Note: This is the sixteenth entry in the fabulous Allan Fish Bonanza Encore series. The choice Howard Hawkes’ classic “Only Angels Have Wings” was chosen by the renowned film writer Judy Geater, the erstwhile proprietor of ‘Movie Classics’
by Allan Fish
(USA 1939 121m) DVD1/2
Calling Barranca
p/d Howard Hawks w Jules Furthman (and William Rankin, Eleanor Griffith) story Howard Hawks ph Joseph Walker, Elmer Dyer ed Viola Lawrence md Morris Stoloff m Dimitri Tiomkin, Manuel Maciste art Lionel Banks cos Robert Kalloch
Cary Grant (Geoff Carter), Jean Arthur (Bonnie Lee), Rita Hayworth (Judith McPherson), Richard Barthelmess (Bat McPherson), Thomas Mitchell (Kid Dabb), Sig Ruman (John ‘Dutchy’ Van Reiter), Victor Kilian (Sparks), John Carroll (Gent Shelton), Allyn Joslyn (Les Peters), Noah Beery Jnr (Joe Souther), Donald Barry (Tex Gordon),
Howard Hawks directed many masterpieces, but I’ll be darned if this isn’t my favourite of them. It may not be the best of his films, but it’s the most typical, a truly uplifting (in more ways than one) tale of camaraderie in the toughest of environments, a tale of men loving, losing and drinking their way through life taking each minute as it comes. Quite simply it’s the sort of film that Alexandre Dumas might have made, had he been a film director in the 1930s.
Geoff Carter runs a business for a Dutch bar owner in Ecuador running mail over the Andes in planes that can, at best, be described as rust-buckets. Under him is his best friend, a flyer of more than twenty years, Kid, who is coming to the end of his flying days because of failing eyesight. Into their mix comes a showgirl just off the banana boat who gets caught up in their mentality and lifestyle and falls in love with Carter. However, things start to go awry when Carter’s old flame turns up as wife to the new flyer, who also happens to be the guy responsible for Kid’s brother’s death.
On face value, there really isn’t much to this and it’s reminiscent of many other films; Barthelmess’ return to flying recalls The Dawn Patrol and The Last Flight; Hawks’ recalls both the former and Ceiling Zero, the whole plot uncannily resemblesRed Dust and, with the benefit of hindsight, it also looks forward twenty years toRio Bravo. There however John Chance had a bunch of misfits as his only allies in a siege, here the camaraderie is of a different nature. People go up, they fly, and most of the time they come back, as Paul Baumer might once have said. Yet the plot here is incidental to the creation of this fictional state of affairs and the way one comes to warm to these characters and their surroundings. In the pivotal early scene where Beery is killed and they pretend he never existed as talking about it would hurt too much, Arthur cannot understand their mentality, but it’s the only way they can cope with the loss (very similar to The Dawn Patrol). Barranca may be a last chance saloon, but all saloons serve drinks and this one also attracts girls and friendships are made. That, you might say, is all a fellow might need. In this film, more is said with a glance or a simple “huh huh” than in all the soliloquies of Shakespeare. It does occasionally get close to being mournful, as when Bonnie plays Liebestraum on the piano as the fellows up and leave to bed, but the mood remains one of smiling through the despair; situation hopeless but not serious.
Though the script is full of choice lines and quips, and not a little simple philosophy, it’s the direction, particularly of its actors, that makes this film. Were it not for that, it would have been claustrophobic, but with Hawks that’s never a danger. Grant and Arthur are simply flawless in the leads, the former a million miles away from his other Hawks alter egos David Huxley and Walter Burns. Though Hayworth is given little to do and Barthelmess’ star was waning enough for him to have his part cut down, they’re both still fine. However, it’s the supports you remember more; Joslyn (never better), Ruman (not 1% convincing as Dutch but adorable and with the classic line “please, include me out“) and, particularly, Mitchell. In his greatest year, he gives his greatest performance, whose two-headed coin personifies the group mentality and even gives the film its happy ending. Here was a great actor as a great guy, a fellow anyone would be proud to call a friend. So great in fact that, in spite of the inherent mentality of the group, no-one was ever likely to ask “who’s the Kid?“
