God Is My Co-Pilot (1945)
Directed by Robert Florey

Plot Summary: Robert L. Scott has dreamed his whole life of being a fighter pilot. After flying transports over The Hump into China he persuades General Chennault to let him fly with the famed Flying Tigers, the heroic band of airmen who'd been fighting the Japanese long before Pearl Harbour.

I saw this movie on TV as a kid and enjoyed it thoroughly -- Flying Tigers! It's easy enough to find effective, cheaply made flag-waving propaganda movies made during the war years that have redeeming qualities, properties that make them worth watching. They may be no more than suspenseful action films, like "Destination Tokyo," or may have more thoughtful narratives embedded in the framework, like Hawks' "Air Force." "God is My Co-Pilot" hasn't got much of anything except a few minutes of good aerial photography. In the air, as usual, a kind of war-time trainer called the "Texan" substitutes for the Japanese Zero, as it did in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" The P-40s are attractive aeroplanes, with clean lines, although they appear to be Model Es rather than the Cs the AVG used. A small matter. In any case, you can only admire the aeroplanes for so long before the story line and dialogue begin to intrude into your consciousness. Scott's book was a simple, straightforward autobiography. The movie is piled high with extraneous material. The dialogue stretches desperately to reach upward to the level of banality but doesn't quite make it. I think I should give a few examples and leave it at that. Japanese pilot [played by Hawaiian-born Chinese-American Richard Loo] called "Tokyo Joe" radioing to a P-40 he has lined up in his sights: "Just hold it right there, Yank." P-40 pilot radioing back: "Don't call me Yank; I'm from Georgia." American pilot radioing to a Japanese pilot he's shooting down: "Don't look now, but your Zero's showing." American pilot to another Japanese going down in flames: "Now you're a good Jap." General Chennault watching from the ground with a big smile as his pilots slaughter the Japanese: "The boys must be in a good mood today." The real life epilogue? Chennault was a pretty clever guy, forsooth, trained his AVG mercenaries very effectively, and warned everyone back in the Western Hemisphere that the Japanese Zero was a remarkably manoeuvrable fighter, better than anything the Americans had. (His warning was ignored; the Zero came as a big surprise after Pearl Harbor). There was no room in the U.S. Army Air Force for a hero like Chennault, who had carved out a reputation in some other air force, namely the Chinese, and he was promptly "disappeared." The original AVG pilots were given the choice of becoming just another bunch of guys in the Army Air Force or being kicked out and sent back to the States. AVG disbanded. End of Flying Tigers.

The story is loosely based on Robert L. Scott's autobiography. The picture made towards the end of World War II is a fairly typical war time film. The story does give some accurate details on the Flying Tigers and there total dominance over the numerically superior Japanese forces. Colonel Scott was a legitimate ace during the war and his story is worth watching.

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