Review of Only Angels Have Wings (1939) by Paavo L — 03 Jan 2009

Howard Hawks' "Only Angels Have Wings" is delightful surprise among movies deemed as classics.

Since watching Quentin Tarantinos "Jackie Brown" and listening to his interviews I've grown to understand how delightful it is that movie is driven by characters and their dialogue and not action or storyline. This makes movie feel more like family album or meeting people you actually know.

"Only Angels Have Wings" unfolds slowly. The running time is around two hours and during these two hours "Bonnie Lee" performed by Jean Arthur arrives to this little port in southern America, gets to know some local pilots working for local air company delivering mail and we get to see these people living together and the struggles delivering mail in difficult conditions. The characters are delivious and the conversations that are not made to serve the storyline but enrichen the characters and their inner motivations and mindscapes is rich and relief. In the middle of all this social cooperation is substituted to flight scenes that are high class remembering the time of making.

This is just perfect movie. I recommend this with all my heart.