Howard Hawks' first talkie finds a squadron of American volunteer pilots on the French Front, 1915. The squadron leader, despised because of the high death rate among his men, is replaced by his loudest critic, who soon discovers the inevitability of death. As in all his war films, Hawks demystifies the heroics of men in combat, stressing instead the moral conflicts implicit in situations of group responsibility.

The acknowledged master of aviation pictures, Hawks staged aerial combat scenes of such “authenticity” that footage from The Dawn Patrol still turns up in “documentaries” on the First World War.