Simply Perfect

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Keen on saving the neck of a burglar who has been framed for a mob murder she witnessed overseas, a penniless London chorus girl stows away on a non-stop flight to New York and has to evade the mobsters who have also boarded in this crime thriller directed by Robert Stevenson in his pre-Disney days. As one might be able to deduce from such a complicated plot description alone, the movie is rife in convenient coincidences and implausible events, but it makes for relatively amusing viewing, provided one does not think about it too much. There are some great supporting turns, particularly from Francis L. Sullivan as the daunting main mobster, Desmond Tester in a comic relief part as a music student with too much spare time on his hands and Athene Seyler as his overbearing aunt. The real star of the show though is the titular aircraft that the protagonist boards and while the film is rather slow leading up to the reveal of the craft (35 minutes in), it is worth the wait. Spanning two floors with balconies and cabins that make the interiors look more like a ship than a plane, it has to rate as one of the most imaginative aircrafts ever conceived for a motion picture, adding some delightful to kookiness to what otherwise might be a rather ordinary tale. The special effects are pretty remarkable for 1937 too - both inside and outside of the plane. Of course, it feels a little odd to talk so much about the plane and so little about the rest of the movie, but given the choice of title, it seems clear that the producers also knew that the plane was their best asset here.

Imagine this---it's 1937, and you can get from London to New York on the White Star Line of jets without stopping, unless of course you find a few delays on Cloud 9 to be stopping. Chorus girl Anna Lee has witnessed a murder, and a detective, the killer, and a blackmailer are also aboard, observing her. This plane is so glamorous, it has actual suites for its passengers, as well as a deck outside of the fast-moving air vehicle. Lee has stowed away on board, afraid of going to Scotland Yard on the fear she'll be made a suspect, and the detective secretly arranges for her to get the last available suite. There's also a saxophone playing brat on board who always ends up being around when danger is lurking, and he ends up being a hero of sorts.The first third of the movie is actually deadly dull, but once the passengers are on board and the plane has taken off, it picks up a bit of speed. Then, it becomes an eye-rolling account of movie fantasy that could never happen in air traffic. The only thing it is missing is a pool! The killer is not afraid of taking others out to get to Lee, so a few other bodies line up along the way. And once the plane is halfway over the Atlantic, the whole passenger list is in jeopardy. Of course, detective John Loder makes a daring attempt to turn things around, and this sequence is so far out there, you can't help but laughing out loud. The site of Athene Seyler as the little saxophone player's aunt waking up in the middle of it is another moment of unintended hilarity. Of course, Anna Lee, whom audiences adored as Lila Quartermain on "GH" and the sweet Sister Margaretta in "The Sound of Music" (as well as the well-intentioned but nosy neighbor in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?") is strikingly lovely. Only 24 when this film came out, she had a nice if not star making career as a leading lady, and is utterly charming. Francis L. Sullivan made a career out of playing nasty villains, and this is one of the most dastardly. This is a major curio for fans of British cinema, and an interesting follow-up to "The Tunnel" and "Things to Come".

Anna Lee plays a woman in New York who sees a strange man before a murder is committed. John Loder plays the innocent man who is sent to Sing Sing for the murder the mystery man committed. When Lee finds out about it (she's in London now) she rushes back to New York to save the innocent man after the local London police won't forward her story to the American authorities. Thus the title, and the unusual sight of a gigantic flying Clipper ship that gives this film its curio value. The movie itself is an implausible Hitchcock-lite mystery-thriller, but the giant passenger plane IS interesting. It features six engines and two floors with staterooms and the whole lot, reminiscent of a Zeppelin type of luxury. Hard to imagine how these people could handle turbulence! Francis L. Sullivan is the familiar burly villain, reminiscent of an airship-sized George Sanders. The most absurd element of this film, aside from that fantasy airplane, is the notion that all the main suspects in the previous murder just happen to be aboard that same plane on the same flight. Still, it has its moments.

I saw this film some years back on PBS and only wish I could find a copy of it now. A young woman witnesses a murder in New York, and promptly leaves for England. She sees the news in a London paper about a man in New York about to be executed for the murder, and she knows he is innocent. She has to get back to NY as fast as possible to save an innocent man from the electric chair, and so she stows on the Air Boat, Non-stop to New York. Some of the lines are so good that years later, they still echo in my head.Much of the movie takes place on this incredible aircraft, which takes off from the Thames in London, and is like a flying..., well, boat. Dining room, state rooms, close quarters, nasty travel companions. It's all here.Borders on Film Noir, but with a wry sense of humor.If you like the style of the 1940s, and slightly outlandish stories so characteristic of the period, I dare say you will enjoy this English trifle quite a bit!I won't reveal the ending, so you'll have to see the film to know if she arrives in time!