Best movie of this year hands down!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

In 1942 China, World War II "Flying Tiger" Dennis Morgan (as Robert Lee "Scotty" Scott) recalls his love for aviation and enlistment in the US military. At age 34, Mr. Morgan fears he may be too old to join the war effort, but this was not unheard of during the Second World War. He leaves a pretty wife to share aviation expertise and eventually pilots dangerous missions against the sneaky, murderous Japanese. Morgan receives support from superior officer Raymond Massey (as Claire Chennault), kindly priest Alan Hale (as "Big Mike" Harrigan) and God. As signaled by the title, the latter becomes overtly active in later scenes. Stranger are how US bombers chat with English-speaking enemies like Richard Loo (as "Tokyo Joe") during battle. Minus the banter between bombers, the exciting air battles are a highlight.***** God Is My Co-Pilot (3/15/45) Robert Florey ~ Dennis Morgan, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale, Dane Clark

"A Philosophizing Irish Priest Is My Co-Pilot". One of the silliest war movies ever. A dumb old film about pilots who can hardly wait to have their behinds blown to bits and strewn across the Asian sky. They all remind me of a similar side-character in "Black Adder 4". Watching this film, I realized just how much I was missing having some level-headed characters with a down-to-earth approach to flying missions, such as in Heller's "Catch-22" (one of the best books ever written, by the way). These dopes actually change their mind about going back home and decide to continue fighting just because some Jap taunted them over the radio! Are these people grown-ups or embryos? About as realistic as the lyrics in "I Am The Walrus". The dialogues are stiff and dull, and often supremely silly. Silly to the extent that some of the exchanges could have been written by none other than Ed Wood himself; an example would be the conversation between the hero and his girl. The Japanese pilots are nearly always shown grinning devilishly, and their flying skills are always poor - except for a character called Tokyo Joe, who taunts his American opponents with a series of comic-book-like phrases, all of which end with "yank". Then there is the wise old Irish priest, a walking movie cliché, with an unrivaled reservoir of "hope-inspiring" speeches. "Yes... More dreams have been brought about by prayer than this world dreams of", he says at the end, and I will leave that uncommented. (No, I won't: so what he is implying is that people must be constantly praying for natural disasters, wars, disease and misery.) Another unintentionally amusing Irish moment is when our hero pours out some of his deeper thoughts to the priest and the priest's first reaction is to say "You're confused." And yet another silly scene, involving our blessed Irishman of the cloth, is when he gives one of his grandiose speeches to our hero in a plane about belief in God, and the weather suddenly improves. Oh, yes; there's also the sausage-shaped dog who sniffs out the Japs from ten miles.

This movie helped the P40 to become my favorite warplane of all time. They used E models for the filming of this movie which would have been correct for mid-1942. The enemy planes incorrectly referred to as Zeroes were actually AT6 Texans which were almost always used in other movies as well. The flying scenes were filmed at Luke Air Force base in Arizona. The Flying Tigers fought against the Japanese Air Force which flew Ki-43 'Oscars'. The Imperial Navy pilots flew the Zero and were not involved in that conflict. The other thing that you see written often about the Flying Tigers is that they were fighting the Japanese "years before" Pearl Harbor. The truth is only Chenault was in China in the '30's helping out. The ground crews, pilots, and planes were not in place until November of 1941. Their first combat mission occurred on December 20, 13 days AFTER Pearl Harbor. Dennis Morgan, Alan Hale, & Richard Loo play their characters very well. Some people today are offended by all of the racial slurs that are uttered. But when this movie was made in 1945, the Japanese were the hated villains. The soldier's dilemma of taking lives as their duty versus what the 10 commandments says is dealt with tastefully in this movie. It's an enjoyable film that represents movies of the 1940's well.

The actual story is a fascinating one - the Flying Tigers flying over the "Hump" of the Himalayas to resupply and support the Chinese fighting the Japanese Empire. And the dilemma of "Why do I survive?" is a wartime classic. Is is me, my skill, luck or is there a Higher Power watching over me? Some great moments especially with Raymond Massey as General Claire Chennault, the leader of the Tigers are deadened by mundane dialogue and plot.