The Wings of Eagles (1957)

Directed by

John Ford

Genre

drama film, war film, biographical film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 50m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 70 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A biographical look at Frank Wead, a naval aviator turned screenwriter who helped shape early U.S. Naval aviation. The film follows his career from piloting planes to writing about them, showing both his professional triumphs and personal struggles.

tributepatrioticnostalgicbittersweetlightheartedinspirationalcharacter-drivenearnest

What happens

The Wings of Eagles is a 1957 American Metrocolor film starring John Wayne, Dan Dailey and Maureen O'Hara, based on the life of Frank "Spig" Wead and the history of U.S. Naval aviation from its inception through World War II. The film is a tribute to Wead (who died 10 years earlier, in 1947 at age of 52) from his friend, director John Ford, and was based on Wead's "We Plaster the Japs", published in a 1944 issue of The American Magazine. John Wayne plays naval aviator-turned-screenwriter Wead, who wrote the story or screenplay for such films as Hell Divers (1931) with Wallace Beery and Clark Gable, Ceiling Zero (1936) with James Cagney, and the Oscar-nominated World War II drama They Were Expendable (1945) in which Wayne co-starred with Robert Montgomery. The supporting cast features Ward Bond, Ken Curtis, Edmund Lowe and Kenneth Tobey. This film was the third of five in which Wayne and O'Hara appeared together; others were Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), McLintock! (1963) and Big Jake (1971). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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