American Cinematographer - February 1996 - 88

Joe Biroc, ASC,
with a barneycovered camera,
rides

a crane

made from the
skeleton of one
of the

biplanes.

a

fling at fiction based loosely

three weeks while he

the tale

was

on fact, was written in
sidelined with injuries, and

serialized in

Liberty magazine in 1931.
rights to two studios. One
turned it down; another took out a 10-day option
against $16,000. When the option expired, Grace had
15 cents to his name. He tried again and RKO Radio
Pictures bought the story for $20,000 - a lot of green¬
was

Grace tried to sell film

backs in '31. Further, the studio hired him to supervise
the aerial action.
Years ago, Lost Squadron stunt pilot Frank
Clarke's friend, the late L. B. Abbott, ASC, described
to this writer an incident which probably inspired the
most memorable

episode in both Grace's novel and
working as an extra camera¬
man on Hell's
Angels (1930) which was being filmed at
Metropolitan Airport, Abbott became aware that an
obvious antagonism existed between Clarke and an¬
other famous pilot. While Abbott and Clarke were
strolling among the airplanes, Clarke noticed that the
other pilot was loitering suspiciously around the tail
of the biplane Clarke was about to fly. "Clarke walked
over and asked the man, 'What the hell are
you doing
to my plane?"' Abbott recalled. "'Aw, just looking
around,' he said, and ambled away. Clarke ran his
hand over the wires and suddenly gritted, 'Look at
the film version. While

what that sonofabitch did!' I could see that he had
unscrewed the turnbuckles on the control wires so that

they were held by only one or two turns. It would have
been suicide to have flown that plane. 'He wants to kill
me,' Frank said.'"
It is

surely

coincidence that this situation
Squadron. Dick Grace
and Clarke were close friends; the other pilot had been
barred from their stunt squadron. Clarke and his en¬
emy clashed again in World War II, when both were
no

is reenacted in detail in The Lost

officers in the U.S. Air Force. Clarke died in an acci¬
dental crash near Lake Isabella, California in 1948. The

86

American

Cinematographer

other

man was

killed while

two decades later.

doing a movie stunt nearly
Despite old injuries, Grace also

served with distinction in the
died quietly in bed.

war

and, strange to say,

The film

begins with an aerial dogfight in the
on the
morning of November 11,
1918 as three American aces
Capt. Gibson (Richard
Dix), Woody Curwood (Robert Armstrong) and Red

skies

over

France

-

(Joel McCrea)

-

each shoot down

a

German

war¬

plane. At 11 a.m. the Armistice ending World War I
goes into effect, and the combatants and their former
adversaries wave cheerful farewells. The Americans
and their faithful mechanic, Fritz (Hugh Herbert), re¬
turn to the States to blaring bands,
ticker-tape parades,
and political promises in a long montage which gradu¬

ally thins down as returning vets sweep streets and
stand in soup-lines. Red goes back to his old job but
walks out because

a friend will be fired to accommo¬
date him. Woody, formerly wealthy, learns that his
crooked partner has cleaned him out. Gibson returns

to his fiancee, actress Follette Marsh
(Mary Astor),
only to find her being kept in luxury by a wealthy man
(William Davidson). Dejected, Gibson, Red and Fritz
team up and bum around the country. "We've had
jobs enough, but you can't hold 'em down if you've
got motors in your pants," Gibson philosophizes years
later as they join the gallery outside a gala Hollywood
premiere of a new aerial epic by Herr Arthur von Furst
(Erich von Stroheim), starring his wife - none other
than Follette, who has found herself another wealthy
provider. Woody arrives with a starlet on each arm

and tells his former comrades that he makes $50 per
flight as a movie stunt pilot. He then suggests that the
four of them form a stunt squadron for von Furst's
next World War I extravaganza.
Von Furst is a tyrant who beats his wife and
deliberately risks the fliers' lives for a screen thrill. He
is insanely jealous because he knows Follette still loves

February 1996
American Cinematographer - February 1996

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