High Flyers (1937)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Edward F. Cline

Writers:

Bert Granet (writer)
Victor Mapes (play)

Release Date:

26 November 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Two men running a carnival airplane ride are hired to fly to retrieve what they think are photos for a reporter...

Plot Keywords:

Based On Play

Cast

Bert Wheeler	...	Jeremiah 'Jerry' Lane
Robert Woolsey	...	Pierre Potkin
Lupe Velez	...	Maria Juanita Rosita Anita Moreno del Valle
Marjorie Lord	...	Arlene Arlington
Margaret Dumont	...	Martha Arlington
Jack Carson	...	Dave Hanlon
Paul Harvey	...	Horace Arlington
Herbert Clifton	...	Stone, the Butler
Charles Judels	...	Mr. Fontaine
Lucien Prival	...	Mr. Panzer
Herbert Evans	...	Mr. Hartley
George Irving	...	Chief of Police

Runtime:

70 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Soundtrack:

I'm a Gaucho

Perfectly dreadful and a sad way to wrap up their career as a team

This is the last Wheeler and Woolsey film, as Robert Woolsey died of kidney disease soon after this film was completed. And in light of this, this is a very sad way to end the team's career. While I will agree that Wheeler and Woolsey were not a particularly funny team compared to the Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy, they were capable of making better films than this. Perhaps Woolsey's illness helped to make this film to dreadfully unfunny, but regardless of why, this is a film so bad that only the Ritz Brothers might have been able to make so unfunny a film in this era (they were like a "poor man's Wheeler and Woolsey").

The bottom line is that the film never really made me smile or laugh. So many of the snappy lines from Woolsey never seemed to have punchlines or points--it was just "blathering". A very tiresome and unfunny film with so little energy it just isn't worth seeing unless you are a die-hard fan.