Dive Bomber (film)

Dive Bomber (film)

Dive Bomber is a 1941 American propaganda film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Fred MacMurray. The film is notable for both its Technicolor photography of pre-World War II United States Navy aircraft and as a historical document of the U.S. in 1941, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, one of the best known World War II U.S. warships.

The film was the last of a collaboration between director Curtiz and actor Errol Flynn which began in 1935 and spanned 12 films. The cast also includes Fred MacMurray, on loan from Paramount Studios and Alexis Smith in her first credited screen performance. Flynn portrays a Harvard-educated doctor who is involved in heroic medical research on pilots, with MacMurray as the skeptical veteran aviator who gets swept up in the project. The plot is not historically accurate but, depicted in a near-documentary style, the film contains elements of true events that were involved in period aeromedical research, as well as real contemporary medical equipment.

The vivid cinematography prompted the tagline: The stunning spectacle of color rides with you into the heavens! Dive Bomber was nominated for an Oscar for Best Color Cinematography at the 14th Academy Awards in 1942. The movie is dedicated to the flight surgeons of the U.S. armed forces "in recognition of their heroic efforts to solve the immensely difficult problems of aviation medicine." The film was a big hit at the box office, rounding out as the 19th highest-grossing film of 1941.