Based on the story of Dick Grace, Hollywood's top aerial stuntman (responsible for the thrills in such films as Wings (1927), Lilac Time (1928), and Hell's Angels (1930)) The Lost Squadron pays spectacular if melodramatic homage to those wartime flyers who later risked their lives in the skies over California.

“Particularly fascinating for the film student are the generous display of the film-making process in the early thirties and a grotesque parody of himself by Erich von Stroheim in the role of von Furst, sadistic, maniac producer-director, outlawed in the industry, prepared to go any length for the sake of realism and authentic thrills in his motion pictures....

“...Stroheim's extravagant performance reveals a black humor about his own position in Hollywood: it seems to take off from his own legendary reputation, adding to the confusion between the film-maker and the evil characters he played....”