A Fall from the Clouds

An American doughboy, stationed in France during the Great War, goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines and becomes a hero.

Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.

As the Great War breaks out in Europe, English brothers Roy and Monte enlist in the Royal Flying Corps to fight for king and country, while their Oxford College friend Karl is ordered back to Germany. As a love triangle develops involving Monte, Roy, and Roy's girlfriend, Helen, the brothers' disparate personalities, and Monte's cowardice in the face of war soon threaten to compromise a top-secret bombing mission over German territory.

During World War I, a group of British miners are recruited to tunnel underneath no man's land and set bombs from below the German front in hopes of breaking the deadly stalemate of the Battle of Messines.

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.