- Hell Divers
Infobox Film
name = Hell Divers
image_size =
caption =
director =George W. Hill (uncredited)
producer = George W. Hill
writer =Frank Wead Charles MacArthur
narrator =
starring =Wallace Beery Clark Gable
music =
cinematography = Harold Wenstrom
editing = Blanche Sewell
distributor =
released = 1931
runtime = 109 min
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0022987"Hell Divers" is a 1931 movie starring
Wallace Beery andClark Gable as a pair of competing chief petty officers on board the USS "Saratoga" (CV-3). Beery is the old-timer looking to trip up the young Gable, both on and off duty; the story is conventional, but the acting is superb.The movie features considerable footage of operations on board the "Saratoga", with dramatic shots of takeoffs and landings of the
Curtiss F8C "Helldivers",biplane dive bomber s after which the movie was named. (The particular model seen in the movie saw little operational use, but was frequently used by the Navy for publicity.) Scenes include an exercise in which the Helldivers sink an oldbattleship within a few minutes, a harbinger of what was to happen atPearl Harbor just ten years later.It's noteworthy that in 1931 the US Navy (which reportedly had never permitted film crews aboard a carrier) considered its equipment top secret. Most of the footage showing aircraft landing aboard the ship has the lower part of the screen blacked out to hide the tailhook engaging the arresting wires. However, by that time Britain and Japan both had been operating carriers for years.
Other actors appearing include
Conrad Nagel , Dorothy Jordan,Marjorie Rambeau , andMarie Prevost . Robert Young made one of his first appearances in a movie, as one of several uncredited pilots."Hell Divers" was filmed before Gable began wearing wearing his famous moustache. Gable had appeared in a minor supporting role in another Wallace Beery film, "
The Secret Six ", earlier the same year, and would work with Beery once more, as the top-billed lead in "China Seas" four years later.Frank Wead , one of the film's writers, was later portrayed byJohn Wayne inJohn Ford 's movie biography of Wead called "The Wings of Eagles ".Cast
*
Wallace Beery as Windy Riker
*Clark Gable as Steve Nelson
*Conrad Nagel as Duke Johnson
*Dorothy Jordan as Ann Mitchell
*Marjorie Rambeau as Mame Kelsey
*Marie Prevost as Lulu FarnsworthExternal links
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022987/ IMDB entry for "Hell Divers"]
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