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When I was the membership chairman of the old Great War Society, we asked our new enlistees what got them interested in the First World War. I was surprised at how many mentioned the 1938 film Dawn Patrol with Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, and David Niven.
The "show stopper" scene in that movie is not any of the combat sequences, but in the mess when the pilots drink a musical toast to the next man who dies. The lyrics used in the movie are an adaptation of a 19th-century poem out of India titled "The Revel" by Bartholomew Dowling. Here are the pilots singing their song:
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Errol Flynn Leads the Singing
We meet ’neath the sounding rafter,
And the walls around are bare;
They echo our peals of laughter
It seems that the dead are there.
So, stand to your glasses, steady!
This world is a world of lies.
Here's a toast to the dead already—
Hurrah for the next man who dies!
Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betray’d by the land we find,
The good men have gone before us,
And only the dull left most behind.
So, stand to your glasses, steady!
This world is a world of lies.
Then here's a toast to the dead already—
Hurrah for the next man who dies!
For information on John Monk Saunders, the screenwriter of The Dawn Patrol look here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw0507.htm
Very good song for aging motorcycle racers.
ReplyDeleteOnly saw the film once, but it sticks in your memory. It came to mind yesterday when I saw the row of ex-presidents attending the funeral of George HW BUsh. Such an occasion must be sobering for them, knowing that one day in the rapidly nearing future, it will be you. If there is an once of anything redeemable in Trump, this should, but likely will not, bring it out.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, there is also a Warner Brothers cartoon with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig playing the parts of Flynn and Niven.
Here, let me get your soapbox.
DeleteAm now 91, and I saw this film when I was eight or nine. Have never forgotten the song.
ReplyDeleteDitto at 95
DeleteI am now 101 and remember another verse. “We’ve looped in the purple twilight , we’ve dived in the gold of the dawn. Left a trail of smoke behind us, where some of our comrades have gone. So stand by your glasses. . .”
ReplyDeleteI have a tune as well, ukulele.
That's a tough verse for military aviators. God rest them and bless them for their service.
DeleteThe first (and only) time I visited Notre Dame in Paris, my eyes were drawn upwards, and I walked to the transept that way. Eventually my eyes dropped, and as I looked around I was astonished that the first plaque I saw was in English!
ReplyDelete"To the glory of God and the memory of the ONE MILLION DEAD of the British Empire who fell in the Great War or 1914 -1918..." The enormity that memorial reflects is with me still, 40+ years later. One of those was my great uncle I know, there may be others. As sabre rattling starts again, please remember the cost of all out war.