A Howard Hawks Production. Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Executive pro¬ducer: Jack L. Warner. Copyright 20 March 1943 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. A Warner Bros.-First National Picture. New York opening at the Hollywood: February 1943. U.S. release: 20 March 1943. Australian release: 3 May 1945. 11,421 feet. 127 minutes.SYNOPSIS: December 1941. The adventures of the U.S. fighter bomber "Mary Ann" in the Pacific theater of war.NOTES: George Amy won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' award for Film Editing, defeating Owen Marks (Casablanca), Doane Harrison (Five Graves to Cairo), Sherman Todd and John Link (For Whom the Bell Tolls), and Barbara McLean (The Song of Bernadette). Air Force was also nominated for Original Screenplay (lost to Princess O'Rourke by Norman Krasna); Cinematography - black-and-white (lost to Arthur Miller for The Song of Bernadette); and Special Effects (lost to Crash Dive).Air Force was selected by Bosley Crowther of the New York Times as one of the Ten Best Films of 1943. One of the seventeen critics in the New York Film Critics panel voted Air Force as the number one film of the year. (That critic was not Mr Crowther, who voted for the ultimate winner, Watch on the Rhine). Air Force was selected as number three on the National Board of Review list (behind The Ox-Bow Incident and Watch on the Rhine).Domestic gross: $2,700,000.COMMENT: Many World War 2 propaganda films now appear excessively dated to-day. Unfortunately, Air Force is no exception. The characters are the usual reluctantly gung-ho types, the dialogue is forced and the incidents strained. Even the action sequences are undermined by obvious process and model work.The players do what they can with their two-cent parts, acting out all the false camaraderie with a too-eager patina of sincerity. Hawks' deliberately eye-level direction comes across as strictly pedestrian. Even Howe's photography (particularly in its ineptly filtered day-for-night sequences) is not up to his usual classy standard - though he was doubtless striving to give the film a grainy, "washed-out" (i.e. an image with no highlights) newsreel look. As for Amy's Award-winning film editing, it's routine "hand me another shot of that stock footage" stuff which doesn't light a candle to Casablanca.Hawks' auteurist admirers will find plenty of their hero's usual "themes", but most viewers will be either bored silly or downright irritated by such unlikely and phony devices as the rebel who turns into a hero, the "lovable" little dog who becomes the bomber's mascot, the softly-spoken Southern officer-gentleman who is actually made of steel, the rough-voiced sergeant whose heart is chockers full of loving kindness, etc., etc. 127 minutes of such drearily dated clichés is more than enough for any man. I hope I never see Air Force again.

"Air Force" is a 1943 propaganda film notable for being directed by Howard Hawks. It revolves around the crew members of a B-17 Flying Fortress, Hawks watching as the group fly training missions, are stationed at Pearl Habour during the infamous Japanese raid, and are pushed to the limit as they fly a seemingly incessant string of bombing runs in and around the Philippines. The film features dialogue by the great William Faulkner. Hawks loved to mingle with novelists, and was even close to Hemingway. They collaborated on "To Have or Have Not", one of Hawks' more underrated pictures."Air Force's" final act is a shameless bit of war-baiting, containing scenes (more graphic than usual if you're familiar with early, WW2 era, American propaganda films) in which Japanese fighter pilots shoot defenceless American parachutists, American pilots revenge-kill Japanese men and audiences are invited to revel in the slaughter of Japanese sailors. As Hawks is such a skilled director, the film's blood-lust, xenophobia and violence are more fine tune and amplified than is typical of 1940s propaganda films. The film ends (prophetically) with an allusion to the atomic bombing of Japan (which would take place 2 years later) and a patriotic speech by President Roosevelt. As expected, the film's Japanese are portrayed as being totally vicious and stupid maniacs, whilst US forces are innocent victims. In reality, the US strung Japan along as much as Japan did the US. "Let me baby Japan along for another three months," Roosevelt once joked with Churchill, as he fished for a pretext to enter the war proper. While the US and China were "allies" during WW2 – and hence Roosevelt's funding of China, placing embargoes on Japan and baiting a murderous Imperial Japan into expanding into Southern Asia - the US and China would be at war less than 15 years later during the Korean conflict."Air Force", along with such aviation films as "633 Squadron" and "The Dam Busters", would prove a huge influence on George Lucas' "Star Wars: A New Hope", which shot-for-shot borrows whole sequences from these films, particularly the latter two.Hawks is known for his rapid-fire aesthetic, and "Air Force" is no different. "Air Force" moves like a bullet train, the action ceaseless, tight and engrossing. There are also shades of Hawks' "Scarface" and "The Big Sleep" here, with shadowy cinematography, hard boiled banter, attractive machismo, tightly inter-related characters, tight editing and dark bomber cockpits which at times resemble noir sound-stages. As with most of Hawks' pictures, a tough, stoic, competitive and authoritarian vibe is prevalent. His is a "male" cinema — male values, male heroes, male activities, and male resolutions – which believes in and glorifies such traditionally masculine pursuits as world war, trailblazing, killing Native Americans, cattle driving, gun fighting, air-plane piloting, hunting and auto racing. Like Hemingway, your typical Hawks picture also has a certain cadence or tempo, very clipped, minimalist and blunt, traits which help them hold up centuries later. When discussing film-makers of his era, Hawks is often overlooked, but he could be just as, and even more, stylish than Ford and Hitchcock.7.9/10 – Like Hawks' "Sergeant York", great technique is marred by war baiting and simplistic propaganda. The film was praised and sponsored by the United States War Office. Worth one viewing.

***SPOILERS*** On a routine flight from San Francisco to Honolulu the crew of the B-17 bomber, one of nine on the flight, Mary-Ann gets the shocking news that Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japaneses that left the US Pacific Fleet in shambles. Angry as hell and wanting to get back at the Japs for what they did the bomber's crew members, despite their differences, unite in the cause to fly the bomb-laden bomber into the teeth of the Royal Japanese Navy and bomb the living hell out of it! Even if in the end they all end up going under, the waves of the Pacific, with it!Rip roaring and at times tragic war movie about how the US got its act together after getting sneaked attacked by the Japs and ended up giving em', the Japanese Pacfic Fleet and imperial Army, hell all throughout the vast and bloody Pacific Theater of War! The hell meted out on the Japs in the movie is that by the crew of the Mary-Ann who island hopped from Hawaii to Wake Island to the Philippians, before the Japs captured them, and ended up leading the charge at the surprised Jap fleet, who thought that they already won the war, in the battle or the Coral Sea. It was the battled scared and heroic B-17 Mary-Ann together with the remainder of what was left of the US Army Air Force that ended up blasting it, the Imperial Japanese Navy, to smithereens in that naval slug-fest!Of course there were losses on our-the USA-side as well that included the Mary-Ann's Captain Quincannon and radio man Chester together with scores of US Army Navy and Marine personal but that was nothing compared what the Japs got in them losing almost their entire navy and air force including dozens of Jap fifth columnists, who were secretly working undercover for Tojo, by the time the movie ended.Effective WWII propaganda movie released at the worst of times for the US and its allies in battling the Axis forces who at the time, late 1942, were in fact winning the war. The B-17-or Mary-Ann's, crew took everything that the Japs could throw at them and ended up shooting down dozens of Jap Zeros before the plane was finally, after losing a wing tip engine and a good part of its fuselage, grounded by Jap Zero machine gun and cannon fire. After being repaired and airborne the Mary-Ann continued to give it back to the Japanese in the final and climactic battle, the Battle of the Coarl Sea, in the film that saw the Japanese fleet, and thousands of its sailors and marines, end up dying for their emperor in ways they never expected to: By them being prevented in kamikaze like suicide attacks in them both dying and taking their hated enemy, the US Army Navy and Marines, along with them!P.S There's some major inaccuracies in the movie especially that of Japanese/Americans, in the Hawaiian island, joining in with the attacking Japs in sabotaging US military and naval installations in and around Pearl Harbor. There's also the fact that the Battle of the Coral Sea, in May 1942, ended in a drew between the US and Japanese navies instead, like in the film, of being a total and decisive victory for the US. But still who need accuracy when your country is in a life and death struggle with a highly motivated and determined enemy and any negative news, accurate or not, could only help its cause. If like in all war propaganda films bending the facts can turn things around on your side, like the film "Air Force" did, and motivate the public to willingly join in the fight who cares it the facts in the film aren't exactly on the level, like in the Battle of he Coarl Sea, or not even right, like in the case of Japanese/American fifth columnists, at all!

Not only did Warner Brothers use the Boeing B-17 bomber as the centerpiece of one of its earliest battle front movies, "Flying Fortress," but the studio also used the bomber as an allegory for American tenacity in "Scarface" director Howard Hawks "Air Force." According to World War II film historian Lawrence Suid, Jack Warner approached U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) commanding officer General Henry 'Hap' Arnold not long after Pearl Harbor about making a film about the USAAF. Suid says that Arnold approved Warner Brothers' request, and the War Department provided the studio with a plethora of information about their planes and pilots, which scenarist Dudley Nichols included in his original screenplay. Warner Brothers' studio chief Jack Warner hired aviation enthusiast Howard Hawks to direct "Air Force," and Hawks started shooting on June 18, 1942, at Drew Air Force Base in Florida and completed the picture four months later on October 26."Air Force" chronicles the routine flight of a B-17 Flying Fortress, nicknamed the 'Mary Ann,' from San Francisco to Hawaii. The crew consisted of an ethnically and geographically diverse group of men, a casting theme that recurred throughout World War II movies and reflected the melting pot identity of America. Unlike MGM's "Bataan" and Twentieth Century Fox's "Crash Drive" (1943), however, Warner Brothers never integrated African-Americans into the ranks of its battle front films.As the 'Mary Ann' approaches Honolulu, the crew hears Japanese gibberish on the radio and is even more shocked by the sight of Japanese planes dropping bombs and strafing the base. The Pearl Harbor flight tower diverts the 'Mary Ann' to Maui where it lands to repair a wheel. When Japanese-American snipers open fire on the fliers, the crew flies to Wake Island where the Marines are preparing their a gallant last stand. At Clark Field, the crew reloads their guns and ascends to battle the Japanese. The 'Mary Ann' is so badly riddled with bullet holes and the skipper so severely wounded that he orders everybody else to bail out. A recalcitrant gunner (John Garfield) who washed out of flying school ignores the skipper's orders and lands the bomber.Frantically, despite their orders to destroy it, the reunited crew patches up the plane. Not only do they load up with bombs, but they also remove the tail section and install a machine gun. The crew manages to get their B-17 off the ground before the Japanese overrun the island. During their flight to Australia, they sight a Japanese fleet, radio their position, and sink some of the ships. As the film draws to a close, the 'Mary Ann' survivors prepare to spearhead an aerial attack on Japan.At a time when the government restricted all Hollywood studios in terms of the money that they could spend on a film, the U.S. Army-Air Force's assistance proved invaluable in giving the film an aura of authenticity. For example, the nine B-17s seen in flight during the early scenes of Air Force were actually filmed on location in Florida by Warner Brothers. When the studio staged Japanese plane crashes and tricky B-17 landings in the jungle, the studio relied on miniatures. According to a War Department letter dated June 6, 1942, "It is the policy of the War Department not to allow soldiers or military equipment to be disguised and photographed as representing the personnel or equipment of foreign countries." The War Department sidestepped its own rule when it helped Warner Brothers produce Air Force. According to Suid, the War Department appointed Captain Samuel Triffy as technical adviser, and Triffy "flew both an Army two-place trainer and a fighter painted with the Rising Sun emblem in the combat sequences portraying Japanese attacks on American aircraft and military positions." Triffy sought as much as possible to ensure that Air Force appeared "as authentic as we could make it under the circumstances." All Howard Hawks' movies are about men bonding as a group. Women are few and far between in "Air Force,' but they populate the storyline. Dudley Nichols' screenplay with help from William Faulkner contains many good scenes. Some are tragic, such as the flight crew chief's story about his son, and some are funny, such as the dog that barks at Japanese. The death scene where the pilot takes off from his hospital bed with his companions helping him simulate this take-off to the big hangar in the sky is memorable. Today, "Air Force" seems quaint and corny, especially the aerial gunner's change of attitude. Initially, the John Garfield character doesn't plan to re-enlist, and he behaves like a complete prima donna, particularly because the 'Mary Ann's' pilot washed him out of pilot school, but the aerial gunner changes his mind when he see Pearl Harbor in flames.The U.S. Government propaganda agency, the OWI-BMP praised "Air Force" for five reasons. First, the crew constituted an ethnic melting pot. Second, the crew's perfect teamwork made the mission of the "Mary Ann" successful. Third, the officials applauded the fact that the filmmakers showered glory on an older mechanic sergeant who maintained the plane rather than on the younger more glamorous pilots. Fourth, as a combat picture, "Air Force" proved exciting without "the pitfall of showing too much blood and suffering." Fifth, the plot emphasized a good-natured rivalry between fighter pilots and bomber pilots. Ultimately, the OWI-BMP found the flaws in "Air Force" "serious but remediable; its good points are very good indeed—well worth the effort to revise the script so that it will perform a truly valuable service of war information." Altogether, "Air Force" is one of the best Allied propaganda movies of World War II.