Aerial Gunner

Starring: Richard Arlen, Chester Morris & Robert Mitchum Director: William H. Pine

Two brave pilots crash land their plane on a Japanese held Pacific island.

An ex-D.A. named Davis enlists to fight WWII and finds himself in gunnery school to learn to handle machine guns on bombers. To his dismay, his instructor is Foxy Pattis, a guy who hates his guts because he blames him for his father's suicide. Foxy stays on Davis's case and tries to flunk him out, but Davis is too dedicated and even saves Foxy's life when he's knocked out aboard a runaway target-towing train. To make matters worse, Foxy and Davis both want the same girl, and Foxy intends to marry her. While their rivalry plays out, there are little sub-anecdotes, such as a kid with personal reasons for wanting to be a gunner getting cold feet, some comedic bits with a gadget-happy would-be inventor, and Foxy betting enough money for a wedding ring that his guys score better than Robert Mitchum's (who's in the movie for all of about 30 seconds but still manages to grab star billing on DVDs of the movie nowdays). It mostly focuses on gunnery school but still manages to fit in plenty of action, including some decent (if too brief) aerial combat at the end. It's propaganda and doesn't have much of a budget, but I've seen it several times and it's always entertaining. The major drawback is that our two stars (Richard Arlen and Chester Morris) look too much alike, sometimes creating a little confusion.