Hell's Angels

Hell's Angels (1930) is Howard Hughes's WWI aviation epic you can watch online on iFILM. Brothers Roy and Monte Rutledge volunteer for the Royal Flying Corps straight out of Oxford — and their contrasting ideas of courage and cowardice get tested at altitude, where mistakes are final.

Hughes spent three years and roughly $3.8 million making the film, an almost incomprehensible sum in 1930. The aerial sequences used more than a hundred pilots flying actual First World War aircraft; several men died during production. Jean Harlow, playing the scheming Helen, became a household name on the strength of this single role.

The film started as a silent and had to be substantially reshot when sound arrived — Hughes refused to release something behind the times. The result is a production where obsession and industrial scale collide in ways that still register on screen. Watch Hell's Angels (1930) online on iFILM.