A Dash Through the Clouds

"A Dash Through the Clouds" was a very unusual in that it show extensive footage of an early airplane (a Wright or Curtis Flyer--I am not sure which). But even more importantly, much of the film involves the plane and it's an integral part of the film.

Arthur and Martha (Mabel Normand) go out to see an airplane at the local airport. There, Martha is quite taken with the aviator--and Arthur isn't pleased. However, Arthur himself is a bit of a playboy himself--as in the next scene he goes on a business trip and makes eyes at a pretty lady--and soon a whole bunch of Mexican bandits give chase. So, it's up to Martha and her new pilot friend to come to the rescue.

While interesting, this isn't a particularly funny film--which is a problem since it's supposed to be a comedy. It's more of interest to film historians and folks interested in early aviation.

By the way, the film says Arthur is a 'Tutti-Frutti Salesman'--what's that?!

This short feature is interesting and pretty good, with touches of drama and humor. The story is all right, but what's particularly interesting is to see the use of an airplane, with footage of it actually flying, as part of the story. It also features a quite youthful Mabel Normand as the female lead.

Most of the story consists of Normand and her beau differing in their feelings about flying in the airplane. This is not the earliest footage of an airplane in flight, but it has to be one of the earlier uses of it along with actors as part of a story. In any event, the old biplane (not old at the time, of course) is one of the stars of the picture, and much of the photography of it in flight looks quite good.

The story is slight, but has enough in combination with the movie's other features to make it an interesting film overall.

This is another case of the nascent movie industry cashing in on the upsurge of 'bright young things' doing daring stunts. Sennett advertised this picture as showcasing the dare-devilry of Mabel Normand (every studio had to have its own 'Perilous Pauline'). Mack stated that the film showed a modern aircraft, light years in advance of the original Wright Brothers' string-bag of not many years earlier. Well, I don't know, this craft looks every bit a string-bag as the Wright death-kite.

The story revolves around Tutti-Fruitti salesman, Arthur, who is peddling his wares in the 'Mexican Quarter'. His wife is Josephine, the sweet Mabel Normand, and what a strange couple they make – the young and slim Mabel, and the chubby, aging Fred Mace. Naturally, Mabel has all the attributes of a young, healthy lass, and pretty soon falls for dashing flying ace, Slim the Aviator. At the airfield Mabel soon persuades Slim to take her for a flight. The Keystone Girl looks very relaxed as the old string-bag takes off, with the pair precariously perched on skimpy seats, with the vicious looking prop blades spinning behind them. Chubby, of course, chases them down the airfield, though god knows what he thought he was going to do! All hell breaks loose when Mabel lands, but later, when Chubby leaves for the Mexican quarter, Mabel returns to the airfield. There Slim lets Mabel operate the controls on the ground, which she does in the manner of a hyperactive child (why would anyone let a scatter-brain like Mabel Normand mess with an aircraft's controls?).

Meanwhile, out in the Mexican Quarter, Chubby is in trouble with the locals, as he's been carousing with a Mexican woman. One Mexican lad (Jack Pickford) runs to Mabel's house and warns her that the Mexicanos are out to get Chubby. Consequently, Mabel grabs two 45 caliber pistols and makes for the airfield. There Mabel dangerously waves the guns about, as she explains the situation to Slim. Once in the air, and above their adversaries, Mabel starts to loose off a few rounds. The Mexicans run off, and Chubby is saved. Hurrah! However, fickle Mabel refuses to have any more to do with her sad sack husband and flies off into the sunset with Slim.

Things to note about this film: The picture was made on Biograph's second trip to California, with Mack Sennett as director. That young scamp Jack Pickford has a part in the film, although he does not have an opportunity to fondle luscious Mabel, as he did in 'What the Doctor Ordered'. The pair remained good friends in real life, and both were later at Goldwyn studios, although Jack was often away on location (Mabel did not need exotic locations, just a park, a policeman and herself).

The aging Kate Bruce, matron and moral guardian to the Biograph girls, appears as an old Mexican woman in this picture. Of Lilian Gish she said, 'This girl is so innocent and young, she needs protecting from the world'. Mabel Normand needed no protection, though, as can be seen here, she could not handle a gun,and seems happy that she managed to fire the thing. The much-mooted idea, then, that Mabel accurately fired four slugs into Courtland Dines in 1924 is preposterous, as she could not hit a mountain at 50 feet, according to Mack Sennett (chain-gang escapee and chauffeur to Mabel, Horace Greer, was charged with the shooting.

The airfield sequences were filmed out at Playa del Rey, alongside the Los Angeles boarded racetrack. The track, visible in the film, only lasted around three years until it was burned down by the hobos sheltering underneath it. The Biograph studio was keen to play on the fact that Mabel was a daredevil, and flew in aircraft. There were also claims that Mabel was the first woman to gain a U.S. flying license and the first woman to be filmed in an aircraft. These honors, of course, go to screenwriter Harriet Quimby, who was also the first woman to fly the English Channel. Slim (Phillip Parmalee) was killed in a plane crash a month after this film was made, and Quimby died in a somewhat mysterious crash a month after that.

Aviation enthusiast Josephine (Mabel Normand) rescues her suitor, Chubby (Fred Mace), from an angry mob with the help of Slim (Philip Parmelee) and his airplane.

This film has the distinction of being somewhat of an aviation film as Mack Sennett employed the services of real life aviation pioneer, Philip Orin Parmelee (1887-1912), a pilot for the Wright Brothers. The film provided a means through which Parmelee is preserved, as he died in a crash not long after the making. In fact, he died before the film was even released.

This film is therefore historically important, because of Parmelee, but also the capture of aviation in general, which was very much in its infancy.

American Biograph is primarily remembered as the place where D.W. Griffith learned how to make dramatic films, but the company also served as the birthplace of Keystone. It was at Biograph that Mack Sennett began directing short comedies starring Mabel Normand, whose life and career would be so closely entwined with his own. Under the tutelage of Griffith, who had little interest in comedy, Sennett directed many one-reel shorts during what amounted to a cinematic apprenticeship. A Dash Through the Clouds was produced in the spring of 1912, a few months before the director and his crew left to set up their own comedy factory.

This short is very much like the early Keystone product. The plot is rudimentary and there aren't any gags as such, at least not the kind of gags found in the later Sennett efforts. Humor is found in the situation, the actors' expressions and gestures, and the frantic action of the finale. This particular film was devised largely to showcase that amazing new invention, the flying machine. It's strange to think that aviation itself was less than ten years old when this film was made, but easy to believe when you see the aircraft the actors ride in: the planes look like kites! They appear to be made of canvas, wire, and a few metal pipes. (Perhaps they were.) And yet an introductory title proudly informs the viewer that these planes represent technical perfection, and are "a far cry from the invention of Wilbur and Orville Wright." And perhaps they were!

At any rate, the story is a simple one. Mabel is being courted by an awkward fellow nicknamed 'Chubby.' He's played by Fred Mace, one of Sennett's early stars, in the sort of role Roscoe Arbuckle would take later on. (And Arbuckle, in my opinion, was a lot funnier and more charismatic than Mace.) Mabel obviously doesn't much care for Chubby, however, as she prefers Slim, the handsome young aviator. When Slim offers to take the couple up in his plane Mabel accepts the offer with enthusiasm, but Chubby refuses to go. Slim and Mabel happily take to the sky. As it turns out Chubby is a chewing-gum salesman, of all things. He goes to a Latino neighborhood to hand out free samples, and there he flirts with a young woman of the neighborhood. Her kinsmen are unhappy about this and a near-riot ensues, but Chubby is saved by that newfangled invention when Slim and Mabel land the plane nearby and rescue him from the angry mob.

The strongest impression a modern viewer takes from this short is the excitement people felt about flying in 1912. It's also clear that Mabel Normand, who was still young and fresh at this early stage of her career, was very much a live wire, a modern woman who embraced all that was new. She appears to be genuinely thrilled at the prospect of going up in one of those rickety planes, and it's clear from the way the take-off sequences were filmed that she really did so. Audiences of the time must have been thrilled, too. The racial clash that provides the film's climax is disconcerting, but our potential discomfort is somewhat undercut by the fact that the "Mexican" characters are plainly the familiar actors who appear in other Biograph shorts, wearing sombreros but otherwise making no effort at ethnic characterizations.

A Dash Through the Clouds is not especially funny, but it does provide vivid examples of the attitudes and interests prevalent in the period when it was made. The early planes are certainly fascinating to see, but there's a sad footnote to this short's production history that puts their touted "technical perfection" into perspective. Slim the aviator was played by a real-life pilot named Philip Parmalee. This movie marked Parmalee's only film appearance, for he was killed in a plane crash about three weeks before it premiered.