Wings Of The Navy (film)
Encyclopedia
Wings of the Navy is a 1939 Warner Bros. drama directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring Olivia de Havilland
Olivia de Havilland
Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...

 and John Payne
John Payne (actor)
John Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in Miracle on 34th Street and the NBC western television series The Restless Gun.-Background:Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia...

. Like many of the Warner Bros. features in the pre-World War II era, it was intended to serve as propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 for the U.S. military and received heavy support from the US Navy which also considered the film as a recruiting tool.

Plot

Submarine officer Jerry Harrington (John Payne) goes to Pensacola to train as a flying cadet, just like his father and his brother, longtime airman Cass Harrington (George Brent). Jerry ends up falling for his brother's girlfriend, Irene Dale (Olivia de Havilland), which only increases the competition between the two brothers. After Cass is seriously injured in a crash, he is forced to leave the Navy. Jerry becomes a pilot in San Diego and begins flying seaplanes while Cass designs a new fighter for the Navy. Jerry wants to prove to Cass that he is a better pilot, even if it means leaving the Navy to test the experimental fighter which has already led to the death of a test pilot. Irene is forced to choose which man she loves.

Cast

  • George Brent
    George Brent
    George Brent was an Irish film and television actor in American cinema.-Early life:He was born George Brendan Nolan in Raharabeg, County Roscommon on the opposite bank of the River Shannon from the town of Shannonbridge, County Offaly, Ireland, the son of a British Army officer.During the Irish...

     as Cass Harrington
  • Olivia de Havilland
    Olivia de Havilland
    Olivia Mary de Havilland is a British American film and stage actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1946 and 1949. She is the elder sister of actress Joan Fontaine. The sisters are among the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s.-Early life:Olivia de Havilland...

     as Irene Dale
  • John Payne
    John Payne (actor)
    John Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox musical films, and for his leading roles in Miracle on 34th Street and the NBC western television series The Restless Gun.-Background:Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia...

     as Jerry Harrington
  • Frank McHugh
    Frank McHugh
    Francis Curray "Frank" McHugh was an American film and television actor.Born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, McHugh came from a theatrical family. His parents ran a stock theatre company and as a young child he performed on stage...

     as Scat Allen
  • John Litel
    John Litel
    John Litel was an American film actor. During World War I, Litel enlisted in the French Army and was twice decorated for bravery....

     as Commander Clark
  • Victor Jory
    Victor Jory
    Victor Jory was a Canadian actor.-Biography:Born in Dawson City, Yukon, Jory was the boxing and wrestling champion of the Coast Guard during his military service, and he kept his burly physique. He toured with theater troupes and appeared on Broadway, before making his Hollywood debut in 1930...

     as Lt. Parsons
  • Henry O'Neill
    Henry O'Neill
    Henry O'Neill was a film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:...

     as Prologue Speaker
  • John Ridgely
    John Ridgely
    John Ridgely was an American film character actor with over 100 film credits. He appeared in the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film The Big Sleep as blackmailing gangster Eddie Mars and had a memorable role as a suffering heart patient in the film noir Nora Prentiss .The Chicago, Illinois-born actor...

     as Dan Morrison
  • John Gallaudet as Lt. Harry White
  • Donald Briggs as Instructor
  • Edgar Edwards as Ted Parsons
  • Regis Toomey
    Regis Toomey
    John Regis Toomey was an American film and television actor.-Early life:Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was one of four children of Francis X. and Mary Ellen Toomey and attended Peabody High School...

     as First Flight Instructor
  • Alberto Morin as Armando Costa (as Albert Morin)
  • Jonathan Hale
    Jonathan Hale
    Jonathan Hale was a Canadian-born film and television actor.-Career:Born Jonathan Hatley in Ontario, Canada, Hale was well known as Dagwood Bumstead's boss, Julius Caesar Dithers, in the Blondie film series in the 1940s. He is also notable for playing Inspector Farnack in various The Saint films...

     as Commandant
  • Pierre Watkin
    Pierre Watkin
    Pierre Watkin was an American actor. He was a character actor in many films, serials and TV series from the 1930s through the 1950s, especially westerns...

     as Capt. March

Production

Wings of the Navy was filmed on location at the Naval Air Station on North Island in San Diego, California, and the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida and was dedicated to the U.S. Naval Aviation Service. The US Navy was heavily committed by providing access to aircraft and facilities with Lieutenant Commander Hugh Sease serving as the Technical Advisor to the production. The latest US Navy types were on display including the Grumman F3F
Grumman F3F
|-Popular culture:The F3F was featured as an "experimental fighter" in Warner Bros's Wings of the Navy .The F3F-2 was featured in the 1940 film Flight Command, starring Robert Taylor as a pilot whose work developing instrument landing systems helps his lost squadron return to NAS North...

biplane fighter which played the role of an experimental fighter.
George Brent, John Payne and Olivia de Havilland reprising their film roles, performed a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast on October 7, 1940.

Reception

Typical of other period Warner Bros. dramas, it was a propaganda when it was released in 1939, before the U.S. involvement in World War II.

The most impressive aspect of the film was the flying sequences which a reviewer at The New York Times aptly reported was "As a documentary study of the Pensacola Naval Air Training station, and its methods of turning raw recruits into seasoned pilots of combat and bombing planes, "Wings of the Navy" gets off the ground very nimbly, and has a good deal of value, interest and even excitement, of the purely mechanical sort, to offer to the curious."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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