Hell's Angels (1930) outtakes with commentary by David Stenn

Hello, I'm David Stenn, author of "Bombshell: The Life  and Death of Jean Harlow" and proud member of the board of advisers of the UCLA Film & Television  Archive and I am thrilled and excited to give you a little commentary on this incredible footage,  "Hell's Angels" outtakes. We don't know where these came from. We don't know why they were saved.  They're missing their track. They clearly are tracked based on the slate. Here we have John  Darrow and James Hall. James Hall is one of the stars of the film. John Darrow was one of the  supporting players and actually retired pretty shortly after this to become a very successful  Hollywood agent and the life partner of director Charles Walters who directed "Easter Parade" with  Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, "High Society" with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and "Torch  Song" with Joan Crawford. Another scene again would have been sound of Ben Lyon and James Hall and  their fellow fighter pilots. Howard Hughes, the director, was obsessed with aviation, started this  film as a silent film at age 23. People laughed at him and thought this was a folly of his. The Caddo  Company at the top right of the slates was his company based on where the money came from  in his family in Caddo, Louisiana. Here's Ben Lyon one of the male stars of the film preparing  for a take. Ben Lyon would later take credit for discovering and signing Norma Jean Dougherty to Fox in 1946 and selecting her new name Marilyn Monroe. And these are the two male stars of the film, Lyon and Hall. Now here we have what is the gold of this discovery. Jean Harlow, 18 years old, her first leading role. She has no experience, she is terrified. The nominal director of the film, James Whale, dislikes her intensely and offers her no help. But, as you can see, Whale might dislike her,  but for the camera, this is love at first sight and a star is born. She would become very famous  from this film. This is another shot of her and you can see her preparing, clearing her throat, just amazing you never get something like this from any 1930 film and of course this was shot in late 1929 when sound was new, so this is probably why they're taking so long for the clapboard as the syncing was difficult. And she just looks nervous, but she also looks great. This is the scene  where Harlow and Ben Lyon have their seduction. This is an 11 second kiss, which, again, Hughes was  pushing the envelope as he would do later with Jane Russell in "The Outlaw," but Ben Lyon seems  to be enjoying himself you'll see when he stops there he is. This is a good day at work. And this is another just rare scene of the group together. I wish we knew why these were saved. I have a feeling it was accidental, and so fortunate because, as I said before, you do not see rushes from films of this era. They just don't survive. There was no reason to keep the film and film was expensive,  but of course Hughes spent several million dollars on this movie and then promoted it as being a  blockbuster, but it ended up losing money. And this is the gold. There he is, Howard Hughes, age  24, perhaps displaying his OCD by rearranging a scarf on the couch while Jean Harlow watches. This  is the earliest footage of Howard Hughes known to survive and it is the only footage of Hughes  and Harlow together and even though it's just really a shot that's extended, historically it's  just major and when I first saw this I really did almost fall out of my chair. So that's it.  Thanks so much for watching. And thank you to the UCLA Film & Television Archive for saving  and preserving yet another treasure. I'm David Stenn.