Lafayette Escadrille

This is a disappointing film from a premier director, one which begins as an epic then degenerates into a soap opera. Hunter, whose acting efforts have always been mediocre at best, is one of many young American volunteers during WW I to a French air force group known as the Lafayette Escadrille. Most of the beginning deals with the training of the recruits--their difficulties with crude training planes and with the French language spoken by their impatient instructors. Hunter, when off duty, meets and falls in love with Choureau, a common streetwalker with some sensitivity; she quits the oldest profession and takes a job, reforming for Hunter's sake. Hunter is a m...