Only Angels Have Wings

Cary Grant stars in Howard Hawks' witty and tragic melodrama Only Angels Have Wings, which comes to UK Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection

Hollywood giant Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings charts a week in the lives of a bunch of American pilots running a dangerous airmail service out of the fictional South American port town of Barranca. Jean Arthur stars as a lively performer who arrives in time to witness a fatal air crash and fall for chief-flyer Geoff (Cary Grant). Despite some intricate plotting, Hawks keeps things loose as he explores love, life and professionalism in the wake of trauma.

The ensemble, which includes an early role for a knockout Rita Hayworth alongside Grant, Arthur and a terrific Thomas Mitchell (who won an Oscar later that same year for John Ford's Stagecoach), fire on all cylinders. Hawks films them in wide shots, often including three or more characters in the frame at once, as he expertly allows the onscreen relationships to develop as much through the interplay of loaded glances and physical gesture as through the zippy dialogue.

Only Angels Have Wings deftly expresses its director's pragmatic existentialism with a tale of wit, adventure and tragic melodrama. As he did with the New York newsroom in His Girl Friday and the Caribbean hotel in To Have and Have Not, Hawks conjures a rich, fully functioning world and fits it into just a few sets. It's a film thick with fog, bourbon and cigarette smoke that will leave you with a lump in your throat, a smile on your face, and the roar of aircraft ringing in your ears.

Extras

American home video titan Criterion thunders into the UK market with a handsome 4k restoration of one of the great Hollywood movies. Extras include a short but insightful interview with critic David Thompson and an enthralling audio interview in which critic and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich coaxes a gruff Howard Hawks into discussing style and technique.