page_title: Hell's Angels (film)
section_title: Plot
hierarchical_section_title: Hell's Angels (film) / Plot
caption_attribution_description: English: Promotional photograph for the film Hell's Angels starring Jean Harlow and Ben Lyon
context_page_description: Hell’s Angels is a 1930 American pre-Code independent epic war film directed and produced by Howard Hughes, with James Whale directing the dialogue. Written by Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook and starring Ben Lyon, James Hall and Jean Harlow, it was released through United Artists. The film was originally shot as a silent film, but Hughes retooled it over a three-year gestation; most of the footage is black-and-white but there are several one-color-tinted scenes chosen for dramatic effect, such as a nighttime gun duel, as well as part-screen full-color for the flames consuming an Imperial German Zeppelin and full-screen full-color for one sequence: the only color footage of Harlow's career.
  A "10-minute intermission" breaks the film after just over an hour. Notoriety surrounded the production from the start. The World War I German enemy was depicted as both immoral and foolish. Several stunt pilots died in accidents. There was a lawsuit against a competing film, the release date was repeatedly postponed, the budget overran, and inevitably the film failed to recover its exorbitant costs.
context_section_description: Roy (James Hall) and Monte Rutledge (Ben Lyon) are very different British brothers. Strait-laced Roy loves and idealizes the apparently demure Helen (Jean Harlow). Monte, on the other hand, is a womanizer. Their German friend and fellow Oxford student Karl (John Darrow) is against the idea of having to fight England when World War I breaks out.
  Meanwhile, the oblivious Monte is caught in the arms of a woman by her German officer husband (Lucien Prival), who insists upon a duel the next day. Monte flees that night. When Roy is mistaken for his brother, he goes ahead with the duel and is shot in the arm.
  Karl is conscripted into the German Air Force, and the two British brothers enlist in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), Monte only to get a kiss from a girl at the recruiting station.
  When Roy finally introduces Monte to Helen, she invites Monte to her flat. Monte tries to rebuff her advances for his brother's sake, but gives in. The next morning, however, he is for once ashamed of himself.
  Meanwhile, Karl is an officer aboard a Zeppelin airship sent to bomb Trafalgar Square, London. As the bombardier-observer, he is lowered below the clouds in a spy basket. He deliberately guides the Zeppelin over water, where the bombs have no effect. Four RFC fighters are sent to intercept the Zeppelin. Roy pilots one, with Monte as his gunner. To gain altitude and speed more quickly, the airship commander (Carl von Haartman) decides to sacrifice Karl by cutting the cable that secures his pod. When that is not enough, he orders everything possible be jettisoned. He then accepts the advice of another officer; the officer and other crewmen obediently leap to their deaths "for Kaiser and fatherland". German machine gunners shoot down three aircraft; Roy and Monte survive a crash landing. After his machine guns jam or run out of ammunition, the last British pilot aloft dives his fighter into the dirigible, sending it crashing in a blazing fireball. The brothers narrowly avoid the debris.
  Later, in France, Monte is branded a coward for shirking his duty when his replacement is shot down in his place. When a Staff Colonel asks for two volunteers for a suicide mission, Roy and Monte step up. They are to destroy a vital enemy munitions depot their squadron had tried to blow up for days. They will sneak in using a captured German bomber the next morning so that a British brigade will have a chance in their otherwise hopeless afternoon attack.
  That night, Roy discovers a drunk Helen in a nightclub with Captain Redfield. When he tries to take her home, she turns on him, revealing that she never loved him, that she was, in fact, not the young innocent he believed her to be. Devastated, Roy joins Monte for some carousing. Monte decides not to go on the mission and nearly persuades Roy to do the same, but in the end, Roy drags Monte back to the airfield.
  The raid on the German munitions dump is successful. However, they are spotted in the act by a flight of German fighters from the Flying Circus, led by the “Red Baron”, Manfred von Richthofen. Monte defends the bomber with a machine gun until their squadron arrives, and a dogfight breaks out. Their buddy "Baldy" shoots down the one German who is still targeting the bomber, but then von Richthofen swoops in and shoots the brothers down. They are captured.
  They are given the option of talking or facing a firing squad by none other than Roy's old dueling opponent. Monte decides to save his life. Unable to change his brother's mind, Roy convinces Monte that he should speak with the German general alone. He offers to tell what he knows on condition that there is no witness to his treason. The general is persuaded to give him a pistol (with one bullet) to kill Monte. Roy fails to get Monte to do the right thing, and has no choice but to shoot his brother in the back. Afterward, Roy is executed. The British attack gets off to a successful start.
caption: Jean Harlow and Ben Lyon in Hell's Angels
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