Fighter Squadron

As I mentioned last week, Rock Hudson is TCM's Star of the Month for November, and his movies are airing every Tuesday in prime time. This includes today, which happens to be Veterans' Day in the US, a time when TCM normally airs a bunch of military-themed movies in honor of the day. As it turns out, TCM has enough military movies with Hudson in the cast to use for tonight's prime time lineup, although the last one is Hudson's debut where he only has an uncredited bit part with just a few lines: Fighter Squadron, which is on at 5:15 AM tomorrow (Nov. 12), or the end of the prime-time lineup.

It's 1943, and war is raging in Europe. Since the western side of the Allies haven't been able to start their land invasion quite yet, at least not across the English Channel, much of the action is air raids over targets in Germany, which comes with a fairly heavy price. The planes are supposed to provide support flying in formation, and stay at a high altitude to avoide the German surface-to-air missiles. One pilot, Maj. Hardin (Edmond O'Brien), thinks these orders are the wrong ones, and that the pilots need more flexible measures for dealing with the Germans. Indeed, he had flown over China wiht the Flying Tigers, so he's already been exposed to that greater flexibility. The problem, however, is that he engages in that flexibility in direct violation of those orders.

This goes up the chain of command, from Maj. Hardin's commanding officer Col. Brickley (John Rodney), to the generals, Maj. Gen McCready (Henry Hull), and above him Brig. Gen. Gilbert (Sheppard Strudwick). McCready has some sympathy, but others point out that the flexibility also comes with a short-term cost of more planes and pilots being damaged or lost. Brickley needs to think about keeping the men under his command safe to fly the next mission. Meanwhile, the other men in Hardin's squadron, notably best friend Capt. Hamilton (Robert Stack), like Hardin.

So the higher-ups decide to teach Hardin a lesson. Col. Brickley gets a promotion, and suggests that Hardin be promoted to take his place. Now that he'll be more or less grounded and have to have these other men now under his command, perhaps he'll understand why Brickley was the way he was with Hardin. Hardin tries to be nice to his men as the bombing raids continue, but there's one catch. He still believes in the idea that the men under his command shouldn't be married, because then pilots will think about their wives and not do some of the risk-your-life things necessary to carry out the mission. Hamilton just happens to be engaged, so he heads back to America when he gets leave and gets married, although he does return to the unit much to Hardin's consternation. More raids follow up to the unit's provision of air cover for the D-Day invasion.

Fighter Squadron is nothing if not formulaic, and decidedly a product of Hollywood. There's even a daft subplot about a pilot who has a series of girlfriends, and is able to get off base to see them through the ruse of obtaining a bunch of black cats. The other pilots don't like seeing black cats and ask him to take the cats away, which gives him a chance to go off base. It's supposed to be funny, but to me it was just irritating. Fighter Squadron is well-enough made, however, and I can see why audiences back in the day might have been entertained. Better and more inventive war movies, however, have come out in the intervening years.