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Staring: Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Mel Blanc, David Niven, Donald Crisp
Director: Bobby Connolly, Edmund Goulding, Robert Clampett, Roy Mack
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List Price: ~~$19.98~~
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Product Details
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569796249
Format: Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-03-27
Running Time: 103
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1938-12-24

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Editorial Review
Description
Errol Flynn and David Niven star as roustabout French Corp fighter pilots who come face-to-face with the harsh realities of war. Basil Rathbone is outstanding as the Squadron Commander.

Amazon.com
The Dawn Patrol is a beautiful title for two very good movies Warner Bros. made eight years apart, in 1930 and 1938. Both tell the same World War I story (which won a 1930 Academy Award for John Monk Saunders), about a succession of flight commanders at a British air base in France. Each officer in turn has to keep sending pilots out on dangerous, often insane missions in flimsy, patched-up planes, then pray that even half get back alive. The job is soul-killing for the commandants and deadly for their comrades and friends. Make that former friends.

It's the later, Errol Flynn version of The Dawn Patrol that's won DVD release. The original is rarely shown because, despite direction by Howard Hawks, it suffers from the stiffness and some overly declamatory acting characteristic of the early talkie era. Perhaps more to the point, the remake's cast has greater marquee value: Flynn and David Niven as hotshots Courtney and Scott; Basil Rathbone as Major Brand, the tortured commander whom Flynn will be obliged to succeed; Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, and Barry Fitzgerald as staff officers and noncoms. Edmund Goulding's direction is proficient, if also impersonal.

So the remake has the edge as smooth entertainment, though not the original's raw power (or Griffith veteran Richard Barthelmess's tender, anguished performance as Courtney). And the best parts of the 1938 version are the original film: all the aerial footage--bombings, crashes, breathtaking low-level flying, and wobbly takeoffs in the glow of early morning--is Hawks's. Ideally, Warner Video should have issued both films, and in one box. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Who says Errol Flynn cant act..., 2007-06-16
Well they're right...he cant act - he doesn't have to because he IS captain courtney, captain blood, don juan, etc...as Burt Reynolds said, he's completely organic...how was he able to embody every concept of chivalry and bring it so clearly to the screen...amazing

Flyboys? Please., 2007-12-14
I enjoyed the recent Flyboys but when you compare the flying produced by computers to the ACTUAL flying in Dawn Patrol, it is really incredible. I am a pilot, so I can appreciate what those guys were doing in those old biplanes. Put that together with a good story line and great actors and you have a wonderful way to spend a few hours watching a true piece of history. Highly recommended.

Hystorical interest!, 2007-05-24
Errol Flynn used to belong to my childhood's pirates movies. I was surprised on how charming and convincing he acts in this film. An excelent plot, also excelent actors (I had never heard of Basil Rathbone, it seems to me excelent!).
My hystorical interest on WWI planes was pleased: it is very interesting to see how rotary engine equipped planes looked like, the way they rocked on taxiing, their noise, the awkward way to take off, etc.
Remembers my how disapponting is "Fly Boys" in this way that, in a so resourceful digital era, was technically so inexact.

The Dawn Patrol (1938), 2007-06-21
A scene-for-scene remake of Howard Hawks's 1930 film of the same name, "Patrol" is an anguished World War I flier drama starring the dashing, seemingly unflappable Flynn, who inhabits his role with heroic gusto. Goulding wrenches great emotion out of the massacre-of-innocents scenario, dropping in on the doomed men as they quaff scotch and listen to the melancholy sound of the airmen's gramophone before hopping into their jerry-built "crates." Rathbone is excellent as the tortured desk commander accused of the gravest cynicism, and real-life Flynn bosom buddy David Niven supplies an additional punch as Courtney's best man, Lt. Scott. See "Dawn Patrol," a high-flying combat adventure with a conscience.

Camaraderie, respect and etiquette, 2008-02-26
Truly an enjoyable WWI movie. The aerial scenes were outstanding (Note: These were borrowed from the 1930 movie by the same name). The casting was on the mark. Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven and Donald Crisp (Excellent actor) were perfectly cast. Plus, the brief but well acted role of the captured German aviator by Carl Esmond. The pressures and guilt of being a squadron commander and sending friends, colleagues, and inexperienced pilots against overwhelming odds to certain death. Then coping with the aftermath and being blamed and taking blame for their deaths. Being a responsible leader was a difficult and lonely job which leads to coping methods such as heavy drinking to get numb to it. This movie does a remarkable job of showing how courageous the WWI pilots were in going up on a daily basis on sorties knowing that they tempted fate and the chances of them not coming back became greater and greater. The bonds of cameraderie and respect were forged amongst the British flyers and their enemy counterparts. This movie showed the heroic acts of these pilots and also sent a message that there must be a better way to settle our differences. War is costly on both sides. I highly recommend this film.

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