Only Angels Have Wings | Pirates vs. Pilots

Choose your crew! This film is part of our Pirates vs. Pilots weekend at the Union Cinema. Celebrate legendary adventures on the sea and in the sky!

At night in Barranca, a South American port jammed up against the Andes, a close-knit group of American mail pilots navigate the treacherous mountain fog. Cary Grant’s performance as laconic Geoff Carter reveals unexplored dimensions of his screen persona––stoic, harsh, emotionally guarded. Master director Howard Hawks distills weeks of narrative into twenty-four hours with remarkable economy, expressing through composition, objects, and gesture what lesser filmmakers would render with obvious sentiment. His technical virtuosity serves profound philosophical concerns: the integration of individuals into the group, the stoic denial of death, and the existential affirmation of identity against an indifferent universe—qualities that led Robin Wood to justifiably term the film “a completely achieved masterpiece.”

The Union Cinema is on the second floor of the UW-Milwaukee Student Union building.