Patrouille im Morgengrauen (1930)

Patrouille im Morgengrauen: Directed by Howard Hawks. With Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Neil Hamilton, Frank McHugh. World War I ace Dick Courtney derides the leadership of his superior officer, but Courtney is soon promoted to squadron commander and learns harsh lessons about sending subordinates to their deaths.

“Patrolman Jack Gavin is kicked off the force for being mean to everyone, and is replaced by Dick Gilbert. He appoints Our Gang Junior Officers, which means mostly get to play at it — Joe Cobb eats most of two bunches of bananas off an Italian fruit seller.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe settings of the series ranged from upper-class hotels to urban poor, but this is the first one I recall in which they are big-city poor kids, trying to play in a street filled with trash and traffic. The former vanishes quickly enough and the traffic goes away soon enough, and itu0026#39;s up to the kids to perform their gags. Itu0026#39;s always amazing to me how series director Robert McGowan got such naturalistic and funny performances out of kids, some of whom were less than two years old. Yet he did.”