Murder in the Clouds

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.

Daredevil pilot Bob Halsey (Lyle Talbot) is in love with stewardess Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak), both working in Trans-America Airlines. Her brother Tom is also a pilot. Clement Williams had invented a new explosive and needs to transport it to DC. Federal agent Brownell arranges the secret flight with the company head, but the assistant overhears the conversation and passes it onto his spy contact.

The plot is convoluted. The characters have trouble keeping up and the audience is the same. The flying does save it for me. I really like the real flying sequences. I care less about the convoluted spy thriller story.

This is a 7 if compared with other hour-long B features of the day, not when compared with the A features of the same time period. There are plot holes big enough for ace pilot 3-star (Lyle Talbot) to fly his plane through, but that's OK, because the pace is brisk and the film is full of action. I won't list all of the questions that the characters - not to mention the screenplay writer - should have been asking, because I'd give too much away.

Suffice it to say that pilot Bob 'Three Star' Halsey gets himself grounded for hot-shotting in the air near the airport where he is based. His boss would love to fire him, but both the boss and Three Star know he's too good a pilot for him to lose him to another airline. Of course Halsey has a girl, Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak), and Judy has a brother who is also a pilot based out of the airport. Up to now Judy has been having to share Bob with his love of the air, but along comes an espionage plot centering around an important invention needed by the military that is to be transported by the airline that soon changes everything.

There are some great aerial scenes here, and although the laws of reason - and sometimes physics as well as the limitations of human eyesight - are being violated left and right, it turns out to be fun although somewhat formulaic without being corny.

The airline in the film flies Ford Trimotors. One in particular, an AT-4, is identified: NC5578. Full details of the history of this aircraft can be found in the Davis-Monthan Aviation Field Register. It was apparently exported to Ecuador in 1945; there is no further information after that.

Three Star flew a biplane, registration NC406N which would indicate it was a Travel Air D-4000. The company, founded in 1925, initially built a series of sporting and training open-cockpit biplanes, including the Model A, Model B, 2000, 3000 and 4000. It was forced into liquidation in 1929 and its assets were purchased by the Curtiss-Wright corporation, which continued to manufacture some of its designs.

The airline company's base is said to be Los Angeles, but it doesn't look like that today.

The main reasons for watching this film are the excellent flying and aerobatic sequences, and the extremely attractive Ann Dvorak who certainly knew how to act in this sort of film.

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.