Free Movie ="I WANTED WINGS" (1941)

Starring Ray Milland, William Holden, Wayne Morris,
Brian Donlevy, Constance Moore and Veronica Lake.
Story follows the training and personal lives of three
recruits in the Army Air Corps --- a wealthy playboy, a
college jock and an auto mechanic.

Not only a great cast but one cast member went on to become a Navy pilot and hero. Wayne Morris

From Wikipedai:
“A December 15, 1944 Associated Press news story reported that Morris was “credited with 57 aerial sorties, shooting down seven Japanese Zeros, sinking an escort vessel and a flak gunboat and helping sink a submarine and damage a heavy cruiser and a mine layer.” He was awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals.”

“Aged 45, Morris died of a coronary occlusion September 14, 1959, aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard.”

RIP Wayne Morris

It's an interesting film that was produced while America was still neutral in World War II. A very young William Holden appears. When the war came, he joined the Army Air Force and made training films.

Of course, Holden became a Box Office sensation after the War and his role was memorable in the 1959 classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Now the figure that always intrigued in River Kwai was the Japanese commander of the POW camp, Colonel Saito who gave a speech to the POWs saying, "Be happy in your work!"

Turns out the actor, Sessue Hayakawa, was quite a character in real life.

Born in 1886 in a city near Tokyo, he desperately wanted to become an officer in the Japanese Imperial Navy.

But he injured his eardrum while swimming deep in a lagoon, and this caused him to fail the Navy physical.

The shame of not succeeding forced him to go to a shed to commit seppuku (virtual suicide). Though he stabbed himself in the abdomen 30 times, a dog alerted the family and his father broke the shed door down with an axe, then rescued him.

Once Hayakawa recovered he moved to America (he had studied English) where he became one of the earliest Asian actors in Hollywood, during the silent film era.

He eventually received the Best Supporting Actor for River Kwai which was awarded Best Picture.

War movies normally hold no interest. However, there are some
which can be seen more than once. Instance:
“Where Eagles Dare”. The cast, plot, total screen was a nail biter. “Tora Tora Tora” never held with such regard. Perhaps it is the particular war, the movie cast, or, perhaps, the plot. What ever, there are times when they are best left unseen.
Miland and Holden build the foundation that this is on the
way to being a movie worth viewing.

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