Murder in the Clouds

Murder in the Clouds (1934)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Bob "Three Star" Halsey (Lyle Talbot) is suspended due to his dangerous stunts as a pilot but he's given a second chance when the government needs to transport a scientist carrying explosive material. Three Star gets jumped in a bar so that he misses the flight and the bad guys blow the plane up in order to get the material. This film has some of the biggest plot holes I've ever seen but the screenplay tries to explain them, which leads to one of the dumbest stories ever. There's one terrific bar fight but that's about all this film has going for it as Talbot is pretty poor here as is the supporting players.

A Mickey Finn saves Lyle Talbot from "Murder in the Clouds" in this 1934 B movie from Warner Brothers. Talbot plays a daring pilot named 3-Star, who is capable of great stunts in the air. His boss chooses him to transport a secret weapon; but the situation is manipulated so that his harmless drink is spiked, and two other men go up in his place, one of whom is the brother of his girlfriend (Ann Dvorak).

Not very realistic but some really fun aerial scenes and a good cast. The film moves quickly and isn't overly long. I remember Lyle Talbot from his TV days when I was growing up, and I love seeing him in these early films. He lived to be 94 years old, which is pretty impressive. A long and prolific career.

Enjoyable.

Some pretty big names in this plain little story. Lyle talbot and ann dvorak in their prime. When a hotdogger pilot gets in a fight, his friends try to fill in for him by taking his plane route. But the boss is on to them. And when tragedy strikes, now they need to figure out who-dunnit. The pilot and his sister are caught up in something huge. It's all pretty bland and straight forward. No big mystery, no real detective work. There is some stunt work in the airplanes, so that was interesting. Directed by ross lederman. Odd.. as of today, his imdb entry shows his spouse was doris warner, but wikipedia dot org says his wife was june. Dvorak had been around since the silent films as a toddler, but she really hit her stride in the 1930s, with "three on a match", and "merrily we live".

I caught this on Turner Classic Movies USA, I think they ran it on a Saturday like a matinee. I really enjoyed it from the action WB type logo reminded me of the Looney Tunes WB intro from the same time as well as their Westerns! From the first scene you realize that although this is a shorter "B" film, it is not a poverty row film such as from a Monograph studio with cartoon pictures or painted city-scape title cards, this is using really cool real planes from the 1930s straight from the intro. For that reason alone plane buffs should really like this film as it takes you inside a Ford Tri-Motor and there are some great shots of late 1920s Travel Air Speedwings biplanes that really dance in the air! Those biplanes were the same models used in the legendary films Wings, and The Dawn Patrol! Trivia, the plane on the boss's desk is the next generation of passenger planes, I am guessing a Boeing 247 which looks a lot more modern than the Fords used in the film. Fans of Lyle Talbot from his days with low budget sci-fi like Plan 9 From Outer Space will be surprised, I thought he was really entertaining in a lead role here. Ann Dvorak is also a good leading lady even though this is a B film, so I can't see why people would hate this so much unless they are not old film fans. No stereotype black characters (like in a lot of B films) also helps the film maintain interest in the present day. According to it's Wikipedia page the aerial shots were done by aviation film cameraman pioneer Elmer Dyer and you can tell they are different than the standard models used in many B films back then. The wiki page also said footage from this film was spliced and used in two other films (so it must be decent). All in all, it was a great watch, I even liked the comic relief! As B movies from the 1930s go, I rate Murder in the Clouds an excellent 8 of 10.

The plot of this film revolves around "3 Star" a show-offy pilot at an airport. 3 Star likes to drink and likes to gamble as well as show off. Even though he's been grounded because of his stunts, 3 Star is brought in to fly a very important scientist to deliver his new explosive to the government. 3 Star is waylaid before the flight and another pilot is substituted by the bad guys. When the plane explodes in mid air its a race to find the wreckage and the cylinder containing the explosive before the bad guys do.

This is a breezy 60 minutes thats more than likely to keep you interested to the end. Although the plot may sound clichéd the characters and their interactions are not. Every character is quirky, but in a non-clichéd sort of way. 3 Star's gambling is atypical Hollywood, I don't know when I ever saw a character who said that he had been locked up for two days for gambling. The romance is decidedly off center, though it is very real. There seems to be more going on than just witty repartee between Judy and 3 Star, and they seem to have a long history before the film started that you can feel (which is something I rarely sense even in better movies).

I liked this movie a great deal.Granted its not the best movie ever made, but as a breezy hour long thriller its worth taking the time out to try.