Hell's Angels (film)

The film was widely reported as being one of the most expensive films ever made, by contemporary sources, with a reputed budget of $4 million. However, this is a myth created by Hughes to publicise the film, and the accounts for Hell's Angels reveal that it in fact cost only $2.8 million, considerably less than the $4 million cost of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, released three years earlier.

Reception

Hell's Angels received its premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on May 27, 1930.

While Harlow, Lyon and Hall received mixed reviews for their acting, Hughes was praised for his hard work on the filming and aircraft sequences. Morduant Hall, reviewer for The New York Times, was especially critical about Harlow's performance, saying, "his film is absorbing and exciting. But while she is the center of attraction, the picture is a most mediocre piece of work."

Harlow had top billing on the posters but in the film itself, she was billed third under Lyon and Hall.

It earned $2.5 million for its backers at the box office, which made it one of the highest grossing sound films of its era, but still slightly less than its $2.8 million production costs.

Legacy

In 1962, film director Stanley Kubrick cited Hell's Angels as one of his 10 favorite films that influenced his later career.
The 1977 TV film The Amazing Howard Hughes has one passage where Hughes (Tommy Lee Jones) directs the Zeppelin segment over and over in non-stop takes: although he did repeated takes, Hughes, in reality, shot the Zeppelin scenes and left the partially shot footage untouched except for adding sound. According to film experts, he did not do any retakes of the Zeppelin sequence.
Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, a 2004 biopic of Hughes, during the opening act portrays the making of Hell's Angels and later its premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Hell's Angels has been re-released on VHS and DVD formats by Universal Studios, which in later years acquired the rights to the film. In its original British release, the censor cut more than 30 minutes from the film. The Criterion Collection released the film on 4K and Blu-ray in November of 2025.

The involvement of Howard Hughes in Hell's Angels spawned a niche within enthusiasts in entertainment, aviation and militaria collectibles groups. Aviation enthusiasts have referenced the quality and authenticity of World War I aviation in the film.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

Balio, Tino. United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. .
Barlett, Donald L. and James B. Steele. Empire: The Life, Legend and Madness of Howard Hughes. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1979. , republished in 2004 as Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness.
Baxter, John. Stanley Kubrick. New York: Da Capo Press, 1997. .
Brown, Peter Harry and Pat H. Broeske. Howard Hughes: The Untold Story. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. .
Budiansky, Stephen. Air Power. London: Penguin Group, 2004. .
Curtis, James. James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1998. .
Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. .
Eyman, Scott. The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926–1930. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. .
Farmer, James H. "Howard & Hell's Angels". Air Classics, Volume 26, Number 12, December 1990.
Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies". The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. .
Osborne, Robert. 65 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards London: Abbeville Press, 1994. .
"Production of 'Hell's Angels' Cost the Lives of Three Aviators." Syracuse Herald, December 28, 1930, p. 59.
Robertson, Patrick. Film Facts. New York: Billboard Books, 2001. .

External links

Hell's Angels − Related details