Undescribable Perfection

Did you people see the same film I saw?

An Exercise In Nonsense

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This typically polished MGM effort features one of its established actors – Beery – opposite new kid on the block Gable (before he was old enough to grow a moustache). It's one of few films the pair made together, reportedly because they never really hit it off (Beery is said to have even turned down a role in MGM's Mutiny on the Bounty because he didn't want to work with Gable). Then again, Beery, a lovable old lug on the screen, was a fairly unpleasant character in real life, with rumours of manslaughter, meanness and abuse of women and children surrounding him to this day.The film's plot could take place anywhere and at anytime really. That was the beauty of the studio product in the 30s: they could just keep churning out the same story with a different cast set in a different period and the masses would happily pay the money to watch them all. This one features some terrific aerial shots of old biplanes and some truly bizarre heroics (Gable hanging upside down from a plane with one hand holding a bomb to prevent it from exploding when the plane lands for instance). There are a few funny moments too, the best of which is the incidents that lead to Beery and Gable duking it out just minutes after having finally made friends.

This is an excellent vehicle for Wallace Beery and Clark Gable(in what would become standard roles for both of them). Lots of nice real life footage of the Saratoga V (sunk in Bikini Atoll by two atomic blasts in Bikini Atoll in 1946). If you want to see bi-planes taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier this movie is for you!!!. also, i believe they used footage of the 27 Jan 1928 mooring of the rigid air ship Los Angeles to the aircraft carrier. If you don't like those glossy-cheesy MGM movies this is the exception. Way above average early talkie movie and a piece of history too.

Okay, I know that most Wallace Beery films are pretty formulaic and superficial. However, this doesn't mean they were bad. Very few of his films were bad, though many fall in the average category. However, occasionally, his films rose above the mundane, such as DINNER AT EIGHT, GRAND HOTEL, MIN AND BILL and this film. While I will admit this movie isn't up to the standards of the three films I listed, it does approach them in quality and is a decent effort for him and new-comer Clark Gable. In particular, if you are a Gable or airplane buff, like me, you will love this film. It features a lot of great flying sequences you just won't see in many films of the era. Our aircraft carriers and dirigibles just weren't seen as being very important and weren't shown in many films during the Depression era. So, from a purely historic point of view, this is an important film. When you add good acting and dialog and an exciting script, you have an excellent film well worth your time.

Any time you have two fantastic actors of the calibres of Wallace Beery and Clark Gable playing against each other, it's worth a look. Beery was the highest paid actor in the world when this movie was shot, and he was certainly the most interesting to watch. It's obvious, though, that MGM was using this picture to build up their popular new romantic lead, Gable, even if it had to be at their top star's expense. If you like this one, I recommend a better seafaring film with Beery and Gable, 1935's "China Seas." That one's a real spectacular, one of those movies, like "Dancing Lady," with everything the studio could think of thrown in.