Gallant Journey

What should have been an inspiring film, turns into a slow-moving film about an early aviator John Montgomery. To say that this guy was unlucky was to put it mildly.

A very young Glenn Ford does an adequate job in portraying this man who dreamed of flying in the 1880s. Janet Blair is his co-star as the girl who loved and eventually married him.

Montgomery is viewed as some sort of crackpot for his desiring to fly. Through the film, we see that he is victimized by vertigo, a suit on his patent, the tragic death of his partner, and his inability to move up within the social milieu despite his achievements.

The film is slow paced. By the way, who was the old man who tells his story to the boys at the beginning of the film? Who was he supposed to represent?

Am sure that the earthquake they we see was not the big 1906 one. If it were, the film suffered from the fact that Ford just didn't age. Was he another Dorian Gray?

Saw the film years and years ago...It has always been one of the most enjoyable films of early flight that I have ever seen...When Montgomery was hauled aloft with his glider attached to a hot air baloon and then released, the scenery was breathtaking as he made his decent to earth high above the Santa Clara valley. Janet Blair as I remember, was Montgomery's wife and in one particular scene, she removed her silk petty coat and gave it to her husband who was in desperate need of patching material for his damaged glider...I would like to rent the video of Gallant Journey but have not had any luck finding a rental agency with it even listed. As I remember, it had an excellent story line...

Sturdy, dependable GLENN FORD gives another one of his understated but sincere performances as a young inventor, John Montgomery, in the late 1800s who makes a number of semi-successful attempts at getting his flying machine off the ground and soaring into the atmosphere.

JANET BLAIR is the love interest as the childhood sweetheart who stands by her man until the end of his life. While I always liked this actress, the jarring note is her make-up which is so modern that it seems like an anachronism. She has a distinctly 1940s look about her (lip gloss and modern hairdos) that works against the otherwise authentic look of the film.

WILLARD ROBERTSON as Ford's pa is fine but SELENA ROYLE is completely wasted in a minor role as his loving mom. William Wellman directs with a thorough knowledge of his subject and as an aviation drama it maintains interest throughout. All of the aerial scenes are well staged and look glorious in crisp B&W photography.

Summing up: A very unheralded film that is certainly watchable but could have used a stronger and less sentimental script.

Depending on whether you believe the plot of Gallant Journey verbatim or not, John J. Montgomery may have been the first man to make a heavier than air flight and he did it in 1883, twenty years before the Wright Brothers did their thing at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Whether you do or not there is no denying that Glenn Ford gave a wonderful performance as the earnest young man, consumed as so many were at that time of the dream of manned flight. Janet Blair played the ever helpful and supportive wife of Ford and does it well.

The film is directed by William Wellman, one of many he did in his career combining his two great loves, film and aviation. Of course Wellman reached the pinnacle of his aviation success with the first Academy Award winning Best film, Wings.

The film is narrated by Charlie Ruggles to a group of post World War II kids and he's Montgomery's brother who has outlived him by a considerable period. Montgomery when he wasn't doing his aviation glider experiments, earned a living teaching science at Santa Clara College where a couple of supportive priests are played by Arthur Shields and Charles Kemper. Best in the supporting parts in the film however is Jim Lloyd who plays the balloonist daredevil who helps pilot Ford's experiments when an inner ear problem forces him to stop doing the actual flying.

Aviation historians still debate Montgomery's actual contributions to the saga of manned flight. But I think Montgomery himself would have been well pleased with how Bill Wellman and Glenn Ford told his tale.

Montgomery claimed to have flown his gliders in the 1880's but there were no wittiness, and no parts were kept... therefore it was just flights of his imagination. I have read the only book on Montgomery, by Father Spearman of Santa Clara University, and many claims are made but no real proof is given. I have also read Montgomery's papers which are a jumble of nonsense...the papers came to me from Northern Californians who support Montgomery's claims. Montgomery did build several gliders that were flown from hot air balloons in early 1900's, as shown in the movie, but these lacked any controls and tumbled to the ground...the daredevil "pilots" were lucky to survive! In 1911 Montgomery did build and attempted to fly his glider in San Jose. It had no lateral control, was rather crude, and it crashed after a short hop. He was killed in the crash. No motor could have been installed on his design. The Wright brothers made fully documented powered flights with 3-axis control in 1903! The Wrights were aware of Montgomery's claims and considered him a crackpot. One of the claims was his "parabolic wing"configuration but that was not valid...many others were aware of lift developed by curved airfoil surfaces.