Air Force
“Howard Hawks' high flying epic is one of the best war films ever made - a classic of the American cinema, packed with suspense and virtually non-stop action. Air Force follows a single Flying Fortress (named Mary Ann) and her crew from takeoff at San Francisco on December 6, 1941, to besieged Hickam Field in Hawaii, and then on to the Philippines for some of the most breath-taking aerial combat ever filmed as they fight in the battle of the Coral Sea. Hawks' flair for group dynamics is perfectly suited to this drama of fliers under pressure, and sequences like the race to complete repairs on the Mary Ann and get her airborne before Japanese soldiers overrun the field are deeply exciting. Air Force was enormously influential, and frequently imitated; as a result, some sequences seem corny today. But it was the original, and it deserves to be seen as much as possible as it must have appeared to audiences in 1943 - as a superbly thrilling, highly accomplished picture by a Hollywood master.”