New Picture

Flying Tigers (Republic) is an overlong but unpretentious, genuine tribute to those U.S. volunteer airmen who, against some of the toughest odds in the history of aerial warfare, fought the Japs in the air above China before Pearl Harbor.

The story, part pulp dramatics, part pure action, is that hardy perennial about the squadron commander (John Wayne); his friend, the nurse (Anna Lee); the rookie who gets killed (William Shirley); the oldtimer who gets grounded (Paul Kelly); the drunk who is given Another Chance (Edmund MacDonald); the show-off individualist (John Carroll) who learns, at last, what the fight is about, but not until he has played hob with the squadron's morale, materiel and lifeblood. This simple stereotype proves adequate to convey some of the true power and meaning of simple men doing a life-&-death job together, and something, too, of what they are doing it for.

For this success John Wayne and Paul Kelly are chiefly responsible. Kelly, and some of the other members of the squadron, play their parts manfully, for all they are worth. John Wayne is a rudimentary actor, but he has the look and bearing, unusual in his trade, of a capable human male. As the squadron commander, he is able to make his habitual inarticulateness suggest the uncommunicative competence that men expect in their leaders. Anna Lee, after three sleepless nights, is still able to suggest a Beautyrest. Too many Japanese pilots get the same wound, by which they bleed photogenically at the mouth. But when the dragon-headed planes are off the ground, and fighting, Flying Tigers is a good show to see. For the combat sequences, salted with some extraordinary shots made in Burma, are always loud, swift, exciting. At moments, as in the sudden, braided smoke spirals of two earthward hurtling planes, they are superb.

Solid (6 ft. 2) John Wayne, 35, found it very easy to get into films, and very slow going, after he got there. Wayne, born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, was raised on a California ranch. At the University of Southern California he picked up the nickname "Duke," was an honor student. Vacations, he worked as a truck driver, an iceman, a prop man for Fox.

"Duke" was hauling furniture around a set for Born Reckless when Director Raoul Walsh spotted him, ordered him for god's sake not to cut his hair, which had grown shaggy at the nape. Then "Duke" was renamed John Wayne, pushed ahead of some 82 other candidates for the juvenile lead in The Big Trail. He did very nicely with the part. Later he made a personal-appearance tour on which, to his embarrassment, he was required to keep his hillbilly hair in a rich fringe over his collar.

In 1933 Wayne married Josephine Saenz, daughter of a Panamanian Consul. Otherwise he just worked. He worked in clutching-hand serials, and in some three dozen Westerns. It was not until John Ford picked him up in his superwestern Stagecoach (1939) that Wayne began to get out of the tumbleweed into the limelight. In Seven Sinners and The Spoilers he turned out to be one of the best tackling dummies Marlene Dietrich has ever found. The war has given Cinemactor Wayne an unexpected break. Since outdoor violence has become one of the world's most important occupations, any man who can portray it honestly on the screen has a likely future.

But John Wayne does not want an acting career. He wants to be a director.

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