A Yank in the RAF ** (1941, Tyrone Power, Betty Grable, John Sutton) – Classic Movie Review 10,672

Director Henry King’s 1941 American black-and-white action adventure drama romantic musical war film A Yank in the RAF stars Tyrone Power, Betty Grable and John Sutton. It was sold as a light-hearted look at war rather than the crowd-pleasing propaganda film it actually is. It’s the story of an American pilot who joins the Royal Air Force (RAF) when the US was still neutral, though by the time the film was made, the US had begun supplying the British Empire with weapons and munitions in March 1941.

Tyrone Power is the Yank, cocky daredevil American pilot Tim Baker, and he comes to London where he runs into his casual girlfriend Carol Brown (Betty Grable – she of the million-dollar legs) who works in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force by day and has got a gig at a London club by night. He decides to enlist in the RAF, and the war makes carefree Power grow up, realising that there is more to life than mere romance, and the film takes a serious turn, climaxing at the Battle of Dunkirk.

Real war footage is intercut with the obvious studio sets, producing a cheap-looking, rather artificial affair. But, thanks to the pleasant, well-paired stars and the lively handling, this then timely, light-hearted chunk of romance, romantic musical, war movie and propaganda effort was a hit movie and it is still a mildly amusing diversion. It was 20th Century Fox’s second-most successful film of 1941 after the Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley.

The film was shot on Hollywood sound stages, 20th Century-Fox back lots and locations in California. The opening scene depicts a true incident where US aircraft were towed across the Canada–US border. The sequence of the Dunkirk evacuation was filmed at Point Mugu, California, and employed more than 1,000 extras.

Fox studio boss and producer Darryl F Zanuck, champion of Grable’s career, wrote the original story for the script himself under a pseudonym (Melville Crossman), and it introduced her as the troops’ favourite pinup as well as giving her dramatic scenes. Promoted as a light-hearted look at war (‘ROLLICKING ROMANCE! GLORIOUS ADVENTURE!’), it is an unrealistic portrayal of a nation at war, which had a lot of appeal at the time but in retrospect seems fake and phony about a serious subject.

When Zanuck heard Warner Bros were making Eagle Squadron about American pilots going to war in the RAF Eagle Squadrons, he wrote angry letters to Hal Wallis of Warner Bros, accusing them of stealing his idea for his A Yank in the RAF and making a low-budget B-picture to beat Fox’s prestigious production to cinemas. Zanuck threatened legal action unless Warners stopped their film from being made or agreed not to release it until 60 days after his film. Warners went ahead and made Eagle Squadron anyway retitled as International Squadron and released it two months before A Yank in the RAF.

Also in the cast are John Sutton, Reginald Gardiner, Donald Stuart, Morton Lowry, Richard Fraser, Ralph Byrd, Fortunio Bonanova, Gilchrist Stuart, Bruce Lester, John Wilde, Richard Fraser, Denis Green, Frederick Worlock, Stuart Robertson, Ethel Griffies, James Craven, Lester Matthews, Morton Lowry, Dennis Hoey, Hans Schumm, G P Huntley, Eric Lonsdale, Claud Allister, Leslie Dennison, Frances Gladwin, John Burton, Leyland Hodgson, Guy Kingsford, Alphonse Martlell, Gavin Muir, Lillian Porter, Charles Ray, Lynne Roberts, John Rogers, Roseanne Murray, Bobbie Hale, Charles Irwin, Crauford Kent, Kurt Kreuger, John Meredith, Reginald Owen, Gil Perkins and Otto Reichow.

A Yank in the RAF is directed by Henry King, runs 97 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Karl Tunberg and Darrell Ware, based on a story by Melville Crossman [Darryl F Zanuck], is shot in black and white by Leon Shamroy and Ronald Neame, is produced by Darryl F Zanuck and Louis F Edelman, and scored by Alfred Newman, with music by Ralph Rainger and and lyrics by Leo Robin, and production designs by Richard Day and James Basevi.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,672

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