MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE LOST SQUADRON" (1932)

 Once Gertrude Stein's "Lost Generation" trope caught on like the Spanish Flu, it was inevitable Hollywood would cash in. The Lost Squadron -- the word was even shoehorned into the title -- follows three disillusioned World War I pilots -- Gibby, Woody, and Red -- along with their former mechanic, Fritz, returning to an America more interested in giving them parades than a helping hand.

Gibby's pre-war girlfriend, Follette Marsh, has dumped him for the bright lights of show biz. Woody turns to drink when discovering his business partner has absconded with all their money. Red's old employer won't rehire him, while Fritz is broke. Thank you for your service! Now get lost.

Laugh it up while you can, guys. It's all
downhill from here.

As time passes without any hope for them in their hometown of New York, Gibby, Red, and Fritz hobo their way in a boxcar to Hollywood, where Woody, now established as a stunt flyer, gets them hired on a movie he's currently working on.

It's a good deal, until Gibby discovers his ex-gf Follette is the leading lady and married to the director, the tyrannical, Arthur von Furst. Eventually, two of the pilots will be dead by murder and suicide respectively, while the third will fatally shoot the director. All in a $50-a-day's work!

Red, Fritz, and Gibby, post-war. Get a job,
you bums!

If nothing else, The Lost Squadron reveals the fallacy that the men who fought in Vietnam were the first veterans to face unemployment, addiction, and betrayal by the country they served.  Audiences must have felt too guilty to buy tickets to The Lost Squadron, seeing that it lost $125,000 in its original release.

Mary Astor demonstrates just one of her many
of her many looks of misery for co-star Erich
von Stroheim.

The stars of Lost Squadron play to type. Richard Dix is the rugged, haunted Gibby; Robert Armstrong is Woody, the boastful sot with a death wish; and Joel McCrea's handsome, charming Red successfully woos Woody's sister. As Fritz, Hugh Herbert does his usual Ed Wynn-clone routine, although turns unexpectedly dramatic near the end. Poor Mary Astor doesn't have much to do in her thankless role of Follette except look unhappy, possibly because her name is Follette and not something normal like Julie or Betty. But it's Erich von Stroheim who dominates The Lost Squadron much like his character, the sadistic Arthur von Furst, does on the set of his movie. 

Von Furst even uses a swastika in his company's
logo. OK, so it's backwards, but still.

Never speaking when bellowing will do, brimming over with contempt for his actors and crew, von Furst is a not-so-borderline psychopath, hoping for real plane crashes, insulting the extras (I would notice that), and emotionally torturing his wife. (Hey, babe, you wanted to be in the movies!) Von Stroheim was likely drawing upon his own career as a similarly demanding director a decade earlier, whether filming in Death Valley in the middle of summer, or (allegedly) taking over a huge set to shoot a bacchanalian party sequence that turned into a real, weekend-long orgy. Top that, Mr. Spielberg!

Von Furst is speechless. Because he's dead.

Intense a director as he was, von Stroheim never attempted what von Furst does here: tamper with Gibby's plane in order to kill him. (The stunt players union would never allow such a thing today.) Things don't work out as planned, as Woody takes the doomed plane up instead. Red, figuring out who was behind the crash, hogties von Furst in the hangar until he can be dealt with later. (The Director's Guild would never allow this today, either.) 

It's here The Lost Squadron takes on a radically different tone in its final nerve-wracking 20 minutes, part-horror, part proto-noir, climaxing when Gibby, Red, and Fritz decide what to do after von Furst is shot by... Well, it isn't clear who did it; each takes the blame for their own reasons. But while Red is the likely culprit, it's Gibby who makes the ultimate sacrifice, leading to a completely out-of-left-field finale that you'll find either moving or unintentionally hilarious. But as far as I'm concerned, the characters of The Lost Squadron went through enough hell to earn a little heaven.

Well, if that's the way you feel about it...

Best pre-code moment of The Lost Squadron: Gibby goes up alongside Woody to warn him into landing the tampered plane. Woody responds by playfully giving him the finger. Maybe if he had said "Thank you," the movie would have turned a profit.

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