Hell Divers (1931) User Reviews

Beery hams it up in sentimental Navy film

[BoYutz · 7/10 · 19 November 1999]

Wallace Beery hams it up mercilessly as a 'loveable slob' of a Navy Chief Petty Officer on the USS Saratoga. His lofty position is soon challenged by a hard-nosed and far more competent young chief played by Clark Gable. Beery, rather than bring his own standard up, seeks to sabotage Gable, leading to several confrontations where Beery is ultimately outclassed. The film concludes with a sentimental but well-played ending.

The movie has many charms to offset its drawbacks. There is a lot of footage of the USS Saratoga, the Navy's first big carrier, built on the hull of a cancelled battlecruiser. The Saratoga footage alone, along with that of other circa-1932 warships, makes this a must-see for naval buffs. This is also an early starring role for Gable, who plays his part well and looks every inch the young, dashing, competent CPO. Beery himself exudes charm despite overplaying his part. Look also for the ex-Mack Sennett bathing beauty Marie Prevost as the worldly Lulu.

Despite its uneven mix of comedy and drama, not to mention a boatload of Navy cliches, this movie is well worth watching, especially for Navy buffs.

Lots To Recommend

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 16 December 2011]

For years and years Hell Divers was not available and the only bit we saw from this film occurs in Wings Of Eagles where a clip from this is shown as some of the characters there remarked about that new young actor with the big ears who was proving to be a sensation. Ironic as all get out since Clark Gable had been let go three years earlier from MGM after being the franchise star that studio was built around. I certainly did want to see all of Hell Divers and I have to say I was not disappointed.

Wings Of Eagles was about Frank Wead who wrote the original story for Hell Divers and MGM spared no expense on the budget in bringing this one to the big screen. Some nice navy footage is integrated well into Wead's story about two navy CPOS who are constantly at war with each other on and off duty. This was Clark Gable's best role to date and he had to keep on his toes lest Wallace Beery steal the film. Which Beery certainly tries.

It's really bad between the two of them as Beery hires Marie Prevost to come on to Gable in front of Dorothy Jordan who Gable wants to marry. Gable doesn't take that lying down, but he doesn't really have to do too much because Beery fouls up all on his own quite nicely. He even loses a grade in rank. In the end though Gable, Beery, and pilot Conrad Nagel are all in a tight spot and the navy comradeship comes through in the end.

Look also for a very nice and understated performance by Marjorie Rambeau who is Beery's long suffering gal pal. She tries to smooth out some of the rough edges in Beery without success.

Naval aviation buffs will get a real treat looking at Uncle Sam's Navy in 1930 and the Saratoga one of our earliest aircraft carriers. Lots to recommend with Hell Divers.

Good for historical record-

[Jim A · 7/10 · 21 December 2011]

Just saw this for the first time on TV- lots of Navy history mixed in with a pretty decent plot. Seems unbelievable that Clark Gable was ever that young, but this is from 1931! The carrier that this was filmed aboard was the Navy's second real aircraft carrier, the Saratoga, and seeing her in original, unaltered condition is fascinating. Slight correction to one of the previous reviewers- the planes are Curtiss F8C-4 Helldivers, the first Navy plane to bear that name. One of the pilots that flew in the film from NAS North Island, was the very young John Thach, later to be the air tactician that figured out how to defend against the Mitsubishi Zero in World War II. All in all, an important historical record that should be on DVD!

Routine but enjoyable studio product.

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 2 July 2008]

This typically polished MGM effort features one of its established actors – Beery – opposite new kid on the block Gable (before he was old enough to grow a moustache). It's one of few films the pair made together, reportedly because they never really hit it off (Beery is said to have even turned down a role in MGM's Mutiny on the Bounty because he didn't want to work with Gable). Then again, Beery, a lovable old lug on the screen, was a fairly unpleasant character in real life, with rumours of manslaughter, meanness and abuse of women and children surrounding him to this day.

The film's plot could take place anywhere and at anytime really. That was the beauty of the studio product in the 30s: they could just keep churning out the same story with a different cast set in a different period and the masses would happily pay the money to watch them all. This one features some terrific aerial shots of old biplanes and some truly bizarre heroics (Gable hanging upside down from a plane with one hand holding a bomb to prevent it from exploding when the plane lands for instance). There are a few funny moments too, the best of which is the incidents that lead to Beery and Gable duking it out just minutes after having finally made friends.

Wallace Beery and Clark Gable

[michaelpowers2001 · 27 February 2002]

Any time you have two fantastic actors of the calibres of Wallace Beery and Clark Gable playing against each other, it's worth a look. Beery was the highest paid actor in the world when this movie was shot, and he was certainly the most interesting to watch. It's obvious, though, that MGM was using this picture to build up their popular new romantic lead, Gable, even if it had to be at their top star's expense. If you like this one, I recommend a better seafaring film with Beery and Gable, 1935's "China Seas." That one's a real spectacular, one of those movies, like "Dancing Lady," with everything the studio could think of thrown in.

real aircraft carrier

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 13 September 2021]

It's a squadron of Navy Hell Divers in training. Steve Nelson (Clark Gable) is the hot shot new arrival. Squad leader Windy Riker is concerned with the new challenger. Steve has girlfriend Ann Mitchell.

I love the planes and I really love the early aircraft carrier and I really really love the planes landing on the aircraft carrier. As for the actors, this has Clark Gable and I'm sure the others are well known at the time. The story needs the girl in a love triangle with the two guys. I'm not in love with either guy or the relationship or the plot in general. It's all about the aerial visuals. I have to assume that the planes would be interesting for the audience of its day but the aircraft carrier would be truly eye-opening. Landing on one was probably something not seen by the general public. There are some great flying footage and real shooting from battleships. That stuff is all amazing. They do use miniatures and projection background but that's to be expected. Just watch for the real thing because it's great. The other stuff is rather boring.

Wallace and Gable star in a US navy-sponsored look at the 1931 navy air corp.

[estherwalker-34710 · 7/10 · 14 September 2021]

An excellent copy of this 1931 film was shown on TCM, and a DVD is available for those who missed. Strongly supported by the US Navy, a moustacheless young-looking Clark Gable and versatile Wallace Berry costar as reluctant buddy navy pilot trainee and veteran, respectively, playing off each other the whole time.......... This was one of the last of 12 pictures Gable was in during his first year of talkies, most of them minor roles. As finally a costar, he had come a long way since the first of these, in which he plays a wandering bad hombre, in a Bill Boyd western. Berry is his usual affable, slow talking, self most of the time, except when he's fighting Gable. He's nicknamed 'Windy', presumably for the same reason that 'Gabby' Hayes was named 'Windy' in his Hopalong Cassidy films. Without seeing him, you could tell it was him talking, with his distinctive gravely voice, that almost got him barred from talkies. He even gets to play the piano and sing the novelty song "The Monkeys Have no Tails in Zamboanga(because they were eaten by whales!) Although he sometimes played a comical role, in real life, he reportedly was usually grouchy and very difficult to get along with. He took a special dislike to his juvenile costars...........Not surprisingly, the costar's women don't get much screen time, as this wasn't supposed to be a heavy romantic drama. Gable's girl, played by Dorothy Jordan, didn't impress me as having any charisma. I agree with another reviewer that she was completely mismatched with Gable. In contrast, 40ish, blond, Marjorie Rambeau, with her Ruby Keeler-like big eyes, had some charisma, acting motherly toward both Gable and Berry, and yet being Berry's girlfriend...........Along with the Gable-Berry interactions, there is plenty of aerial action, with biplanes dropping bombs on land targets or on delict ships, with the occasional crash. Berry plays hero in getting Gable out of a dicey situation, then dies when the plane he and Gable are in bursts into flames when Berry makes a bad landing on the Saratoga carrier. Very strangely, when we see Gable at Berry's funeral, he doesn't appear to have any injuries or burns!! Landing a relatively slow-speed, light biplane, with a large wing surface area, on a carrier was dicey, compared to today's heavy, high speed, planes.......... Strangely, the Saratoga, along with the Lexington, was originally intended to be a battlecruiser. But, part way during construction, it was decided to make them into the navy's first sizable carriers. This conversion rendered them certain advantages and disadvantages , compared to the subsequent purpose-built carriers. Both saw action in the Pacific during WWII. After the war, the now obsolete Saratoga was used as a target in some atomic bomb tests........Gable would again star as a gung ho pilot in the much better remembered1938 "Test Pilot", with his reluctant buddy/enemy Spencer Tracy. Again, his buddy died in a crash involving both of them, with Gable again surviving.

Gable - Beery; smells like acid!

[raskimono · 7/10 · 9 October 2003]

Gable and Beery never liked each other and definitely never got along, so the ending is somewhat funny to me as it never would have happened in reality. There are deering-do feats with planes including one in which Gable lands a plane while hanging upside-down and balancing a lose bomb on his hand so it doesn't fall. You have to see it to believe it. Beery, at the time the bigger star gets most of the comic-relief which is the only part of the movie that doesn't blend in. The plot is generic, in fact, almost the same plot as the Ramon Novarro starer by the same studio three years earlier titled "The flying fleet". The movie though focuses more on the antagonistic relationship between boy-scout Gable and perennial screw-up Beery. The final stunt leaves a lot to the imagination because it involves ************SPOILERS******** a death of a major character that one must wonder how he dies when the other character in a more perilous situation survives ******************** END OF SPOILERS. All in all, one of the fifteen biggest movies of the 31-32 season.

Dated But Valuable Time Capsule Of early 1930's US Navy

[verbusen · 9/10 · 8 October 2005]

I guess I was more in joy watching this movie to see the hardware involved in this movie than the actual acting. I am a huge Gable fan, I don't think there is a movie with him that I have not liked. However, this one was very early in his career and he does have a bad monologue moment that really surprised me that it made it into the script. Now I'm the first to defend a movie like Mask of Fu Manchu that seems to have been labeled as racist (by reviewers here) because of the portrayal of evil Asian characters out to get the White race, because that is a plausible storyline (because history has shown constant clashes of cultures, IE Imperial Japan). In this movie however, Clark Gable actually says in an argument with Berry's CPO character that if he were to take over being the Leading Chief to the squadron that he first would "fumegate so a White Man could move in". Now this movie has the US Navy's hands all over this, the script had the leads as senior enlisted (which I love because I am Navy Enlisted and tired of all the Officer portrayal's), they did that so the leads could get by with the off color happenings off of the ship, but a remark like that should never have gotten into any movie that the Navy approved. I looked up Gables filmography and it shows he made 12(!) movies in 1931 alone about 1/5 of his total talkies made! That said, and I'm sorry to point that out, the rest of the film is very entertaining. One reviewer here said Gable landed a plane while holding a bomb on a wing. If the reviewer was paying much attention, Gable did not land the plane he was the Rear Gunner/Radio Operator, doh! Berry is a real louse in this one, I really hate his guts cause he's such a dirt-bag but I guess you gotta do what the script says (totally plausible character, I just hated it) I love most of Berry's roles as a lovable dunce, but when he plays a heavy I'm not as entertained. Other characters of interest for me was a Jack Pennick sighting (getting socked by Berry for smoking while fueling a plane), the very familiar face in all the John Ford (and thus many John Wayne) westerns, I remember him most from being the old CPO in the Phillipino bar at the beginning of "They Were Expendable", just reading his bio here at IMDb.com it says he was a WW1 AND WW2 vet and got a silver star at the age of 50, now thats a man's man (thanks IMDb for such great info)! The planes used are I believe Vought O2U biplanes and these things when they are landing are going just barely over the speed of the carrier (USS Saratoga), and they have such a light weight and large wing surface area that they are like floating kites when they land (compared to the modern heavy jets that land with a THUD!). The carrier flight operations look extremely dangerous as these planes are ALL OVER THE PLACE! It was extremely exciting and interesting to watch. Other great footage that really entertained me was some great broadside shots of a row of battleships blasting off their 16" guns, some very impressive shots with great audio! Highly recommended movie mainly for the archival evidence of US carrier operations in the infancy of the US Navy's air wing. It would have been even cooler had the Saratoga steamed to Haiti or Nicuragua or a similar place where our Marine forces were conducting actual military battles, but in all likelihood this was not meant to show a really serious side of the Navy. Still, my kind of way to get entertained, good stuff!

Good but predictable

[lynpalmer1 · 6/10 · 11 April 2019]

Good but predictable movie with actual footage from U. S. S. Saratoga. Fine acting by Gable and Berry. Biggest flaw is casting Dorothy Jordan as Gables love interest. They are completely mismatched as she is no match for Gables personality.

hell divers

[mossgrymk · 5/10 · 4 October 2021]

Like a Howard Hawks film if Hawks had half his pacing skills or deftness with actors. The action scenes are especially dull and Gable has rarely been this bland. If it wasn't for Beery's acting chops it'd be well nigh unwatchable.

Excellent early talkie

[hummingbirdranch · 8/10 · 7 October 2006]

This is an excellent vehicle for Wallace Beery and Clark Gable(in what would become standard roles for both of them). Lots of nice real life footage of the Saratoga V (sunk in Bikini Atoll by two atomic blasts in Bikini Atoll in 1946). If you want to see bi-planes taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier this movie is for you!!!. also, i believe they used footage of the 27 Jan 1928 mooring of the rigid air ship Los Angeles to the aircraft carrier. If you don't like those glossy-cheesy MGM movies this is the exception. Way above average early talkie movie and a piece of history too.

A Young Clark Gable Shares Billing with MGM's Highest Paid Star, Wallace Beery

[springfieldrental · 7/10 · 30 October 2022]

Clark Gable's on-screen persona was becoming more popular in his second year in Hollywood with each movie he appeared. He reached new heights by sharing top billing with MGM's highest paid actor, Wallace Beery, in January 1932's "Hell Divers." In this United States Naval aviation action film, Beery and Gable play rivals as aerial gunners in the Navy's Squadron One Battle Force. The flying squadron, stationed on one of the newer aircraft carriers at the time, the USS Saratoga, was made up of Curtiss F8C-4 bombers, nicknamed "Helldivers." The Navy fully cooperated with MGM, giving cinematographer Charles Marshall as much access he needed to film the aviators flying the Helldivers throughout the San Diego North Island Naval Air Station vacinity.

"Hell Divers" was the second film between Beery and Gable, who later admitted he hated working with the seasoned actor. The film's similar storyline to "What Price Glory?" shows the pair's characters first at odds with one another, then bonding in the concluding scenes. Gable experienced two enduring qualities that he came to appreciate from the film: the larger part further elevated his visibility with the public, and his drinking habits changed by introducing him to gin with a wedge of lemon, a favorite beverage for the Navy men whom he associated with while making the film. After seeing the fliers sucking a slice of lemon between gulps, he adopted this method for the remainder of his life.

"Hell Divers" was George Hill's second to last film he directed before an auto accident in 1934 cut his life short. He had a string of hits throughout his career, becoming more successful when talkies arrived, including 1930's "The Big House" and 1931's "Min and Bill." His marriage to screenwriter Frances Marion in 1930 ended in divorce three years later. Hill directed one more film after "Hell Divers" in 1933 before he was assigned to Pearl Buck's book adaptation in "The Good Earth." Severe injuries he sustained from a 1934 car crash made him so despondent that he was found with self-inflicted gunshot wounds inside his Venice, California, beach house in August 1934. He was 39 years old.

completely formulaic and STILL worth seeing!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 18 March 2006]

Okay, I know that most Wallace Beery films are pretty formulaic and superficial. However, this doesn't mean they were bad. Very few of his films were bad, though many fall in the average category. However, occasionally, his films rose above the mundane, such as DINNER AT EIGHT, GRAND HOTEL, MIN AND BILL and this film. While I will admit this movie isn't up to the standards of the three films I listed, it does approach them in quality and is a decent effort for him and new-comer Clark Gable. In particular, if you are a Gable or airplane buff, like me, you will love this film. It features a lot of great flying sequences you just won't see in many films of the era. Our aircraft carriers and dirigibles just weren't seen as being very important and weren't shown in many films during the Depression era. So, from a purely historic point of view, this is an important film. When you add good acting and dialog and an exciting script, you have an excellent film well worth your time.

1930 aviation buffs will love this one!

[florida87 · 10/10 · 7 April 2002]

1930's US Navy film with, oh boy, 2 great actors Wallace Berry and Clark Gable! I loved it from the shore leave aspects and the super vintage era aircraft (Derigibles too!) and ships that you'll hardly ever see because it was'nt during a "major" war. Highly recommended, I loved it ( but I am a big fan of the mentioned stars and a sailor so I'm definetly biased, LOL)!

Wings of the Navy

[lugonian · 8/10 · 22 September 2021]

HELL DIVERS (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1931), directed by George Hill, may not be the greatest film about aviation, but a good and very important one in the careers of Wallace Beery and Clark Gable. Taken from a story by Lieutenant Commander Frank "Spig" Wead, United States Navy, HELL DIVERS ranks some of the many military themes following the success of WHAT PRICE GLORY (Fox, 1926), and others ranging from the World War to peace time elements. Having teamed earlier in the crime drama, THE SECRET SIX (1931), Beery and Gable get more to do here as friendly rivals in the similar military manner of Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe at Fox or Jack Holt and Ralph Graves over at Columbia. Geared mostly for its male audience, HELL DIVERS consists of a typical story featuring flight operations, near death experiences and mid-air collisions for its highlights and having Beery and Gable showing their fondness for one another through fist fights one moment and friendly terms the next.

Filmed with the cooperation by the United States Navy, the story introduces H. W. "Windy" Riker (Wallace Beery), the best leading chief petty officer of the aviation squadron on the U. S. S. Saratoga. He has a bad reputation of being quick tempered and at odds with his superiors, namely Lieutenant Duke W. Johnson (Conrad Nagel) who stands up for him. Though good friends with Chief Petty Officer, Steve Nelson (Clark Gable), Riker socks him for correcting his explanation to his superiors for an incident that makes him out a lier. Their friendship turns to bitterness when Riker plays a practical joke on Nelson separating him from Ann Mitchell (Dorothy Jordan), the girl he loves, and later when Riker is reduced in rank and Nelson promoted to his former position. While on leave in Panama, Mame Kelsey (Marjorie Rambeau) tries to get these two rivals back together again, but problems persist even during their mock battle mission leaving them stranded on a rocky island. Other cast members include: Marie Prevost (Lulu Farnsworth); Cliff Edwards (Baldy); John Miljan (Lieutenant Commander John Griffith); Frank Conroy (The Chaplain) and Robert Young (Lieutenant Graham). With director John Ford regular, Jack Pennick, appearing as one of the mechanics, his presence, along with a sentimental moment involving John Griffith's (John Miljan) retirement leave, give HELL DIVERS a John Ford feel to it. Though Marie Prevost and Dorothy Jordan have little to do here, Marjorie Rambeau stands out most through her commendable performance opposite Beery.

Reportedly clocked at 113 minutes, circulating prints go at 109 minutes, indicating this to possibly be a latter reissue with one major jump cut in the middle of the story. HELL DIVERS is made interesting most by its MGM stock playing star power of its pre-mustache Clark Gable, in his 12th and final movie release of 1931, and Beery, the Academy Award winner as Best Actor for his title role as THE CHAMP (1931). While Beery would remain a Champ at MGM for many years to come, he and Gable reunited one more time in CHINA SEAS (1935) with Gable and Jean Harlow's names over Wallace Beery in the credits.

Never distributed to home video, but available on DVD, HELL DIVERS can be seen on occasion when broadcast on cable television's Turner Classic Movies for some good old-style entertainment. (***)