Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Absolutely brilliant

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This is my first review so I am going to caution against seeing a SPOILER since I am not real sure what might or might not be one. I will try to avoid intentional spoilers though. This is more of a history lesson than a movie review but, you have to understand the former to appreciate the latter. My point is that the movie is titled "Lafayette Escadrille." If you don't know what that is and what it means likely, you still won't after watching this film, and that's a shame because there is a real, very dramatic story to tell here. Sadly, this film fails miserably in doing so. Worse, it gives a pretty miserable impression of that organization and its members by focusing on a horrible example of (a fictional) one. The "Lafayette Escadrille"(French for "squadron") was a squadron of American volunteer fliers for France in WWI before America entered that conflict. Not to be confused with the "Lafayette Flying Corps" which referred to all Americans flying in different French squadrons, the L. Escarille only had 38 American pilots during it's French service(The "Valiant 38"). It was an elite unit made up of remarkable young men. They risked losing their US Citizenship, flew in flimsy, highly flammable aircraft with NO parachutes. Their planes were unheated and open to 100+ mph wind streams in freezing temperatures, their engines ejected a constant stream of castor oil that they breathed and which coated their faces and planes in a highly flammable glaze, there was no oxygen for higher altitude flying. Imagine spending up to 2 hours in such conditions and then fighting for your life with very skilled enemies in aircraft as good or better than your own. When just flying took an act of courage, fighting in these machines took a special kind of courage above and beyond the norm. Those are the men represented by the title of this film. But, the main character hardly appears before it's clear he suffers from cowardice. He soon goes down and becomes a deserter and takes up residence with a French woman. Their relationship and this man as a coward hiding out make up the bulk of the film. Finally, shame overcomes him and he makes his return. I won't reveal the details of that event but suffice it to say, that wraps up the film.So in summary, this film with the title of heroes is really about a coward, a deserter and his romance with a French girl. Hardly a fitting testament to the "Valiant 38." It may be an "entertaining film" with creditable performances by its cast members but, I am so put off by it I cannot recommend it. I watched it once decades ago and I have not nor will I ever watch it again.

The Lafayette Escadrille was a group of young Americans who in 1914 could not wait for time and circumstance to bring America into World War I on the Allied side. They enlisted in the French army and were trained as aviators. One of those young man was a spirited rebellious young man named William Wellman.In fact Wellman is played here briefly by his actor/son William Wellman Jr. in what was William Wellman's swan song to films. It's all together fitting and proper that Wellman's last film be about the thing he loved even more than motion pictures, aviation.Bill Wellman made a lot of classic films and many like The High And The Mighty, Men With Wings, I Wanted Wings, Island In the Sky had to do with aviation. What's unusual about Lafayette Escadrille is that it did not concentrate on the war and the aerial combat. Instead it's coming of age story of a young man who enlists in the Lafayette Escadrille for all the wrong reasons.Tab Hunter plays a young juvenile delinquent named Thad Walker who to get away from home enlists in the Escadrille. He's there and still doesn't take to discipline. He does however take to Etchika Choureau and it's the call of the hormones rather than the call to the colors that Hunter responds to.Some of the comic moments are with the language difficulties as the French officers and non-coms try to drill the young Americans with neither understanding a word. But when Hunter hits Marcel Dalio and then breaks stockade to be with Choureau, he's down as a deserter.Two things immediately struck me about the film. The first is that in his final film the conservative William Wellman decide to test the almighty Code. Hunter can't get any legitimate work while AWOL if such a term exists in the French military. He has to go to work for French madam Veola Vonn as an escort, she's connected enough to provide some limited protection. Had Lafayette Escadrille been made a decade and a half later, you would have seen Hunter as a most explicit male escort for both sexes. Still it was a daring enough idea for 1958.The second is I'm wondering who back in the day in the Lafayette Escadrille was Wellman's inspiration for the story. It is in fact his original story that we're seeing. We do know that the happy ending that the film has is not the one Wellman wanted. But I guess you couldn't bend the Code too much. Among other treats in store in Lafayette Escadrille is a nice supporting cast of young players who would be making their marks soon enough as the members of the Escadrille. Tom Laughlin, Will Hutchins, David Janssen, and down the cast even further are James Garner and Clint Eastwood. Though it's not the film Wellman wanted, it's still a nice tribute to his comrades in the Lafayette Escadrille. Good thing that one of them lived and lived long enough to tell their tale.

I saw this movie while stationed on the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CVA42 sailing in the Mediterranean sea in 1959. It's true that it was more a romantic than an action movie. However, at the time I was thinking more about meeting women than flying airplanes, and I was completely caught up in the engrossing love story. It was a movie that I walked out of on air, and couldn't get out of my mind for months! My visits to Med ports such as Cannes and Nice, France, Majorca and Barcelona, Spain were totally changed as I looked for, and eventually found, a real-life Renee (although in Majorca not France).The true action movie of this story has now been made in the form of "Flyboys", which I just saw and liked also. The story had a bit of the romance in it, with a very appealing French girl as well, but told much more of the flying, and heroic side, of the story. Aside from some hooky computer effects, this was a great flying tale, appealing equally to the flier and action fan in me.Both are highly recommended.

This movie is another one on my List of Movies Not To Bother With. Saw it 40 years ago as an adolescent, stayed up late to do so, was very annoyed to find that it was about 95% romance,4% everything else, 1% history if that. It's what I call a bait and switch movie, one with an interesting title, the actual movie is a scam. This is a subject which deserves a good cinematic treatment, this movie is almost an insult to those who served. The actual members of the Lafayette Escadrille were not on the run from the law nor were they the products of abusive homes, they were in reality idealists who wanted to do something to help France. And I suspect many of them came from a more upper class background than Tab Hunter's character. Flying school is not for the smart alecks and the know it alls, an individual such as the one portrayed here wouldn't have lasted two days, it would have either been the stockade or the infantry. Discipline in the French Army was often rather fierce. In short, another Hollywierd version of an historical episode that deserves proper treatment.