Sky Giant (1938)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Lew Landers

Writers:

Lionel Houser (story)
Lionel Houser (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 July 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

The flash of its dramatic lightning will flame in human souls wherever men and women love! (original poster)

Plot:

Given the job of training young pilots for important post-war cargo flights, hard-boiled Col. Stockton...

Plot Keywords:

Training | Pilot | Cargo | Flying Goggles | Maid

Cast

Richard Dix	...	Capt. W.R. 'Stag' Cahill
Chester Morris	...	Kenneth 'Ken' Stockton
Joan Fontaine	...	Meg Lawrence
Harry Carey	...	Col. Cornelius Stockton
Paul Guilfoyle	...	'Fergie' Ferguson
Robert Strange	...	Joe R. Weldon
Max Hoffman Jr.	...	Cadet Brown (scenes deleted)
Vickie Lester	...	Edna, the Colonel's Secretary (as Vicki Lester)
James Bush	...	Cadet Thompson
Eddie Marr	...	Cadet Austin (as Edward Marr)

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Victor System)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #4297)

Filming Locations:

Glendale Grand Central Air Terminal - Grandview Avenue, Glendale, California, USA

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

Reviewers noted that the Arctic mapping flight in the movie was very similar to the trans-world flight of Howard Hughes, which he completed shortly before the preview screening.

Soundtrack:

When You and I Were Young, Maggie (1866)

Pilot School

Had Sky Giant been made at Warner Brothers this would have been a property done by James Cagney and Pat O'Brien in the roles played by Chester Morris and Richard Dix respectively.

Morris is the son of the head of the civilian pilot school Harry Carey and Richard Dix is the number two at the place. Morris is the cocky sort like Cagney and Dix is the instructor that has to take some of the deviltry out of him before he makes a good and steady pilot. Some of this ground was already covered in Devil Dogs of the Air.

Of course they both fall for the same girl who in this case is Joan Fontaine who is the sister of another pilot, Paul Guilfoyle.

From Devil Dogs of the Air the plot shifts rather dramatically to something like Island in the Sky as Dix, Morris and Guilfoyle crash somewhere in the Yukon Territory while mapping an Arctic air route. Of course the difference between Sky Giant and Island in the Sky is the difference between RKO's back lot version of the Arctic and Warner Brothers in the early fifties shooting Island in the Sky on location. The production values of the latter film are light years in comparison to Sky Giant.

But the cast in Sky Giant give good and sincere performances, it wasn't work that anyone had to be ashamed of.

Joan Fontaine's career was working out something like her sister Olivia DeHavilland over at Warner Brothers. A whole stream of good girl heroines. Both would break out of that mold in the forties roughly around the same time.

Sky Giant is a good product from a studio that mostly did B films of this nature. Not their fault that they didn't have the facilities for the production values of the bigger studios.