Wings For The Eagle (1942)

• Director
  • Lloyd Bacon
• Writers
  • Byron Morgan(original screenplay)
  • B. Harrison Orkow(original screenplay)
  • Richard Macaulay(additional dialogue)
• Stars
  • Ann Sheridan
  • Dennis Morgan
  • Jack Carson

  Wings for the Eagle is an overbaked but sincere tribute to the wartime defense workers at the Lockheed Aircraft Plant, where a good portion of the film was made. Hoping to dodge the draft, Corky Jones (Dennis Morgan) lands an "essential" job at Lockheed, eventually realizing the importance of his work and thereby renewing his own patriotism. Along the way, Corky and his pal Brad Maples (Jack Carson) bicker over the affections of Brad's former wife Roma (Ann Sheridan). A note of pathos is introduced in the form of Lockheed supervisor Jake Hanso (George Tobias), who loses his job when it is learned that he never became a US citizen but who demonstrates his loyalty to the United States in a variety of ways. When Jake's fighter-pilot son Pete (Russell Arms) is killed in the Philippines, a reformed Corky Jones joins the Air Force himself, single-handedly shooting down a Japanese Zero "For Jake and Pete." This incredible flag-waving coda aside, Wings for the Eagle is a reasonably believable yarn, definitely a product of its times yet perfectly capable of entertaining an audience of the 1990s.