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A high-flying feat of adventure filmmaking and a testament to the audacious, spare-no-expense vision of Howard Hughes, this landmark aviation epic remains exhilarating both for its daredevil aerial sequences and its nervy pre-Code punch. With the onset of World War I, two British brothers recruited into the Royal Flying Corps (Ben Lyon and James Hall) find their bond tested by their differing attitudes toward the war and their love for the same woman (Jean Harlow in her bombshell breakthrough). The product of a notoriously long and dangerous production that resulted in the deaths of multiple crew members, Hell’s Angels broke new technical ground, making use of early sound and color technologies, and capturing some of the most thrilling dogfight scenes ever filmed.

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Film Info
United States
1930
131 minutes
Black and White/Color
1.37:1, 1.54:1
English
Spine #1288

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration of the Magnascope road-show version of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
New interview with Robert Legato, the visual-effects supervisor for the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, on the groundbreaking aerial visuals of Hell’s Angels
New interview with critic Farran Smith Nehme about actor Jean Harlow
Outtakes from the film, with commentary by Harlow biographer David Stenn
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author and journalist Fred Kaplan

New cover by Sam Hadley

Always thought it was odd this never came from KLSC or Arrow et al, guess it’s because Criterion’s been squatting on it!

is this licensed from MGM?

It was Universal for the DVD, don’t know if that’s changed

cool, I honestly know little about this and see it's listed as United Artists on Wikipedia. people talking about air fights in a 1930 movie sound wild though, I'm intrigued!

It’s a really good film. James Whale of Frankenstein fame directed the dialogue scenes and he really brings the muscle. If Criterion still did extras an appreciation of him should have popped up on this.

Nice. I was speculating about this joining the collection at the end of last year when Scarface was released.

For discussion about Magnascope, see multiple posts in this thread:
https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... ay.386817/

ryannichols7 wrote: Mon Aug 18, 2025 6:15 pm cool, I honestly know little about this and see it's listed as United Artists on Wikipedia. people talking about air fights in a 1930 movie sound wild though, I'm intrigued!

The handful of films Hughes personally owned were sold to Universal in the 70s - Hell's Angels, Scarface, The Conqueror, and Jet Pilot. First two originally UA releases, second two were RKO.

And most pre-1952 United Artists reverted to producers or fell into the public domain. Current MGM only owns a few actual UA films from before that time like Red River and Hallelujah I'm a Bum (most of their pre-1952 holdings are from International Pictures or Eagle-Lion).

Caught this on Prime; remarkable film.

Some of the more domestic scenes are a tad melodramatic for my tastes, but the two big air battle set pieces are absolute tours de force, several decades ahead of their time. I'll pick this up in the next B&N sale.

Watched last night, and was eager to dig into the Extras this morning. Pretty dissapointed in the extras, 1 about Jean Harlow, 1 about mostly recreating HA for The Aviator, and some outtakes. Was hoping for an explanation on how they did the Color scenes, or just more general Making-Of, that gets into the troubles (deaths), and impact of Sound (they get into this a big in the Harlow Extra), or even something about the restoration(s?). For a long unavailable movie, seems like a lot was missed here.