The Great War in American and British Cinema, 1918–1938 by Ryan Copping

Author:Ryan Copping
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030606718
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Hell’s Angels

Hughes remains one of the colourful figures of the twentieth century, and the production history of Hell’s Angels, which began two years before Whale’s crucial involvement, is one of the tycoon’s typical excess. From the start, the film was planned as an epic, budged at $2 million, all of which would be put up by Hughes personally.26 In a 1929, interview, Hughes reported “We [Hughes and original director Marshall Neilan] worked on the story together. Neilan wanted a story of the German flying corps. I was afraid to confine the story just to the Germans, so I thought it was better to go with the story alone.”27 The businessman then argued with Neilan to the point that he was released for his duties, though sources do not indicate if he quit or was fired. Luther Reed was chosen has replacement, but walked off the project after two months. Hughes then took over as director. As he was a flier himself, he had some technical knowledge about aviation that would be of great assistance to the production. Unlike Paramount for Wings (1927), he did not enlist the help of the US Air Corps and instead spent around $500,000 purchasing forty warplanes for use on his film.28

This purchase and Hughes’ total control gave rise to one of the problems that would plague production from a financial standpoint—as his own producer and financier, Hughes could spend as much money as he wanted to, without having to justify his choices to anyone. At one point, he flew one of the film’s planes for a particularly dangerous stunt, which resulted in a crack in his skull and damage to his brain and spinal cord.29 Although the director would survive, publicity would report that the film cost the lives of three of the crew. The first involved a mechanic who failed to jump out of an intentionally crashed plane in time. In the second, a pilot crashed while filming a battle scene in Oakland, California and a third fatality occured while a plane was being transported for the production.30 Bogart Rogers reports that another, a camera operator who had a stroke during the film, possibly due to stress, is debatable.31 An LA Times story also reported that there was a near miss when a plane crashed into to multiple cameras, almost killing one of the operators.32

The movie began production on Halloween, 1927,33 and finally seemed to finish in February, 1929.34 Like Wings, the film took a very long time to make, particularly for its era. Press reports reveal that in mid-1929, the movie was considered almost finished and that Hughes had even booked the George M. Cohen Theater in New York for the premier.35 Apparently near the last moment, the tycoon felt that he needed to convert the film to sound. Whether this was actually a financially necessary is an open question. MGM was still releasing silent films well into the year, and it is possible that the film would have a financial success even given its silent status.

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