OVP: Bombardier (1943)

Film: Bombardier (1943)

Stars: Pat O'Brien, Randolph Scott, Anne Shirley, Eddie Albert, Walter Reed, Robert Ryan

Director: Richard Wallace

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Special Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Yesterday I made the comment (while reviewing When Ladies Meet) that frequently films of the 1930's & 40's were some of the best when it came to actually putting major actresses in leading roles opposite each other, actually caring about the stories of women rather than just focusing on their relationships with men. That doesn't mean the era was completely impervious to movies that just focused on the stories of men, with women merely props that are there to be ogled (but even then are criticized for being a distraction).  This is sadly the case with Bombardier, a 1943 war picture where there is just one woman in a major role (Anne Shirley, one leg of a love triangle), but is more focused on the importance of bombardiers (the crew that would drop bombs) during World War II.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in 1941 (spoiler alert: Pearl Harbor is going to be mentioned), with two bombardiers in the US Army Air Corps, Major Chick Davis (O'Brien) and Captain Buck Oliver (Scott) at odds on how to handle a new class of recruits, taking different attitudes about the young men's readiness to be bombardiers.  They also are clearly in love with the same woman, Burt (Shirley) whose brother Tom (Albert) is one of the new cadets, but is afraid of flying.  The film continues with the men enduring hardship & accidents, including at one point Tom heroically saving another man in a sequence...only to as a result fall without a parachute to his death (more on that in a second).  The ending of the film (which at 99 minutes still feels long) has Buck taken prisoner by a group of Japanese soldiers, and sacrificing himself to destroy the Japanese camp, as he signals to the troops to bomb the encampment even though it will mean his death.

War films of this ilk are always a struggle for me.  For starters, films made in the 1940's tend to not be particularly sensitive in terms of the opponents during World War II, and the depiction of the Japanese enemies in the film is super offensive & stereotypical.  In addition, films of this era that focus solely on men have toxic masculinity issues.  Anne Shirley's Burt is simply a prize to be won between the men, a beautiful bauble that is there to cry & be flirted with, but not an actual person.  And the film kills off Eddie Albert's Tom (bravely, in easily the most jaw-dropping sequence in the movie), halfway through...but Eddie Albert was the only person keeping the film from being a total dirge, which it is for the second half of the movie.

The film was made in complete cooperation with the Air Force, and as a result the effects are kind of impressive, if relatively routine after a while.  They filmed on the Kirtland Army Air Base, and some of the film's photography is of actual fighter planes, and the film's bombings are realistic, though not quite what you'd expect from a movie of this era (though I though the trick photography in the scene with Albert trying to save his fellow airman, and then dying in the process, was genuinely frightening & well done).  I also have to knock off a point, though, for a throwaway moment where Pat O'Brien for some reason has to ward off a moth, which is clearly a visual light trick, and so bizarrely inconsequential to the plot I had to rewind to wonder if it was just a take that was done incorrectly.