As the three previous reviewers have indicated, this is a pretty bad movie. Whether it is true that it was actually made to make the WASPS look bad, as claimed by one of those reviewers, I don't know. But it is certainly true that it makes some of the women pilots look selfish, over-emotional, etc. I don't ever recall once hearing any of the men in the movie comment on how good the women were at their job.It's strange, frankly, that Hollywood would bother to make such a poor movie during the war. I just finished reading *Hollywood Goes to War*, which recounts how the Office of War Information (OWI) worked with the studios to put a positive face on just about every aspect of our involvement in the war - not always successfully, granted. It seems hard to imagine that Universal - which generally made horror flicks and musicals - would intentionally set out to scuttle the WASPs. But then, it also seems strange that Universal managed to get Loretta Young, then a big star, to appear in one of their movies.I suspect there is some untold story here behind all this.Nonetheless, this is a pretty poor movie. Unless you have an interest in seeing World War II aircraft, there's really not much point in watching it.

The title "Ladies Courageous" is obviously inspired by the 1930s MGM film "Captains Courageous". However, instead this is the story of a group of women volunteers who served the armed forced by ferrying airplanes from the States to where ever they were needed--thus freeing up men to do the actual fighting. While the film is SUPPOSED to celebrate these women and SHOULD have been an advancement for the cause of equal rights, in many, many ways it seems to have the covert message "women really AREN'T as qualified as men". Why? Because too often these supposedly professional women act as if their every action is governed by feelings or raging hormones. Now don't get me wrong...I do NOT agree with this at all...but the film seems to constantly reinforce this idea because these supposedly smart women often act awfully dumb...and it's up to their Colonel (Loretta Young) to continually pick up the pieces and try to make the best of the many disasters caused by some of the women--particularly the Colonel's nutty sister. A truly weird film and one that should have inspired....not inspired laughter!

This film, unfortunately, is a disgrace to the WAFS/WASP women who flew for the military during WWII. After being depicted in Ladies Courageous as sluts and emotionally disturbed nut cases who steal airplanes to commit suicide -- the REAL women fliers during WWII were looked down upon and scorned. They were often accused of only signing up to serve their country so they could "get a man".One thing the movie is good for is that it was filmed on location at Long Beach Army Air Field in California so what you see in the film is the actual Pilot's Ready Room and the real WAFS barracks etc. Other than that this movie is a sad commentary on how women were seen through the eyes of the American film industry during WWII.

I almost saw this movie at The Library of Congress last week, but...However, I did somehow stumble on this review from Time Magazine from 1944! Since there are no other comments, I thought I would add it here, sort of a public service, or something! My rating may be a bit generous.The New Pictures Monday, Apr. 03, 1944 Four Jills in a Jeep (20th Century-Fox) and Ladies Courageous (Universal) are Hollywood's idea of what women can do for the war and painful examples of what Hollywood, under the pressure of patriotism, can do to women. In the first, Hollywood vigorously shakes its own hand for letting some actresses go to shake a leg on the world battlefronts. In the second, Loretta Young, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Diana Barrymore pilot planes around the U.S. The Jeep bounces Carole Landis, Kay Francis, Martha Raye and Mitzi Mayfair through a catch-as-catch-can cineversion of Miss Landis' book (and Satevepost articles) of the same title, reporting their experiences as USO entertainers. In the book, only Miss Landis got married. In the picture, Martha Raye, the feminists' Joe E. Brown, practically ingests the comic sergeant (Phil Silvers) who chauffeurs their jeep. Mitzi Mayfair snuggles up to a uniformed ex-vaudeville partner (Dick Haymes, who is Fox's threat to Frank Sinatra, and sings like melting vanilla ice cream). Kay Francis plays handles with an English Army doctor who utters the stunning gallantry : "If I'd held this hand ten years ago I might have a full house now." Miss Francis just laughs. In Britain and Africa, the cinemactresses clearly enjoyed themselves, worked hard, and brought some pleasure to places where it was needed. But not much of the reworking of their travelogue is fun to see or hear. Ladies Courageous comes in on a shattered wing and an unanswered prayer, noses over, and spills out a motley set of WAFS (see cut, p. 94) who later become WASPS. This whole covey of highly burnished cinemactresses looks more like Wam-pas cuties than like aeronauts. Judging by their actions, they cannot be trusted to pilot a perambulator, much less a B17. Miss Barrymore philanders with another WAF's husband; his wife remorsefully crashes her plane. Miss Fitzgerald, a neurotic, embarrasses her sister, Director Young, by making a hot landing (for publicity purposes). But she compensates for that by all but killing herself and another WAF in two other planes. Loretta Young comforts her warmly: "You tried!" One wag emerged from the preview with a theme song for the girls: The men will forgive us (The ones that outlive us) No matter how often we fail. Who cares what trees-in The plane falls that she's-in. She's got a sting in her tail.