Very Cool!!!

Am I Missing Something?

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Director: D. ROSS LEDERMAN. Story and screenplay: Roy Chanslor, Dore Schary. Photography: Warren Lynch. Aerial photography: Elmer Dyer. Film editor: Thomas Pratt. Art director: Jack Holden. Costumes: Orry- Kelly. Music played by The Vitaphone Orchestra, conducted by Leo F. Forbstein. Associate producer: Sam Bischoff.Copyright 3 December 1934 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Rialto: 25 December 1934. Australian release: 25 February 1935. 7 reels. 61 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An aviator and his girl friend battle spies who have sabotaged a plane carrying a new type of explosive.COMMENT: Not a murder mystery, but a straight thriller, routinely if competently directed. However, it's unusual to find a little "B" picture decked out with such impressive aerial photography. And not stock shots either. All the aerial footage was obviously shot especially for this production. Unfortunately, "Murder in the Clouds" is far less stunning on the ground than in the air. Not that the players don't try their damnedest to make it all succeed. The problems all lie in the script. It's such a wearily routine, totally tinpot affair, that it's very hard to believe that famous writers of the caliber of either Roy Chanslor (Final Edition, Front Page Woman, Johnny Guitar, Cat Ballou) or Dore Schary (Boys Town, Act One) had any hands whatever in its composition. Maybe they were just kidding around and assumed that the movie would be played for laughs rather than thrills!

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.

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.

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.