‘HELL DIVERS'

Evening Star, Issue 21170, 2 August 1932, Page 9

‘HELL DIVERS'

SPECTACULAR AERONAUTICS FOR ST. JAMES A flying picture will always be successful if it is better than those that have gone before—and in the past few years a great many have gone before. At the same time, the ‘ Sydney Mail ’ is of the opinion that ‘ Hell Divers,’ the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production, will have the skies to itself for a great many years to come. Pictures of this type make too many serious inroads on funds to be made with any regularity. There never has been an air picture to parallel this magnificent exhibition of aeronautics, and one can safely predict that there won’t be anything like it for a year or two. It has been pointed out that the American navy enters wholeheartedly into these Hollywood pictures, merely for the purpose of world propaganda. These assertions are very probably true, but there is no reason why other countries of the world should not do likewise, provided such institutions as the army and navy lend themselves to seri ous work, and not to comedy, or to the dullness of an educational film. It’s propaganda, but at the same time it is entertainment, and audiences must consider that first. This page rather thinks that the influence, if any, is not felt _ to any. great extent by oversea audiences, only serving, perhaps, to emphasise American national pride and ego. If America wants to crowd all it’s got into its cinematic phop window, let it, so long as the result has '-°nuine entertainment value and has the power of taking audiences “ out of themselves.” ‘ Hell Divers ’ opens at the St. James Theatre on Friday.