Lafayette Escadrille (film)
Encyclopedia
Lafayette Escadrille American war film
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...

 released in March of 1958
1958 in film
The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....

 by Warner Brothers Pictures, starring Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter is an American actor, singer, former teen idol and author who has starred in over forty major films.-Background:...

, David Janssen
David Janssen
David Janssen was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive , the starring role in the 1950s hit detective series Richard Diamond, Private Detective , and as Harry Orwell on Harry O.In 1996 TV Guide...

, and Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins
Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster in the Warner Brothers Western television series Sugarfoot on ABC from 1957-1961.-Biography:...

, and featuring Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 in an early supporting role. It was the final film in the career of director William A. Wellman
William A. Wellman
William Augustus Wellman was an American film director. Although Wellman began his film career as an actor, he worked on over 80 films, as director, producer and consultant but most often as a director, notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation...

.

The film is about a spoiled, rich kid (Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter
Tab Hunter is an American actor, singer, former teen idol and author who has starred in over forty major films.-Background:...

) from Boston, who had gotten in serious trouble with the law, and fled to France, where he volunteers to join the Lafayette Escadrille
Lafayette Escadrille
The Lafayette Escadrille , was an escadrille of the French Air Service, the Aéronautique militaire, during World War I composed largely of American volunteer pilots flying fighters.-History:Dr. Edmund L...

 and flies for France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in the First World War. While off duty, the young man meets and falls in love with Renee (Etchika Choureau), a common streetwalker with some sensitivity; she quits the oldest profession and takes a job, reforming for her American lover's sake. As he is a malcontented young man whose father beat him, he resents any kind of authority. A strutting, arrogant French officer (Marcel Dalio
Marcel Dalio
Marcel Dalio was a French character actor. He had major roles in two of Jean Renoir's most famous films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game.- Biography :...

), irritated by the young man's inability to understand commands in French, strikes him. The young man knocks the officer to the ground, a very serious offense, but before he can be jailed, his pals smuggle him out of camp. He then spends a great deal of time hiding in Paris in his sweetheart's apartment. Later, he redeems himself by serving in the US Air Corps when America comes into the war. Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

's role, as George Mosely, is essentially a walk-on.

While the aviation scenes were well received, they weren't enough to overcome a mediocre story and flat acting. The film was roundly panned by critics and totally disowned by those still alive who had flown as part of the fabled Lafayette Escadrille and the Lafayette Flying Corps, who were understandably upset at their portrayal. Wellman had frequently claimed to be a member of the Escadrille, but that was simply not the case, and he later admitted he had only been a member of the larger and less well-known Lafayette Flying Corps. This was to be William Wellman's last directorial effort; it had started out to be a paean to his memories of the storied squadron, but ended up a target for insults, accusations, and lawsuits, not the least of which were directed against Warner Brothers Studios for their heavy-handed interference. William Clothier filmed the spectacular aerial sequences, evocative of those in Wellman's earlier silent classic Wings
Wings (film)
Wings is a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman and released by Paramount Pictures. Wings was the first film, and the only silent film, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Wings stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and...

, though this film falls far short of the classic status of the 1928 Oscar-winner.

The plot of "Lafayette Escadrille" is dissimilar to the 2006 film Flyboys, which tries to tell the story of the Escadrille as background to an unrequited love story, while dealing with some of the lesser-known elements of the squadron's history.
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