Lafayette Escadrille (1958)

Thad Walker, a spoiled, rich kid from Boston, who had gotten in serious trouble with the law, fled to France to join the French Foreign Legion in World War I. In Paris, with companions, “Duke” Sinclair, Dave Putnam, Tom Hitchcock and Bill Wellman, the boys stop at a bar and learn of the recent formation of the Lafayette Escadrille made up of American volunteer pilots who fly for France. The group of expatriates join up and learn to fly on training aircraft before becoming combat pilots.

While off duty, Walker meets and falls in love with Renée Beaulieu, a common streetwalker with some sensitivity; she quits the oldest profession and takes a job, reforming for her American lover’s sake. Walker’s father beat him, and he resents any kind of authority. When a strutting, arrogant French officer, irritated by the young man’s inability to understand commands in French, strikes him, he knocks the officer to the ground, a very serious offense. Before he can be jailed, his pals smuggle Walker out of camp.