Only Angels Have Wings

The best film that Howard Hawks's Only Angels Have Wings can be compared to is Hawks's own Ceiling Zero. The former was adapted from the stage play by Spig Wead and for whatever reason Warner Brothers did not put in the kind of production values the A list cast from that film should have warranted. In my review for IMDb I said it was a photographed stage play.

Hawks seems to have made the corrections for the deficiencies of Ceiling Zero in this film. First of all he wrote the story for Only Angels Have Wings and made sure to put in enough action and he took the action away from the control room of that small airline in an unnamed South American country. He also cast the leads against type, Cary Grant as a cynical, existential Bogart like hero and Jean Arthur as the wise cracking show girl stranded in the tropics. A part that Rita Hayworth would play to perfection later on.

Rita's in this one as well, in the first substantial part in an A picture. She plays the wife of disgraced flier Richard Barthelmess and one of Cary Grant's old flames. According to a recent biography of Jean Arthur, she and Rita did not get along so well. Both of them are retiring types and each thought the other was being snooty to her. Arthur found that out later on and was far more cordial as was Rita. Arthur was also upset that the future glamor queen of America would get all the notice. Rita sure got enough of it.

But there were plaudits all around. Howard Hawks got great performances out of Grant and Arthur, expanding the range of both these talented people. Only Angels Have Wings is both a good character study and has a lot of drama as well.

And Cary Grant was far more successful at a Bogart type role than Bogey was in doing Sabrina.