I wasn’t much impressed by 1939’s Only Angels Have Wings, a testosterone-fueled Howard Hawks drama about a small airline dying to obtain a lucrative air mail contract. And they were literally dying to do so, as pilots kept crashing and dying. I’m sure there are other movies like it, but I was quite surprised to see 1935’s Air Hawks had somehow preceded it, with a similar plot about a small airline trying to land a highly-desired air mail contract. Maybe Hawks saw the earlier film because part of its name matched his last name, and decided he could improve upon it. To my considerable surprise, I found his film to be the less desirable of the two.
One thing that distinguishes the 1935 film is these pilots aren’t crashing into the Andes, but are instead bringing brought down by a death ray developed by a mad scientist. Just based on that, I think we know which of the two will be more fun. That, and this one has a cute little girl who likes to wear a little aviator outfit. Cuter still, is Tailspin, the dog who likes to go up in the biplanes. The 1939 movie was distinguished by a Cary Grant who was uncharacteristically hostile and unlikeable.
Ralph Bellamy operates the small fleet of planes in the earlier film. The moneyman for the operation is Wryley Birch. He won’t advance any more money until that air mail deal is secured. He also keeps trying to convince Bellamy to sell out to chief competitor Robert Middlemass. Can I just say that with a name like “Middlemass”, I surprised that actor is rather slim? Also, we first see Birch wearing a single glove, apparently for the sole purpose of smoking his cigar. I have heard of smoking jackets, but I don’t think a smoking glove was ever a thing.
Also hanging around all the time is journalist Victor Killian, a reporter even more weirdly committed to the airline beat than Rock Hudson in 1957’s The Tarnished Angels. Bellamy can’t seem to keep the guy out of the office, per this exchange between him and secretary Billie Seward: “Don’t they sweep out the office anymore?” “Yeah, but every once in a while they forget to throw out a newspaperman”. Something odd happens right after this, which is Bellamy does the most forced and artificial laugh I have ever heard in a film.
A great deal of the action takes place at Arnold’s, a place I was disappointed to see wasn’t the burger joint from Happy Days. This is instead a nightclub owned by Douglass Dumbrille, who has been working in coordination with Middlemass to end Bellamy’s operation. First, he insinuates femme fatale Tala Birell into Bellamy’s life to try to get inside information. Then he takes Middlemass to his secret cabin where it is revealed this club owner has provided the lab space for brilliant scientist to perfect their death ray. Dumbrille is the definition of somebody who wears too many hats.
An aspect of that cabin amused me, and that is there don’t appear to be any doors through which to enter it until a secret button is pressed which makes a wall slide away to reveal the door. I found that odd, since the cabin is readily visible, so there has to be some way into it even one if couldn’t readily find the entrance. I would have thought concealing the cabin would have been of greater concern.
By putting that death ray on a truck, they are able to take down Bellamy’s planes. Not being able to land planes means he also isn’t going to land that contract. In desperation, he issues a press release saying he is going to break the record for flying across the country, and he will do it in one of his “flying coffins”, as they have been described in the press. I know he means the papers were using a derogatory term for his aircraft, but I like to think he was going to attempt that flight in a literal flying coffin.
He won’t even the person who takes that flight, as real-life aviator Wiley Post does the job instead. This guy was famous for barnstorming and other aviation tricks. That is exactly what it sounds like it would be, which is flying an airplane through a barn. This was the only motion picture to feature Post, as he and Will Rogers would die in Alaska later that same year when he was flying the famous wit over Alaska.
One curious aspect of this picture is that, despite being made in 1935, so much of it feels like it was made at least five years earlier. From this distance of time, it might not sound like one could spot a difference in the fare from the ends of that time span, but movies made considerable leaps in many regards in that time. For example, that is the entirety of the pre-code era which have many fans today. But, when a picture opens with portraits of the actors, and the names of the characters they’re playing, this feels like something from as far back as the late silent era.
That’s not the only odd thing. There is a montage that is supposed to be exhilarating, but what we are seeing are a great many invoices. I was wondering if this bit was supposed to be especially exciting for any accountants in the office. Less weird, but quite intriguing, is how Killian climbs down from a second-story landing with his hands and feet bound. I know I would have never attempted such a thing, yet he does in an unbroken shot.
The effects are on par for what I would have expected for the time, though one plane crash which had to be done with a model was so impressive as to have me wondering how they accomplished that. I also enjoyed the various equipment in the mad scientist lab which is standard issue for this kind of thing—lots of stuff which has crackling bolts of electricity shooting off of it. I can imagine a successful business of the time providing such machines for productions like this which basically need “the full Frankenstein”.
I am surprised I enjoyed Air Hawks, though I’m not sure how much I would recommend it to the average viewer. It is fairly exciting, though nothing in the plot, and none of the characters, are believable. There isn’t even anything particularly funny, though I did laugh hard at one point. That is after the father of that cute little girl I mentioned earlier is shot down, and she is in Bellamy’s office, wishing she had whatever he was going to get for her birthday—which happened to be the very day he died. In a desk drawer, she finds a burned and mangled doll which Bellamy retrieved from the wreckage. That thing had to smell hideous, and it looks like some sort of the cursed toy from Conjuring series. Call me a cruel bastard, but the girl hugging that horrible thing for dear life had me laughing so hard I was nearly crying. What can I say? One has to find enjoyment where they can out of life.
Dir: Albert S. Rogell
Starring Ralph Bellamy, Tala Birell, Wiley Post, Douglas Dumbrille
Watched as part of the Powerhouse/Indicator UK (region B) blu-ray box set Columbia Horror