Catch this film tonight: Only Angels Have Wings
Tue Aug 18 2009
Hollywood, it's often said, had a very good 1939. Consider this handful of releases: Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Gunga Din, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Ninotchka. (Not a G-Force among them.) But honestly, this critic would trade all of those classics for Howard Hawks's unpretentious masterpiece, Only Angels Have Wings, released in May of that stellar year. When critics use the term Hawksian to describe the kind of stoic professionalism that marks the director's work, they really mean this movie—a terrific tropical-flyer adventure that's also a deceptively profound statement on mortality. Sexy and adult, the film doesn't feel seven decades old. It screens tonight at BAM as part of its tribute to Cary Grant, at 6:50 and 9:30pm.
