DIVE BOMBER Movie Review

1941 Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz may be the most famous “unknown” director of Hollywood's golden era. He made some of the most popular and profitable movies—Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Yankee Doodle Dandy—and because they ranged so widely in subject and tone, he was never identified with his pictures in the way that Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford were. Instead, he came to epitomize the Warner Bros. school of filmmaking—good, swiftly paced escapist stories geared to energetic handsome stars. Dive Bomber follows the formula entertainingly enough, but it proves that no one, not even Curtiz, could make a silk purse out of this soap bubble.

It's a frivolous treatment of a serious but essentially undramatic subject, the efforts of flight doctors to prevent pilots from blacking out during high speed and high altitude flights. Today, the film is more interesting as a snapshot of the pre-World War II armed services. Some of the titular aircraft are open-cockpit biplanes and the whole film has a delightfully dated feeling.

Lt. Doug Lee (Errol Flynn) is a Harvard-educated Navy doctor who's interested in research. Cmdr. Joe Blake (Fred MacMurray) is a cocky flyboy who first meets Lee when a fellow pilot doesn't pull out of a dive and dies on the operating table. Blake blames Lee, thereby setting up a false conflict between the two. It's fairly quickly resolved when Lee learns to fly and signs on with Dr. Rogers (Ralph Bellamy) to help with his research. That's really all there is to the story. The supporting characters are built on stereotypes, and convenient coincidences keep things moving over the slow stretches. The comic relief based on an NCO dodging his wife at payday is indicative of the film's dismissal of women. All three of the female characters are avaricious parasites who would tempt men away from their more noble pursuits, if the men were paying attention.

But they're not; they're bonding. Bonding and smoking. The film makes constant references to smoking. Cigarettes are more than a part of all this bonding. They are fetishes, objects that must be touched, caressed, and shared at every decisive moment. More specifically, three gold cigarette cases, which reappear often, are totems that represent the skills of three hotshot fliers. Doubtless, there is a degree of realism to the prevalence of tobacco use in the Navy, but compared to other films of the period, the focus on smoking is still exceptional.

As for the film itself, Dive Bomber is less overtly propagandistic than many military-themed movies of the late 1930s and early ‘40s, but it is very much a film made by and for a nation about to go to war. Today, it's enjoyable mostly for the fine, if unexceptional, performances by the two leads, and the airplanes, lovingly photographed by Bert Glennon, Winston E. Hoch, Elmer Dyer, and Charles Marshall.

Cast: Errol Flynn (Lt. Doug Lee), Fred MacMurray (Cmdr. Joe Blake), Ralph Bellamy (Dr. Lance Rogers), Alexis Smith (Linda Fisher), Regis Toomey (Tim Griffin), Robert Armstrong (Art Lyons), Allen Jenkins (‘Lucky Dice’), Craig Stevens (John Thomas Anthony), Herb Anderson (Chubby), Moroni Olsen (Senior Flight Surgeon-San Diego), Dennie Moore (Mrs. James), Louis Jean Heydt (Swede Larson), Cliff Nazarro (Corps Man), Tod Andrews (Telephone Man), Ann Doran (Helen), Charles Drake (Pilot), Alan Hale Jr. (Pilot), William Forrest (Commander), Creighton Hale (Hospital attendant), Howard Hickman (Admiral), Russell Hicks (Admiral), George Meeker (Commander), Richard Travis (C.O.), Addison Richards (Senior Flight Surgeon); Written by: Frank Wead, Robert Buckner; Cinematography by: Bert Glennon, Winton C. Hoch, Elmer Dyer, Charles A. Marshall; Music by: Max Steiner. Producer: Hal B. Wallis, Warner Bros. Awards: Nominations: Academy Awards ‘41: Best Color Cinematography. Running Time: 130 minutes. Format: VHS, Closed Caption.