Hell's Angels

Howard Hughes, Caddo / United Artists, 1930. Begun silent in 1927 with Greta Nissen; Hughes reshot the talkie scenes with Jean Harlow after sound arrived. Ben Lyon and James Hall are Oxford brothers who fly, one of them into a Zeppelin raid. Hughes directed after Luther Reed quit, bought a fleet of period aircraft, and, per the AFI, spent about $4 million, a record the trades kept repeating. A two-color ballroom reel sits inside a mostly tinted war picture. Harlow’s first real part. The flying is the expense. The brothers are the plot.