Thanks for the memories!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

If you're going to watch this, do so for the technicolor flying action. The plot is terrible. Our star is James Cagney as Brian McLean. He introduces himself as a Canadian bush pilot who is lying about the other local pilots and undercutting their prices to get all of the local jobs. Also the instant he lands and sees Emily (Brenda Marshall) he decides to make up stories about Johnny her lover who she plans to marry, and take her away from him. He gets hit by his own helicopter blade. She nurses him to health. Johnny, in dangerous weather conditions, flies a doctor in and saves him. These two and another guy make a bunch of money. Then Brian marries and immediately leaves Emily. He says he needed to do that to stop Brian from marrying her and prevent him from wasting all of his money on her (really). They end up in the Canadian air force. He is all about being a hotshot with his intuitive skills. He is a trainer. He takes a pilot up to show him how it's done. He crashes, nearly kills the guy and totals the plane. For this he is court martialed and forced to leave the military. So he mopes around town getting drunk and complaining about it. He get's the bright idea of dive bombing a celebration where the air force is giving other pilots their wings with a friend and the friend gets killed. He is rather intuitive and reckless. But in the end he sneaks back into the air force. He flies with a group of unarmed planes to England. A German plane shows up. He flies his plane and himself into the German plane. They both crash. The other planes are saved. He is a hero. The end. Stupid.

A rather slow starts leads in to an interesting film.In comparison to his other films, James Cagney is rather subdued here; his inability to follow through on instructions with his attitude is par for him, but still he gives another wonderful performance.He and Dennis Morgan vie for flying business and when Cagney is injured, he is aided by Brenda Marshall, the former Mrs. William Holden. Marshall plays the fiancé of Morgan who is taken by Cagney and she goes ahead and marries him. Of course, Cagney leaves her a day after the wedding. He knew that she wasn't right for Morgan and the only way he saw to convey this was to marry her.The aerial flight scenes are excellent and Cagney just can't seem to stay out of trouble with the RAF, which leads to his dismissal. Movies being the way they are, he is given the opportunity, under the false pretenses that he created, to redeem himself.The film is a definite tribute to all flyers, not just the RAF. It is well done.

Captains of the Clouds (1943) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely exciting actioneer from Warner about a bush pilot (James Cagney) who pisses everyone off and then joins the Canadian Air Force to train pilots for battle in WW2. Top-notch acting, incredibly flight sequences and an all around good story makes this a wonderful little gem that really sticks out from the various war films produced in this era. I've had the chance to see this movie countless times over the years but kept pushing it back and I'm really kicking myself for doing that. The love triangle between Cagney, Dennis Morgan and Brenda Marshall is very well handled and doesn't come off simply as formula melodrama. This mixes in well when we hit the action stuff and the reasoning behind the constant battle between Cagney and Morgan. The entire cast does a great job in their roles and this includes the three leads as well as Alan Hale and George Tobias. The flight sequences are incredibly impressive and the ending is packed with intense action. The Technicolor (Cagney's first) also benefits the film greatly with all the beautiful locations and it really brings the blues out of the skies. The film was certainly made to be patriotic and it pulls that off extremely well with the ending.

Okay, I'll admit that this film is NOT Shakespeare! In fact, at times the plot is VERY VERY formulaic and silly but somehow the overall package is still quite entertaining.Jimmy Cagney is the main lead of the film, though it actually has an ensemble cast consisting of Dennis Morgan and other Warner Brothers regulars. And unfortunately, the worst part of this film is Cagney's character, as he plays essentially the exact same character he played in so many Warner films. You know,...the brash and obnoxious guy who seems greatly in need of a comeuppance (such as in THE FIGHTING 69th and MANY other films). It's too bad, as the rest of the plot is very very good and this is a wonderful propaganda film meant to bolster support for the war. In fact, the more I think about it, Cagney's character and how it was written so derivatively is the only real problem in the film. It's a shame really, as apart from this the acting is excellent and the Technicolor scenes of the Canadian wilderness and flying are beautiful.