Anyone assuming this film is about World War I aviation will be seriously disappointed. More than half the film is about Thad Walker (Tab Hunter) who deserts from the Lafayette Escadrille to be with his French girl friend. The only footage of a dogfight is almost at the end of the film and lasts about three minutes. Walker improbably is forgiven for his desertion and gets a commission (!) in the U.S. Army Air Corps. The film overlooks the little detail that while he was with his girl friend the other pilots were all undergoing training; no mention of how Walker learned to fly a plane during his desertion, though the film may have skipped over a time period for this to happen. The movie ends on a note so implausible that it fools no one, and issue other reviewers have noted was due to the studio putting in an ending that differed from William Wellman's version (he quit). I am in sympathy with Wellman who after all directed the Academy award-winning "Wings." "Lafayette Escadrille" is NOT the film Wellman really wanted to make, done in by a mediocre script and a low budget.

***CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD***This film is a depiction of American Flyers flying for the French in World War I. Tab Hunter joins Clint Eastwood and David Jansen in their early roles. Eastwood has very few lines if he speaks at all in this film. The film is very silly to be a Wellman film. Tab Hunter goes to fly for the French after he's caught stealing cars in his neighborhood and damn near kills a man in doing so. So after a tense confrontation with his father, Hunter hops of a slow boat to France where he nor any other member of his group can speak a word of French. Somehow, Hunter get's mixed up with a French Girl and it's obvious that he has his mind on her throughout most of this film. Hunter then is imprisoned for striking his drill instructor. So to get him out, his buddies start a ruckus to distract the guards and they get him out to flee to the big city to hide with his girl. After pleading with an officer to get him back in the air after screwing up so many times, Hunter get's back in the war and shoots down a few German planes and then wins over his girl. That's about all to expect from this movie. Leonard Rosenman's score is very good and William Clothier cinematography isn't bad but that really all this film had going for it. Don't let the cover art fool you because it's meant to make this film look more interesting than it really is. **1/2 out of ****

A project very close to director William Wellman's heart, this semi-autobiographical account of his escapades in the title organization during WWI only partly succeeds. Hunter is a shiftless and troublesome youth who, after stealing a car and causing an accident, decides to enlist in a French air corp which allows American men to wear French uniforms and fight the war against Germany (the U.S. not having entered the war at this point.) On the sea voyage to France, Hunter meets up with older man Janssen and young, eager enlistees Hover and Wellman Jr (playing his own father.) They've scarcely downed their first glass of beer in a cafe when Hunter falls under the spell of misty-eyed French girl Choureau. He disappears with her for ten days, only resurfacing in time for his adventures in the Escadrille. The men are shown training for their flight careers in a comic, credibility-straining way with a bumbling Drillmaster barely able to communicate with them. Eventually, they take to the air and help the cause, though Hunter (due to his obsessive love for Choreau) runs into more trouble than he was in to begin with! Here the film becomes less about the Lafayette Escadrille and more about the troubled and contrived affairs of the young lovers. The films strengths lie in the cheerful, fraternity-like interactions of the men (even if narrator Wellman dwells on each one in the beginning, denoting their ultimate fate before the viewers have even met them), many of whom are played by actors who were just on the verge of greater things. It's interesting to see men like Halsey, Hutchins, Laughlin and especially Eastwood in these roles, though their lack of screen time ultimately becomes a bit of a frustration because their fame lends their smallish roles more weight than they were probably meant to have. Another big plus is gloriously handsome and beaming Hunter, though his looks are altered part way through the film. His charm is utilized throughout to help smooth over his character's selfish and foolish edges. It's also nice to get a glimpse into this little-known aspect of WWI and Wellman clearly wanted to bring various remembrances and details of his experience to the film. What doesn't work is the unevenness in tone of the film. It sways wildly from slapstick comedy to soapy romance to documentary to action. The title suggests a survey of the air corp along with action and aerial sequences (which do occur), yet the film turns into a "Let's Play House" love story complete with unintelligible murmurings from Choreau and a loopy, boozing, one-armed hotelier. This division of focus does more against the film than for it. Though he did manage to carve out a minor Hollywood career for himself, it should be noted that Wellman Jr, though amiable, gives a very stiff, flat performance as his father (though it couldn't have been easy to step into the role and be directed by Wellman Sr!) Hunter is beautiful and gives a committed performance. Janssen doesn't get to do a lot more than smart off and the rest of the men don't appear all that much (but they do show off their attractive physiques occasionally.) There is a (non-PC by today's standards) hilarious little part played by Nakamura as the men's human alarm clock and coffee pourer. In all, an okay film that could have been much better if the focus had remained where it belonged, which is on the fighting men of the Lafayette Escadrille. Studio tampering led to a happier ending for Hunter's character than was intended, much to Wellman's dismay.

There isn't much here more than a great director's swan song. Tab Hunter's acting is pretty good (!?) but not enough to lift the drab GI-in-love-with-a-French-woman theme. Most of the flying scenes don't match the ones from the director's 30s films. If you're interested in the director's career, don't skip this, you'll enjoy the themes and the depiction of air combat. Also Leonard Rosenman's score is a stand-out. But if you're not a Wellman fan you won't remember this a month after you've seen it. Wellman is one of the great American directors; see everything else and watch for the evidence of his skills that are sadly not to be found here.