Back from the Front

In a kaleidoscope of flapper-era jitters and propeller envy, Back from the Front stitches a winking parody of the Great War’s hollow heroism. Bobby, a self-deprecating air-service clerk who has never taxied beyond the hangar, is air-difted into the tuxedo of a fabled flying ace slated to dazzle a suburban soirée. The mansion’s manicured lawns echo with jazz clarinets and the clink of prohibition cocktails; its host, a nouveau-riche industrialist, has just acquired a gleaming Curtiss Jenny and expects the guest of honor to pirouette across the dusk sky. Farce ignites when Bobby’s paper-thin bravado meets the oil-stained reality of ignition switches, magneto coughs, and a fuselage wired to wobble like a drunk metronome. The camera pirouettes through slapstick dogfights with gravity, flirtatious breezes lift coquettish hems, and a constellation of flappers, aviators, and confidence men collide in mid-air punchlines. By the time the dusk-pink sky fades to indigo, the film has taxied from mock-epic to tender self-reckoning: the coward discovers that flight is less about altitude than about the courage to land, confess, and still walk away with the girl and a crooked grin.