Surprisingly incoherent and boring

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

"A Philosophizing Irish Priest Is My Co-Pilot". One of the silliest war movies ever. A dumb old film about pilots who can hardly wait to have their behinds blown to bits and strewn across the Asian sky. They all remind me of a similar side-character in "Black Adder 4". Watching this film, I realized just how much I was missing having some level-headed characters with a down-to-earth approach to flying missions, such as in Heller's "Catch-22" (one of the best books ever written, by the way). These dopes actually change their mind about going back home and decide to continue fighting just because some Jap taunted them over the radio! Are these people grown-ups or embryos? About as realistic as the lyrics in "I Am The Walrus". The dialogues are stiff and dull, and often supremely silly. Silly to the extent that some of the exchanges could have been written by none other than Ed Wood himself; an example would be the conversation between the hero and his girl. The Japanese pilots are nearly always shown grinning devilishly, and their flying skills are always poor - except for a character called Tokyo Joe, who taunts his American opponents with a series of comic-book-like phrases, all of which end with "yank". Then there is the wise old Irish priest, a walking movie cliché, with an unrivaled reservoir of "hope-inspiring" speeches. "Yes... More dreams have been brought about by prayer than this world dreams of", he says at the end, and I will leave that uncommented. (No, I won't: so what he is implying is that people must be constantly praying for natural disasters, wars, disease and misery.) Another unintentionally amusing Irish moment is when our hero pours out some of his deeper thoughts to the priest and the priest's first reaction is to say "You're confused." And yet another silly scene, involving our blessed Irishman of the cloth, is when he gives one of his grandiose speeches to our hero in a plane about belief in God, and the weather suddenly improves. Oh, yes; there's also the sausage-shaped dog who sniffs out the Japs from ten miles.

This movie helped the P40 to become my favorite warplane of all time. They used E models for the filming of this movie which would have been correct for mid-1942. The enemy planes incorrectly referred to as Zeroes were actually AT6 Texans which were almost always used in other movies as well. The flying scenes were filmed at Luke Air Force base in Arizona. The Flying Tigers fought against the Japanese Air Force which flew Ki-43 'Oscars'. The Imperial Navy pilots flew the Zero and were not involved in that conflict. The other thing that you see written often about the Flying Tigers is that they were fighting the Japanese "years before" Pearl Harbor. The truth is only Chenault was in China in the '30's helping out. The ground crews, pilots, and planes were not in place until November of 1941. Their first combat mission occurred on December 20, 13 days AFTER Pearl Harbor. Dennis Morgan, Alan Hale, & Richard Loo play their characters very well. Some people today are offended by all of the racial slurs that are uttered. But when this movie was made in 1945, the Japanese were the hated villains. The soldier's dilemma of taking lives as their duty versus what the 10 commandments says is dealt with tastefully in this movie. It's an enjoyable film that represents movies of the 1940's well.

Here in Atlanta we mourn the death Monday, February 27th of General Robert L. Scott, ace and author of the book from which this classic movie was made. Scott owed $25,00 in back taxes after publishing his (most successful) book in the Summer of 1943 - during the height of WW II. His publisher advanced the tax money to him and gave him another assignment. The result: "Damned to Glory". Other books include "Runway to the Sun", Look of the Eagle", Tiger in the Sky and another classic IMHO: "Chennault of China". They don't make 'em - men and movies - like this any more. Scott to his last days was a fixture at the renowned Museum of Avation in Warner Robins, GA. He was always very helpful and full of stories with which to inform and regale the museum patrons. He will be sorely missed. Get the movie and the book and savor them like old wine.

This film was made as WWII was ending. The main interest in it was the exciting aerial photography used in it. For a propaganda film, "God Is My Co-Pilot" presents one aspect of the conflict in the Far East. It's a story about bravery and courage as the young pilots of The Flying Tigers fought the conflict.The story of a war hero, Colonel Robert Scott, is at the center of the film. Col. Scott knew no fear as he took to the air. His comrades, the other pilots of the squadron, admired him deeply as he set a clear example about how to serve his country unselfishly. The air combats shown in the film must have been amazing to the audiences of the time in which the movie was released.Robert Flarey directed a film that made those young aces heroes in what would become the powerful might of the Air Force in future conflicts. Dennis Morgan was perfect as Col. Scott, the man who knew no fear. Raymond Massey plays General Chennault. Alan Hale appears as the friendly priest Big Mike. Some other familiar faces in the cast, Dane Clark, Mark Stevens, Craig Stevens, and other.The only thing with the print recently shown by TCM looks as though the film was re-dubbed as the dialog doesn't match the lip movements of the actors in the film.