Test Pilot – 1938
This movie, by today’s standards, was fairly average. But by the standards of the late 1930s, it was very good. It had three of Hollywood’s biggest stars, action, drama, and of course, romance. It made use of new and experimental airplanes, and had some really impressive stunt-flying. The film also did a great job of displaying a certain amount of realism when showing close-ups of the planes and pilots when they were in the air. There was some incredible sweeping camera-work making the audience really feel the chaotic motion of the aircraft in flight. The use of rear projection screens was obvious to my modern eyes, but even that was good.
The acting was just fine, and the drama had an unexpected complexity to it that surprised me. But of all things, it was the movie’s romance that had me rolling my eyes. Movies in the 1930s were all about fantasy, and whirlwind romances were part of that. But let’s face it. Real people don’t fall in love at the drop of a hat, or an airplane, as the case may be. And when characters meet and get married within the space of a day, I have a hard time sympathizing with them when the relationship encounters difficulties.
Clark Gable played Jim Lane, a test pilot who had a strange addiction to the death-defying thrill of his job. He is a wild man who drinks heavily and regularly, but within the industry, he is known as the best at his job. It goes without saying that he has a soft heart of gold. His best friend and mechanic, Gunner Morris, played by Spencer Tracy, is a calm-natured man who cares deeply for Jim. He bends over backward to take care of him. He picks him up off the floor when he falls down drunk. He gets him to bed and wakes him up when he is supposed to test a new aircraft. He watches out for him like a father figure.
But one day, Jim meets Ann Barton, played by Myrna Loy, and he decides to marry her. A significant portion of the film is dedicated to their fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants romance, and therein lie the seeds of the plot’s drama. The life of a pilot is a dangerous one. Ann doesn’t realize how much he puts his life on the line until after they are married. But she quickly realizes that she cannot compete with the rush Jim gets from his occupation. Despite this, she is determined to stand by her man. Gunner grudgingly accepts Ann and does his best to comfort her when Jim is flying. Then he dutifully takes care of Jim when he is on the ground. After Jim wins an aerial race in which his main opponent is killed, he gives half the prize money to the dead man’s widow. Then he goes on a three-day drinking binge. Gunner tracks him down and brings him home to a distraught Ann.
She says, “Three roads face us, and there’s doom at the end of each. Suppose he didn’t drink. He sits around drinking sarsaparilla with Ann, me. How he would love me. The second road is worse than that. He’s retired from flying and works on the ground. Imagine a man with his heart in the sky, living with a woman on the ground. He wouldn’t like himself very much, and I wouldn’t like him either, Gunner. Oh, no. He’s in love with a woman with wings. She’s got him. I’ve no way to cut her out.” Gunner interjects, “But there’s another road.” She replies, “Yes, there is, and we’re on it. We go on as if nothing had happened. He goes in the next race, another bat, another race, another bat, until some day when he’s not quite so young and quick, she slaps him out, and Mrs. Benson takes another man home on the train.”
That little monologue seemed to summarize all of the movie’s drama, as well as a good portion of the romance. And her solution was one that I didn’t expect. When Jim flew, Ann cheered him on. When he drank, she drank with him. And when he eventually died, she would die with him. In the meantime, she would stick with him and savor every moment she could get with him. From that moment, a bond forms between Gunner and Ann. Of course when Gunner goes up with Jim to test a new military bomber, the plane that would eventually become the B-52 bomber used in WWII, it is not Jim, but Gunner who is killed.
And lest I forget, there was another big name in the movie who seemed to almost be an afterthought in the advertisements and even the trailer. Lionel Barrymore played the part of Mr. Drake, Jim’s patron who hires him to fly his planes. At first you think he is the film’s antagonist, but eventually we find that he cares for Jim and Ann as much as anybody, even offering Jim sage advice after Gunner’s death. Overall, it was a good movie, worthy of its Best Picture nomination.