Product Description

Visually exciting WWII drama about two naval officers who are trying to understand and prevent altitude sickness. The two men must get past their personal differences in order to conduct the experiments necessary to save lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36759 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2007-03-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 132 minutes

Amazon.com
It's not the most he-manly endorsement imaginable, but Dive Bomber must be the prettiest aviation movie ever made. Errol Flynn, Fred MacMurray, and Ralph Bellamy top the cast, but the real star is Technicolor--in particular, a special Monopack developed to take the color process airborne without the cumbrous three-strip cameras used in the studios. Bert Glennon and Winton C. Hoch (once and future cameramen to John Ford) were Oscar-nominated for best color cinematography of 1941, but the flying footage was shot by Howard Hawks's aerial go-to guy Elmer Dyer (The Dawn Patrol, Only Angels Have Wings, Air Force) and Charles Marshall. For his part, director Michael Curtiz set up as many dialogue scenes as possible to include low-level flyovers by U.S. Navy Air Force squadrons. The onscreen results are often breathtaking (and beautifully served by the DVD mastering).

The drama is something else again. Dive Bomber is a bridge between the carefree service comedy-dramas of the '30s and the combat-themed movies that would kick in following December 7, 1941. Warner Bros. knew war was coming (their 1940 Flynn swashbuckler The Sea Hawk had allegorically engaged Hitler!); the heroes here are the flight surgeons and test pilots racing to lick high-altitude sickness so that U.S. flyers would be able to get the drop on their Axis foes once "the main event" started. The best scenes are the lab tests, including an oxygen-deprivation experiment that makes striking use of Technicolor. But the script by aviation-ace-turned-screenwriter Frank "Spig" Wead alternates between two tiresome strategies: nonstop dissing of medicos Flynn and Bellamy by macho flyboys MacMurray and pal Regis Toomey, and low-comedy interludes deploring how exasperating women can be (Alexis Smith is a sacrificial victim in her stellar debut). In this last connection, John Ford's Wead biopic The Wings of Eagles would make an illuminating companion piece for Dive Bomber. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

The real stars are Red, White and Blue
This is one of the greatest war films, sorry no blood and guts on the screen no great explosions. So how can it be five star? The stars are the planes, though the storyline is not bad. the footage of the prewar (USA) planes is top shelf. Turner or AMC run this every now and then stay home from work to see it. Released less then four months before the attack on Pearl Harbor it studies avi/med. Why no US DVD hey I'll buy two, OK three OK,OK five (widecreen) and a little sound work on the engines but didn't touch the color. This flim is to it's time what Tom Hanks did for the Apollo space program in 'From the Earth to the Moon', but not as large is Mr.Hanks' work.

This is a national treasure.

WWII IN TECHNICOLOR
DIVE BOMBER is one of the many films of the early forties which glorified the service branches: here we have Technicolor, big-budget treatment - and the full cooperation of the Naval Air Corps. This movie constantly waivers. There was an interesting, rather detailed examination of the new techniques in estimating a flyer's fitness, in solving the problems of "blacking out" when a pilot pulls out of a power dive, and in overcoming the hazards of stratospheric flying. Truly breathtaking formation flying, enhanced furthur by smogless Technicolor, was used in abundance. This dramatic and topical material was contrasted with flat story development in combination with artless "romantic interest". A good deal of the film was photographed at the Naval Air Station in San Diego and in the air amid billowing California clouds. Additonal material was filmed at Pensacola Naval Air Station and aboard the aircraft carrier ENTERPRISE.

A little balance?
If this were a documentary it would deserve a 5. Not only are the (barely) pre-War airplanes the stars of the show, but the gorgeous color photography of the San Diego area in '40-'41 is well worth the price of the DVD. But... it's supposed to be a movie, with characters, plot and all that good stuff, and this one doesn't rise much above the soap opera level on that score. Even at the documentary level there were some rather heavy duty security restrictions in place - one is free to doubt that, contrary to what the characters say, dive attacks were being made from 50,000 feet! Still, watching all those Vindicator dive bombers and pilots, knowing the sad fate which lay in store for these very people at Midway a little over a year later, makes it a very special memorial.