**SPOILERS** Being released some two months before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor "A Yank in the R.A.F" is hampered by having the movie take sides with a combatant, the UK, at war with a neutral, at that time , country Hitler's Germany. Obviously made to drum up support for a US entrance into the war against Germany & Italy which was barley 10% in many US public opinion polls taken at that time among the American people. It was the air force and navy of the Japanese Imperial Empire by it's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that did more to turn US public opinion around to an entrance into the war then all the pro-war films coming out of Hollywood from 1939-41 combined.
The film itself is anything but a war, pro or con, movie with young wise-cracking American mail pilot Tim Baker, Tyrone Power, ending up in the UK just weeks after it together with it's far flung empire declared war against Germany. Tim seems to have absolutely no idea of what's going on between the allies, Britian & France, and the Germans and is only in London to rekindle his love affair with pretty and leggy all-American girl Carol Brown, Betty Grable, who somehow got herself a job as a chorus girl at London's Regency Club.
Tim it seems joins up with the R.A.F only to impress Carol and nothing else his feeling for or against Nazi Germany are left only to the viewers imagination. The only time Tim showed any antipathy against the Germans was after he lost a number of friends, fellow R.A.F fliers, in the war which is very understandable but had nothing at all to do with what Hitler's Germany stood for or did. Tim would have felt and acted the same way if he had joined the German Luftwaffe, if his girlfriend Carol decided to live in Germany instead of the UK, and lost a number of his German pilot buddies to the R.A.F.
The movie drags along for almost an hour until we finally get to see what's happening on the front lines with Tim and his fellow pilots shot down and landing in neutral Holland only to find out that it's been invaded by the German Army. Hiding in a windmill Tim together with Group Cmdr. John Morley, John Sutton, and Cpl. Baker, Donald Stuart, are confronted by this German officer Frederick Glermann who unknown to the three English-speaking pilots knows and speaks English. Acting like a real jerk as you could already see here, even before the US entrance into WWII, that with soldiers like Glermann in it's ranks Germany didn't stand a chance. Glermann instead of just waiting for the German troops coming to relieve him of the three R.A.F guys blows his cover by talking English to them showing Tim & Co. that he's on to them it's then that the three RAF men overpower and kill Glermann. All that Glermann had to do was to just keep his big mouth shut instead of trying to show the downed airmen what a great linguist he is and just let the German Army come to his rescue.
The movie also has a love triangle in it between Tim and his R.A.F commander John Morley vying for the hand of the drop dead gorgeous Carol Brown, incidentally this was the only movie where Tyrone Power and Betty Grable were in together.It seems like Tim was winning over Carol who then later found out that he was cheating on her by playing abound with one of the nurses who was looking after him. This new romance on Tims part happened after he was rescued, together with thousands of British servicemen, during the retreat from the French port city of Dunkirk.
The really best part of "A Yank in the R.A.F" comes in the last few minutes of the film with the battle and evacuation of Dunkirk. Thats where Tim finally shows what he's made of by, after being hospitalized for exposer, going back into action over the skies of German occupied France with his Spitfire taking the war back to the advancing Germans and shooting down a number of Luftwaffe Me-109 fighter planes. Tim ends up getting shot down himself and is missing in action until the movies final, and very unsurprising, ending sequence.
The film itself is anything but a war, pro or con, movie with young wise-cracking American mail pilot Tim Baker, Tyrone Power, ending up in the UK just weeks after it together with it's far flung empire declared war against Germany. Tim seems to have absolutely no idea of what's going on between the allies, Britian & France, and the Germans and is only in London to rekindle his love affair with pretty and leggy all-American girl Carol Brown, Betty Grable, who somehow got herself a job as a chorus girl at London's Regency Club.
Tim it seems joins up with the R.A.F only to impress Carol and nothing else his feeling for or against Nazi Germany are left only to the viewers imagination. The only time Tim showed any antipathy against the Germans was after he lost a number of friends, fellow R.A.F fliers, in the war which is very understandable but had nothing at all to do with what Hitler's Germany stood for or did. Tim would have felt and acted the same way if he had joined the German Luftwaffe, if his girlfriend Carol decided to live in Germany instead of the UK, and lost a number of his German pilot buddies to the R.A.F.
The movie drags along for almost an hour until we finally get to see what's happening on the front lines with Tim and his fellow pilots shot down and landing in neutral Holland only to find out that it's been invaded by the German Army. Hiding in a windmill Tim together with Group Cmdr. John Morley, John Sutton, and Cpl. Baker, Donald Stuart, are confronted by this German officer Frederick Glermann who unknown to the three English-speaking pilots knows and speaks English. Acting like a real jerk as you could already see here, even before the US entrance into WWII, that with soldiers like Glermann in it's ranks Germany didn't stand a chance. Glermann instead of just waiting for the German troops coming to relieve him of the three R.A.F guys blows his cover by talking English to them showing Tim & Co. that he's on to them it's then that the three RAF men overpower and kill Glermann. All that Glermann had to do was to just keep his big mouth shut instead of trying to show the downed airmen what a great linguist he is and just let the German Army come to his rescue.
The movie also has a love triangle in it between Tim and his R.A.F commander John Morley vying for the hand of the drop dead gorgeous Carol Brown, incidentally this was the only movie where Tyrone Power and Betty Grable were in together.It seems like Tim was winning over Carol who then later found out that he was cheating on her by playing abound with one of the nurses who was looking after him. This new romance on Tims part happened after he was rescued, together with thousands of British servicemen, during the retreat from the French port city of Dunkirk.
The really best part of "A Yank in the R.A.F" comes in the last few minutes of the film with the battle and evacuation of Dunkirk. Thats where Tim finally shows what he's made of by, after being hospitalized for exposer, going back into action over the skies of German occupied France with his Spitfire taking the war back to the advancing Germans and shooting down a number of Luftwaffe Me-109 fighter planes. Tim ends up getting shot down himself and is missing in action until the movies final, and very unsurprising, ending sequence.