The Dawn Patrol (1930 film)

Although Ronald Colman was originally to be cast as the lead actor in The Dawn Patrol, Richard Barthelmess was offered by the studio.[4] Paramount Publix Corp. also loaned Actor Neil Hamilton and writer Seton I. Miller for the film.

Principal photography began in February 1930 with exteriors shot at the Metropolitan Airport in Van Nuys, Newhall, and Sherwood Forrest in Southern California.[5]

In the midst of production, the studio was sued by Howard Hughes, through the Caddo Company and the Gainsborough Corporation. The suit alleged that The Dawn Patrol plagiarized his Hell's Angels (1930) production, also in production.[5] The lawsuit resulted in The Dawn Patrol being rushed through post-production in order to be in theaters before Hughes' competing film. In late 1930, Warner Bros., owners of First National Pictures, won the suit.[Note 1] Another contentious issue later arose when both Howard Hawks and John Monk Saunders claimed ownership of the original idea behind the film. Hawks claimed he based the film on his own recollections while Saunders insisted that the screenplay was derived from the interviews of other veterans of World War I.[6] In a deposition, Saunders said it was based on stories from pilots known by himself (during his time as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford) and by writer Irvin S. Cobb.[7]

Hawks attempted to create a realistic atmosphere, and assembled a variety of contemporary aircraft in a film squadron to shoot the flying scenes for The Dawn Patrol. He primarily used rebuilt Nieuport 28s as the aircraft for the British squadron, and Travel Air 4000s (reconfigured for films and popularly known as "Wichita Fokkers")[8][9] for German fighters. Neither was truly representative of the 1915 era that was portrayed.[10] Other aircraft in his small fleet included Standard J-1s for shots of entire squadrons, some of which were blown up in explosions, and Waterman–Boeing C biplanes for German aircraft destroyed in crashes.

The scene in which Scott takes off with Courtney clinging to the wing, switches to a shot of a Travel Air 4U Speedwing fitted with a round cowl over its Comet engine to resemble the Nieuports. Stunt pilots included Leo Nomis, Rupert Symes Macalister, Frank Tomick and Roy Wilson.[11] Several Thomas-Morse S-4 aircraft were used in the 1930 film. The S-4 was an American built fighter aircraft that did not see combat in World War I. Plentiful in 1930, the S-4s were becoming rare by the time the 1938 film was produced, hence the re-use of aircraft sequences from the original film. Some in-flight scenes with principal actors were staged with aircraft hoisted up by wires to a height of 25 feet. Stage hands then rocked the aircraft to simulate flight, but when one of the wires snapped, on screen, Barthelmess appeared startled, unaware that an accident had occurred, and simply thought the swaying aircraft was part of the scene.[12]

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $1,061,000 domestically and $563,00 foreign making it the studio's third biggest hit of the year after Gold Diggers of Broadway and Sally.[3]

Studio brass was extremely reluctant to back the release because Hawks had insisted on realistic dialogue that was at odds with the dramatic tone that executives had demanded.[13] Nonetheless, The Dawn Patrol was an "instant success", one of the studio's most profitable films that year.[4] Later critical reviews noted that the "anti-war" message was more prevalent in the original film,[14] although due to the re-titling of Flight Commander, the film is often not as well known as its 1938 remake.[15] The flying sequences, one of the hallmarks of the film, were vividly shot and were easily integrated into the later remake.[16]

Despite the controversy over the origin of the screenplay for The Dawn Patrol, in 1931, Saunders won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay.[17]

The aerial sequences from The Dawn Patrol had a remarkably long lifespan, appearing not only in The Dawn Patrol (1938) but also in British Intelligence (1940).