Movie Trivia Quiz #5

[Gregvan]

OK, last quiz. Here's one for tcrean7828.

In what Hollywood movie was the character of the "great ace, Voss" portrayed? Here's a hint, the script was co-written by a real-life WWI ace who had known James McCudden.

Once again, I am NOT referring to the 1971 film Von Richthofen and Brown, in which Werner Voss was sort-of portrayed by Stephen McHattie, who died spitting up blood when his Fokker D VII was attacked by SE 5a's from "Brown's" squadron.

Have fun.

Greg

[Michael_Dailey]

Hmm, dunno. Did Cecil Lewis perhaps help write the script?

MDD

[Colin A Owers]

"Eagle & the Hawk"??


Colin A Owers

[Lyle]

Eagle and the Hawk. Robert Manning played Voss, and I think the scriptwriter was John Monk Saunders, who also penned The Dawn Patrol and Ace of Aces for Hollywood.

[Gregvan]

Kudos to the man from Down Under, and to Lyle for doing some homework (sorry, fellows, I'm not keeping score or anything). Good job, Colin!

The Eagle and the Hawk was indeed based on a story by John Monk Saunders (see one of the other trivia questions for more about him) called "Death in the Morning" but the screenplay was written by Seton I. Miller and Bogart Rogers! Of course, the ace was Bogart Rogers DFC , an American from LA who flew SE 5a's in No 32 Sqn RAF, and scored six victories. Rogers was a Stanford man and an excellent writer; his letters to his future wife have recently been published as "A Yankee Ace in the RAF." He went to training at Ayr in Scotland, where he met and was instructed by McCudden. He was greatly impressed by McCudden (see the other thread under People about McCudden) and praised Mac in his letters. After the war Rogers had a long career as a journalist, fiction writer and screenwriter in Hollywood. The first movie he wrote the screenplay for was :The Eagle and the Hawk". He had obviously read McCudden's book and worked some details of it into the film, taking some big liberties with history - but who doesn't?

Frederic March plays an American DH 4 pilot in the RFC who squabbles with Cary Grant. March is always coming back with dead observers, and becomes haunted by this, suffering from combat fatigue. The men of his squadron frequently tangle with a deadly German ace. After one dogfight, March returns to the air field and says, "Boy, can that 'Greentail' fly!" or something like that - so we have a German ace called Greentail. Then, flying with a rookie observer, March gets in another fight with Geentail. His observer is killed without March knowing it; during the violent maneuvers his dead observer falls out of the cockpit and plummets into no-man's land. Then March and Greentail fly straight at each other, guns blazing. "Greentail" is hit and crashes his biplane. March lands nearby and runs up to the wrecked German fighter, and sees that "Tommies" (with Hollywood Cockney accents) have pulled the dead German pilot from the cockpit and taken off his helmet. One of them says, "It's Voss! A great ace!" March looks sadly at the dead German and says, "He's just a kid," and walks away shattered.

So we now really know who "Greentail" was - it was Werner Voss! And it wasn't Rhys Davids that killed him, it was Frederic March.

This is one of my favorite aviation flicks of the 1930's. It delves into the psychological strain of air warfare, is very well-written and acted, and deals with two-seater work in a way few films ever have. Great stuff.

By the way, Bogart Rogers was the brother of famous Hollywood writer and social commentator Adela Rogers St. Johns.

Greg

[Lyle]

Greg,
Thanks for the great analysis! I didn't know anything about Bogart Rogers, so that was an interesting revelation. This is an excellent film and also enjoyed the psychological aspect. Not to mention the great shots of those real, honest-to-goodness DH4s.
Keep 'em coming!