leave Her to Heaven". In the beginning, she's the girl of instructor Steve Britt(Preston Foster), but later becomes enamored of British trainee Peter Stackhouse(John Sutton), who is almost dismissed from the school, save for the intervention of Britt. Britt seems not too upset that Jean went for the younger man, as he was 20 years her senior......I was curious why the bright yellow and blue Stearman Model 75 biplanes were used as trainers, whereas the pilots were going to fly monoplanes in battle. Reportedly, these planes had a reputation for being easy for beginners to fly, relatively forgiving, and rugged. The pilots flying the combat planes in the fadeout were termed Thunder Birds. Interestingly, these fighters looked to me like probable P-47s, nicknamed Thunderbolts. ...... Brit John Sutton was a real life adventure seeker, born in India. He was most often cast as 'the other man' or villain, but here he's the winner, as he was in the prior film "Hudson's Bay" , again, with Gene as his ladylove.....The director, William Wellman, bargained with Darryl Zanuck to direct this film if he were allowed to direct the very controversial project "The Ox Bow Incident". As anticipated, the latter film was a box-office flop, but is highly regarded today. See the present film at YouTube

edwagreen Training pilots for flying bomb missions during World War 11 takes a back drop here in this 1942 film. Instead, it becomes a story of one pilot, a doctor, who gets upset stomachs when he is flying, to be supported by his commander, the latter flying with his father in World War 1. Preston Foster was not exactly your leading man and the age difference between himself and Gene Tierney is obvious here. Too old to serve now, he becomes a pilot instructor for the army.The film opens with the friendships made by British, American and Chinese flyers.Matters are soon complicated when our fearful doctor falls for Tierney, Foster's girl.Dame May Witty, the Brit's grandmother has still another opportunity to mourn as she did the same year in the memorable Oscar winner "Mrs. Miniver." As broken up as she was when her granddaughter, Teresa Wright, was killed in a bombing, she shows the exact reverse response being stalwart here when her grandson, brother to the doctor, is shot down and killed. She really exemplifies Britain's adage of keeping a stiff upper lip.The picture is less than 90 minutes and the other flyers really fall by the waste side here.

pzanardo "Thunder Birds" is an innocuous movie of war propaganda, made by W.A. Wellmann, a first- rate director, with his usual professionalism. The locations are beautiful, the Technicolor is outstanding, and the flying scenes are accurately shot. The story is standard, a nice blend of adventure-action and comedy, with some good emotional scenes in the part placed in England, dominated by Dame May Witty. What makes "Thunder Birds" special, and its message stronger, is the use of Gene Tierney as a symbol. Yes, she is called to represent exactly "what we fight for". We (the young men from America, Great Britain, China) fight for that dream of a girl, for her smile, for the hot dogs we devour with her, for her nylon stockings, for our freedom and prosperity that she embodies. And she doesn't leave us alone, like a damned arrogant European princess. She helps and supports us, with a merry smile and without any conceit. Here, among us, there's no room for the gruesome death-rhetoric of the barbarian killers we fight.To be honest, I admit that anyone out of the mass of splendid American actresses of the 1940s could play the role of Gene Tierney in "Thunder Birds", with excellent results. But only with the Goddess of Beauty, shining on the screen, all the parameters go to infinity.

Robert J. Maxwell The plot is nothing much new. An older, experienced aviator (Preston Foster) is hired as a civilian instructor at Thunder Bird Airfield in Arizona. His missions: (1) To shepherd a class of American, British, and Chinese novices through primary flight training, and (2) to woo an old girl friend, Gene Tierney, who happens to live on a ranch next to the field.One of his British students is the elegant-sounding and clean-cut young John Sutton. The poor guy used to be a doctor but then volunteered for the RAF, a position for which he seems manifestly unsuited. He gets airsick and is acrophobic, like me. Encouraged by his aunt, the no-nonsense Dame May Witty, he does his best to overcome his defects. After some initial flights, Foster says he's going to wash Sutton out but Sutton begs for another chance and Foster relents, for now.That's not all that's going on though. The ability to fly is one thing, but then there's Gene Tierney to contend with. Wow. Sutton and his co-cadet Richard Haydn (the voice of the caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland") run into Gene Tierney in a dress shop. They admire her legs and she taunts them, flirtatiously, and leads them on. Preston's love for Tierney, if that's what it is, in unrequited but Tierney and Sutton get along quite well together. Did I mention her legs? Did I mention her facial features? She looks like the result of a mating between a Chinese porcelain doll and a fox.But never mind the romance. That's ground. The figure is the flying. The director, William Wellman, was a flier himself and though this was strictly a contractual obligation, his fascination with airplanes illuminates the film. I can only think of a few other films that have so successfully captured the exuberance of flying biplanes in their colorful pre-war paint schemes in the blue and crystalline air of Arizona. Such beauty for such an ugly end.If you find the romantic theme music familiar or appealing, it's written by Harry Warren for another movie about ice skating in the same year, 1942. The title is "There Will Never Be Another You," and it's entered the Great American Songbook. You can download it from anywhere.There's not much else to be said about the movie. The performances are all professional, the plot is the result of innumerable recyclings, and the visual imagery is splendor itself, especially the girl and the airplanes. Did I mention her legs? A cheerful and diverting way to spend an hour and a half.