Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 2.30pm
This 4K presentation is in the Razor Sharp: The Fabulous Women of Howard Hawks season at BFI Southbank. The movie also screens on June 3rd and 27th. Full details here.
Only
Angels Have Wings is a major American movie and a pivotal film in the
great Howard Hawks's career. Indeed, Robin Wood, in his BFI book on
Hawks, describes the movie as a "completely achieved masterpiece". Cary
Grant leads a group of pilots who regularly take their life in their
hands flying mail planes across the Andes. They are joined by a sparky
Jean Arthur, who drops in for a steak but fascinated by the life and
times of Grant's team stays on and witnesses the adventures of one of
Hawks's archetypal male groups. Only Angels Have Wings mixes tragedy and
comedy in typical Hawks style and has an atmosphere all its own.
Chicago Reader review:
Howard
Hawks's 1939 film represents the equilibrium point of his career: the
themes he was developing throughout the 30s here reach a perfect clarity
and confidence of expression, without yet confronting the darker
intimations that would haunt his films of the 40s and 50s. The setting
is a South American port where a group of fliers, led by Cary Grant,
challenges the elements nightly by piloting mail across a treacherous
mountain range. This all-male existential ritual (Grant almost seems the
high priest of some Sartrean temple) is invaded by an American showgirl
(Jean Arthur) who stops off for a steak and remains, fascinated by the
heightened, heady atmosphere of primal struggle. The film's moral
seriousness (which sometimes approaches overt didacticism) is balanced
by the usual Hawks humor and warmth, and as Grant and Arthur are drawn
into a romance, the film moves toward a humanistic softening of its
stark premises.
Dave Kehr
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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