Only Angels Have Wings

"Only Angels Have Wings" is also a song by Renaissance

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. While somewhat contrived in its plot twists, it is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.

The tone of this film inspired the 1983 television series Tales of the Gold Monkey.

Plot

Grant plays Geoff Carter, pilot and manager of a small air service carrying mail from the port town of Barranca (short for Barrancabermeja) in Colombia over the Andes. Arthur is Bonnie Lee, a piano-playing entertainer who becomes infatuated with Carter, despite his fatalistic attitude toward the dangers of flying, and stays on in Barranca (not at Carter's invitation, as he insists on telling her). The situation is complicated by the arrival of Bat Kilgallen (Richard Barthelmess) and his wife Judy (Rita Hayworth). Kilgallen is a pilot shunned by other fliers because he once bailed out of a plane, allowing his mechanic (the brother of Kid Dabb (Thomas Mitchell), Carter's best friend) to be killed in the resulting crash. Judy is Carter's former lover.

Quotes

*Carter (referring to a pilot who has just been killed in a crash): Who's Joe?
*Bonnie: I'm hard to get, Geoff. All you have to do is ask me.
*Geoff: Got a match?
Bonnie: Say, don't you ever have any?
Geoff: No - don't believe in laying in a supply of anything.
[she hands him a match]
Geoff: Thanks.
Bonnie: Matches, marbles, money or women, huh?
Geoff: That's right.
Bonnie: No looking ahead; no tomorrows; just today.
Geoff: That's right.