Best movie of this year hands down!

Absolutely amazing

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

When William Wellman does a film about his favorite subject aviation you can always be sure that the flying sequences will be among the best ever done in a given era. Wellman who was a member of the famed Lafayette Escadrille in World War I made all his aviation pictures with precision, care, and love. Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air is no exception.Old World War I ace Preston Foster is to old for combat in this new World War, but he volunteers to be a civilian instructor at ThunderBird Field in Arizona for a new generation of fliers. The head of the base Jack Holt assigns Foster to Reginald Denny's British air cadets doing their training for the RAF in America. One of them is John Sutton who is the son of a British ace from the last war and a friend of Foster's who was killed.It doesn't look like Sutton has the right stuff and that's the considered opinion of all save Foster. Sutton does have some issues but he's determined to carry on in the family aviation tradition even though his original training is for the medical corps. His brother was killed on a bombing run into Europe and Sutton feels this is what he must do.Complicating things is the fact that both Foster and Sutton fall for Gene Tierney. Still Foster keeps his job and love life separate, but he's old enough and wise enough to keep it apart.Darryl Zanuck splurged for color on this film, not something normally done in the wartime cinema. It always seemed that Fox did use color more than any other of the major studios. It certainly adds to Bill Wellman's aviation sequences. Look fast and you'll see Peter Lawford as one of the British cadets. And in a flashback sequence as Sutton's grandmother Dame May Witty borrows a bit from her character from Mrs. Miniver and shows she hasn't lost any of the right stuff herself.Aviation buffs will love Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air. The rest of us will find it more than acceptable.

The man who directed this film about aerial training, William "Wild Bill" Wellman, was a daring pilot himself, and was not only responsible for Wings, the first Oscar winning feature, but also helmed The Ox Bow Incident, Public Enemy and 1937's A Star Is Born, and compared to those classics, this is rather weak tea, rescued by Technicolor, a 22 year old Gene Tierney, and its historical value as a WWII flag-waver. Studio director Daryl Zanuck wanted to give Gene Tierney, his doll-like starlet, plenty of exposure; here she was just a few years away from her indelible performances in Laura and Leave Her To Heaven; Tierney is paired with old reliable Preston Foster in a tale set in the Arizona desert, where the brilliantly colored blue and yellow prop planes dazzle the eye, set against desert sands and clear blue sky; the story is essentially older man vs. younger flier (sometimes leading man John Sutton) who vie for the heart of the fair maid, but the side benefits of the film outweigh the tired plot elements: how often do we see young Chinese and British airmen in Arizona being trained by Americans? How things change!

Though little remembered today and garnering only the briefest of mentions in Gene Tierney's own "Self-Portrait" autobiography, 1942's "Thunder Birds," the actress' ninth film, is assuredly deserving of a greater renown. In this one, Gene plays Kay Saunders, the granddaughter of an Arizona ranch owner whose property is adjacent to the U.S. Army flying school known as Thunderbird Field (at which the picture was partially filmed). Kay's life itself is thrown up in the air when her old flame, flying ace Steve Britt (played with an appealing mix of heart and toughness by Preston Foster), decides to become a civilian instructor at the school. It is made even more problematic when she falls in love with Peter Stackhouse (hunky John Sutton, who had been featured in Gene's second film, "Hudson's Bay"), a British doctor with a fear of heights who is determined to become a pilot under Britt's instruction. Thus, the "eternal triangle" is formed again, while Stackhouse learns that it might be easier to master his Stearman PT-17 biwing than his own physical and emotional responses....Very much a product of its time and surely a live-action poster ad for our brave young men who would one day win WW2 for the Allies (although, back in 1942, that outcome, it must be remembered, was far from certain), "Thunder Birds" yet offers some very real pleasures for the audience of today. Shot in supersaturated Technicolor, the film looks marvelous, and features some truly eye-popping aerial cinematography. William A. Wellman, a veteran of WW1's Lafayette Escadrille who would go on to become a stunt pilot before embarking on a filmmaking career, was of course the perfect director to bring this film in for a safe landing. He had previously worked on such high-flying adventures as 1927's "Wings" (the first Oscar winner for Best Picture) and the almost-impossible-to-see "Central Airport," and would go on to direct the John Wayne pictures "Island in the Sky" and "The High and the Mighty," as well as his final film, 1958's "Lafayette Escadrille" (AND, parenthetically, the 1948 Tierney vehicle "The Iron Curtain"). Besides the eye-popping nature of the aerial cinematography, "Thunder Birds" features still another eye-popping aspect, and that is Gene Tierney herself, who has rarely looked more beautiful on screen. Gene made 20 films in the 1940s, and of those 20, only five were in color: "The Return of Frank James" (her first), "Belle Starr," "Thunder Birds," "Heaven Can Wait" and "Leave Her to Heaven," and other than "Leave Her to Heaven" (in which, gorgeous as she is, she is yet eclipsed, IMHO, by the vision that is Jeanne Crain), I have never seen her look more ravishing than here. Just look at her bathing in an outdoor water tank, her mouth still painted with bright-red lipstick; simply stunning! And Wellman, wisely, gives the 22-year-old Tierney any number of luminous close-ups; absolute heaven for all fans of the beloved actress. Throw in a compact story line (the whole film runs only 78 minutes) and fine supporting work from such wonderful character actors as Dame May Witty, Jack Holt, Richard Haydn and Reginald Denny and you've got yourself quite an entertaining package indeed; surely more than just some rah-rah wartime propaganda! This is a highly entertaining, time-capsule tribute to some very brave young men as well as to the beauty and talent of one very special actress: Miss Gene Tierney.

A well done Technicolor story about flight training at Thunderbird Field, Arizona in 1942 at the height of WWII. Great cast of supporting players, with main stars Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton well suited for their roles. Beautiful flying shots with the Arizona desert as background. The dialogue in some spots is not too realistic in terms of aviation, e.g. when Preston Foster, playing the role of a civilian flight instructor at a military training school exclaims that a student's "motor conked out" while viewing the incident from the ground with his former sweetheart, Gene Tierney. Hilarious scene early in the movie where civilians are learning to be "civilian defense" first aid workers: Preston Foster, leg in cast, is loaded into an ambulance that then races away with the back door unlatched ejecting him out the back door and allowing him to fall attached to a stretcher onto the street. Touching brave sentiments portrayed by famed English actress, Dame May Whitty, on the loss of her son in combat. Jack Holt as the C.O. of the school, and Reginald Denny, as the British officer in charge of English cadets, add greatly to the overall quality of the picture, and Holt's facial expressions when he is dancing with Gene Tierney are particularly funny in the dance scene late in the picture. Peter Lawford has an uncredited bit part as a cadet in the movie. Overall, a very enjoyable movie if the viewer is interested in WWII aviation pictures, especially for the color quality.TRIVIA NOTE: Famed aviation ace Richard Bong is one of the pilots flying the formation of North American AT-6s ("Texans") in the movie (uncredited), done before he shipped out to the Pacific to become the "Ace of Aces" by shooting down 40 Japanese planes, more than any other US pilot in WWII. (He died 8/6/45 at Burbank, California while taking off in a P-80 "Shooting Star" jet which lost power on takeoff.)GOOF: in the water tower scene early in movie, Preston Foster, in a trainer from the base, buzzes water-bathing Gene Tierney and drops her his flight suit from the plane to use for cover/clothing when she gets out of the water tower. Film editing mistake shows her catching the flight suit, but then a shot of Foster's plane flying away shows the flight suit being thrown out from the plane (after she already has it!).