Cary Grant as Geoff Carter and Jean Arthur as Bonnie Lee
City Lights Film Series curator Ruby Berin introduces Howard Hawks’s classic and explores the way its authenticity emphasizes the core themes shared throughout the film.
For a film to be considered authentic, it reflects real-life experiences and establishes a connection with the audience. It brings in a sense of vulnerability and curiosity that allows audiences to be immersed in the story. That can be said for Howard Hawks’s film Only Angels Have Wings (1939). In the mountainous fictional South American port town of Barranca, the chief pilot and manager of Barranca Airways, Geoff Carter (Cary Grant), along with his small team of pilots work carefully to deliver mail through a perilous journey along the Andes Mountains. Carter continues to work his team of pilots, making sure the planes fly out daily to help secure a contract, when he meets a traveling showgirl in town named Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur). Howard Hawks was inspired to make this film from both his real-life experiences as a pilot during World War I and the stories of pilots he met along the way. Hawks’s themes of masculine men and strong-willed women are evidently shown in this film with some twists along the way.[1] The connections between men and women in this film oscillates through turbulent waters.
Hawks’s film explores themes of camaraderie, loyalty, tension, and love. All of these themes are tested throughout the film with the bonding of the pilots facing death each time one takes it to the skies, the devotion to their cause, moments to keep the audience hanging on, and what love means to each other through the bonds of the pilots and the connections between characters.[2] To balance out the tension and drama, there are some sharp and witty dialogue moments to create some lightheartedness along the way. A unique and special way these themes are also emphasized greatly is through the sound design. The film, told entirely in black and white, utilizes sound as a catalyst to tell the story — sounds expressed in limited music, but more so in the movement of people and the flying of the planes, and in conversations between the characters that bridge the story together. What’s being heard and the intention behind the sounds are immensely powerful in cinema and especially in this engaging film bringing these themes together. Howard Hawks’s filmmaking style is a mastery of craftsmanship not only in the sequence of events through the film but also keeping the ingenuity in bringing moments of flying and the impact of planes to the big screen.
Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Allyn Joslyn, and Sig Ruman
Only Angels Have Wings was supposed to be among one of the twelve American titles selected for the first ever Cannes Film Festival, set for September 1, 1939. Unfortunately, the war would delay the inauguration of the festival by nearly seven years. This film received two Academy Award nominations for Best Special Effects and Best Cinematography – Black & White (1940).[2] In 2017, Howard Hawks’s aviation film was inducted into the National Film Registry, recognized as a film of “cultural, historical, or aesthetic importance.”[3] In this film, there are also some exciting little Easter eggs to look out for. One is to listen to some of the dialogue between Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. With Hawks’s style of overlapping dialogue, there are words you’ll hear that will ring a bell. Chances are you may have heard a similar phrase in another movie, or an iconic quote people still remember to this day. The second hint is to listen to the lyrics of the song the pilots sing as it plays a part in the naming of the film itself. It’s a ride audiences will never forget, and I hope you all enjoy Only Angels Have Wings.
Mail plane flying through the fictional South American country of Barranca
1. “Only Angels Have Wings.” The Criterion Collection. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
2. Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Filmsite. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
3. “Only Angels Have Wings (1939),” Turner Classic Movies. Accessed 25 Mar. 2025.
4. “2017 National Film Registry Is More than a ‘Field of Dreams.’” The Library of Congress.
Only Angels Have Wings will be screened at IU Cinema on April 5 at 4pm as part of the City Lights Film Series.
Ruby Berin loves to go on adventures and explore the natural world. She is a master’s student at Indiana University with interests in film research, archival restoration, sound, and photography. She’s excited to be a part of this series and continue to learn about the art of storytelling.