Dive Bomber (1941)

Despite having been released in the summer of 1941, a couple of months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the Second World War, Dive Bomber is clearly a propaganda film. The US Navy gave the production generous support and access to real locations and planes, something you can certainly see on the screen. Undoubtedly the highlights of the film are its flight scenes, many of which look real because they are real, or at least intercut with actual planecam footage. The editing (and the wonderful music by Max Steiner) make even most of the obvious model work look impressive and convincing. Sure, CGI makes it possible today to have fancy camera moves and long shots of the actual actors in the cockpits; this film doesn’t have that. But I have yet to have a computer-generated dogfight thrill me as much as seeing the planes in Dive Bomber in action.

I kind of see this film as a cousin (or, I guess, great-uncle) to Top Gun (1986). Both films feature a main character who starts out cocky and has to learn humility. Both films were designed as propaganda or at least recruitment pieces to get young people to sign up with the Air Force (resp. the Navy, since the Air Force proper did not exist in 1941). Both films are full of patriotic fervour; rivalries, camaraderie, and male bonding; dangerous stunts and delayed teenage rebelliousness; rousing music; adventure and tragedy; women interested in men in uniform, and a pointed disinterest in women by those men. Both also have heroes willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, but Dive Bomber lacks a proper on-screen “bad guy” — the war has not yet begun, though the coming action is alluded to a few times. People who accuse Hollywood of having always been anti-war haven’t watched enough movies like this one.