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Dive Bomber

1941, Movie, NR, 130 mins

Dive Bomber: Review

DIVE BOMBER was a war movie made just before we went to war. the film released months before the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. A propaganda piece aimed at getting the country to a state of readiness. Flynn is an aviator-doctor (flight surgeon) whose job it is to keep our flyboys fit. MacMurray, Toomey, and Heydt are three flying pals and Flynn is the naval medic assigned to their squadron in Hawaii. Heydt faints during a power dive and crashes but lives long enough to go under Flynn's knife in the operating room. Then he dies. Flynn is stunned. He meets MacMurray and Toomey again in San Diego where he decides to take pilot's training so he can learn more about the problems of flying and why some men "black out" in dives and others don't. Flynn joins with Bellamy and they make some valuable progress in aviation medicine. Toomey is grounded due to flight fatigue. He resigns, joins the RAF and crashes, and we wonder whether the doctors were right in grounding him. MacMurray volunteers to be a guinea pig for Flynn and Bellamy and helps them perfect a high-altitude oxygen suit before he crashes as well. (This is not a film to see if you fear flying.) Lots of wonderful flying sequences, very little romance to speak of (Alexis Smith does a small bit just to provide a minimal romantic interest). Much of the picture was made at San Diego's naval base with extra scenes being done at Pensacola and aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise. Winton Hoch and Bert Glennon were Oscar-nominated. The film earned an Academy Award nomination for its cinematography. leave a comment