Frank Borzage | Flight Command
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Frank Borzage directed many Hollywood films.
Flight Command (1940) is about US Naval Flyers. It is one of many Borzage films about men in military uniform: Seventh Heaven (1927), A Farewell to Arms (1932), Flirtation Walk (1934), Three Comrades (1938), The Mortal Storm (1940), Stage-door Canteen (1943), Till We Meet Again (1944), China Doll (1958). Borzage is clearly not always enthused about this. The sinister Nazi uniforms donned midway by the young German men in The Mortal Storm, make clear Borzage's reservations about the appeal of uniforms. In Flight Command, being a member of the squadron takes over his characters' entire life. They have no identity outside of being a Hellcat, the name of their unit. They socialize and work as a group, wear uniforms constantly, and engage in group think, often sinister, as when they repeatedly reject the hero from admission to their organization.
Even when men are not in uniform in Borzage, they are often dealing with large scale institutions: the labor unions and businesses in Stranded (1935) and Mannequin (1938), the university in The Mortal Storm. People do not live alone in Borzage: they deal with complex institutions and large groups of people to perform their jobs.
And not just men. Especially in his later films, women's lives and work often puts them at the center of institutions: the USO-run hall in Stage-door Canteen, the convent in Till We Meet Again, and Dolly Madison's role as First Lady of the White House in Magnificent Doll (1946). Here in Flight Command, Ruth Hussey has to serve as essentially First Lady of the flight squadron, having a similar quasi-official role as The Skipper's Wife. All of this work is seen as terribly demanding. It causes emotional stress, and also requires major organizational skills, as well as a form of "public living in the world" that is most unusual. Hussey's marriage is no longer a private affair. Both Hussey's husband, and his men, demand that the marriage be shared with the whole unit, and subject to their demands and manipulations. In more comic ways, the canteen has strict rules governing how the women can interact with men in Stage-door Canteen. More sinister again under the surface, but more comic in superficial tone, is the complex way the sisters have to court as a group in Seven Sweethearts, and the way their father interferes in their love life - not a pretty picture. The most intimate details of women's romantic lives become part of some group institution in Borzage.
Institutions in Borzage have infiltrators: outsiders who come in, and try to change it. One thinks of the racketeers who work their way into the labor union in Stranded. And the way the Nazi Party invades the classroom and family of the professor in The Mortal Storm. Both of these infiltrators are evil to the core. By contrast, the hero of Flight Command is placed in the uncomfortable position of being seen as an infiltrator of the squad, by all its members. He is imposed on them against their will by naval higher-ups at the start of the picture. And the suspicion never really stops - he is never genuinely accepted as a member of the unit. Despite all of this, he is not trying to subvert the organization, the way other infiltrators in Borzage sometimes do.
Flight Command has a number of relationships that can be considered as homosexual. Jerry, the inventor of the fog device, is in love with the hero. Borzage has the two of them go into a tight close-up, with his camera moving in ever closer as Jerry moves more and more intensely near the hero. Jerry grabs the hero's lapels, in an intimate gesture. The tight face-to-face encounter is imagery that is usually reserved for romantic couples in films. His character recalls a bit the chef in History Is Made at Night, who is also in love with that film's hero.
The commander of the squad explains that the squad runs on the devotion of the men to their leader, himself, and the return way in which the leader is devoted to his men. Borzage does not completely approve of, or idealize this arrangement. The commander's wife clearly feels the attention she is getting from her husband is inadequate. He instead seems mainly concerned that she behave in a way that boosts the morale of his men. She exists as a support for the more important relationship in his life.
The commander's second in command, "Dusty" Rhoades, is totally devoted to his leader. We see Dusty dating at one point, but not very intimately. It is clear that his main personal interest in life is his commander. He intervenes in a truly odd way towards the end of the film, to protect, as he sees it, his commander's marriage.
In History Is Made at Night, the chef nearly dies at the end, trying to be loyal to his friend. Here, Jerry actually does die, due to his reckless disregard of safety as a test pilot. In general, while the love of the chef is seen as a wholly positive thing in History Is Made at Night, in Flight Command the gay relationships seem more problematical. While Jerry is a largely admirable person as an inventor that tries to improve humanity's life, he is also 1) part of a war effort 2) not in touch with the life force that allows people to survive and flourish in Borzage.
Jerry is trying to invent a device that will allow pilots to land in fog. It is seen as a form of light that will guide them. This is part of a series of light imagery in Borzage, such as the film Green Light. One also recalls the heroine's job in Stranded, where as a Traveler's Aide Society worker, she guides travelers who are lost - another symbolic image. John Belton points both kinds of symbolism out in his book The Hollywood Professionals Volume 3: Howard Hawks Frank Borzage Edgar G. Ulmer (1974).
In real-life, radar will actually be invented soon, so this film is talking accurately about the development of flight technology.
The invention work here recalls Stranded (1935). That film's hero is trying to build a thinly disguised version of the Golden Gate Bridge. Both films idealize men who work on large-scale, technology-oriented projects. However, the work on the bridge is a civilian effort, not a military one. And it is seen as wholly positive, creative and admirable by Borzage. While the fog-guidance invention here leads to its inventor's death. There are other differences, too. The engineer hero of Stranded is the leader of a large group of men, in a giant business enterprise of building the bridge. In this, he resembles Spencer Tracy's tycoon in Mannequin. Both men also share a hands-on, working man feel. By contrast, Jerry works in near complete isolation in Flight Command, with one assistant and the hero to help him. And he has an upper-middle class feel - he is definitely not a proletarian Man of the People.
The huge ship in History Is Made at Night is also a large scale technological object. And one which meets disaster, like many of the planes in Flight Command.
The naval squad in Flight Command has a truly terrible safety record! This is true of other movies about pilots, such as The Flying Fleet (George Roy Hill, 1929), Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939) and Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), to name three films that seem the closest to Flight Command in approach - the first and last also being about elite US Naval aviators, who work in cutting-edge aviation in peace time, just as in Flight Command. Many of the men in Flight Command have nicknames, prehaps a precursor to the offical flight-names the characters adopt in Top Gun. I have no idea if flying in real life is risky as these films make out, or whether it is exaggerated to pump up drama for the movies. All of these films, including Flight Command, have homoerotic subtexts.
Borzage had earlier made a film about a flyer whose compulsive recklessness ruined his life and marriage: Living on Velvet (1935). Both films depict danger as part of the emotional and psychological make-up of pilots. Both films have a deeply melancholy air.