The saga of Howard Hughes epic World War 1 film ‘Hells Angels’ (1930) has been well documented–if you don’t know it then this Wikipedia entry does a good enough job of giving you the basics. Essentially, the young Texas millionaire/aviator was infatuated with the movies from a young age and after a few false starts decided to throw down big time and create the war/aviation epic to end all examples of the genre. Begun as a silent film in 1927, Hughes scrapped much of the footage once sound had firmly come into being and started over again. It took about three years and as many millions of dollars for him to finish and premiere his movie. The general feeling at the time is pretty much the same as now–the aerial scenes are amazing, the ones with people talking not quite as impressive. (Oddly the director credited with ‘staging’ the dialogue scenes was the brilliant James Whale, a year or two away from ‘Frankenstein’ but stuck with a bum script and a young Jean Harlow who had yet to grow comfortable with herself as an actress.) There’s a beautiful restored print of the whole movie on YouTube but, fascinated as I am by the film, I find it tough going once we’re not up in the clouds. Nonetheless, there are many excerpted scenes  as well and I thought we’d have a look at this fascinating folly of a movie, made by a man who largely is remembered today for his gothic last years as a drugged out recluse in a Las Vegas hotel suite but who was in fact a daring innovator both as a filmmaker and aerospace visionary.

Let’s begin with a bang and watch the films astonishing climactic air battle. The YouTuber who helpfully excerpted this one-of-a-kind sequence (remember–no effects were used…this was all for real) unfortunately placed an incredibly incorrect piece of music behind it. Don’t even attempt to watch this with that track. Instead click below on the third movement of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, which is an admittedly quirky choice but largely works and, even when it doesn’t, flavors the footage with a sort of piquant 1920s period flavor. (The downbeat is eight full seconds in so cue up the music start first).  The film was shot in sunny Southern California, high in the skies over the San Fernando Valley. If you haven’t seen Martin Scorcese’s wonderfully entertaining Hughes biopic ‘The Aviator’ I highly recommend it. The opening act concerns itself largely with the making of ‘Hells Angels’ and is a wonderful recreation of what making a film–especially one as elaborate and unwieldy as ‘Hells Angels’–actually took. REMEMBER: turn off the volume on the above clip and attempt to start the clip at close to the same time that you click on the below clip. The music isn’t of course synced, but you’ll get the idea…and I’m quite sure you’ll find it quite a thrilling ride.