I'm tempted to make a joke that '20,000 Men a Year' is a movie about a woman I dated once. Actually, this is an impressive low-budget film, based on a story treatment by Frank 'Spig' Wead. (If anybody knows how Wead got that nickname, please let me know.) Wead was a career military officer who logged many hours of flight time in combat, without a scratch, only to cripple himself off-duty in a bizarre accident: he got drunk, fell downstairs and broke his neck. Remarkably, Wead made a partial recovery and (although severely handicapped for the rest of his life) he went on to a prolific civilian career writing screenplays with aviation themes.
SPOILERS COMING. In the late 1930s, with another world war in the offing, the Civil Aeronautics Authority (precursor to America's Federal Aviation Authority) instituted a training scheme intended to produce 20,000 civilian pilots annually. This movie offers a fictional plotline devised to bring attention to that real-life programme. Randolph Scott plays a military pilot who (for principled reasons) disobeys an order and is cashiered out of the service. He starts a civilian pilot school in the Midwest, near a college campus ... at just the right time to get involved in the CAA programme. One of his first students is Skip Rogers, a bright teenage orphan. Skip's older sister (and guardian) is Ann, a prissy schoolmarm who disapproves of the flight school because the 'planes are unsafe. Of course, she changes her mind ... but not before Skip has to prove his mettle in a daring flight through a narrow canyon, with two other men's lives at stake.
This film's intentions are in the right place. I'm especially intrigued that one of the student pilots in this white-bread movie is an Asian-American, played by Victor Sen Yung. Far too often, Sen Yung was typecast in stereotypical 'Chinaman' roles, but in this film he gives an intelligent performance as a realistic human being. Less welcome here is 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom, in one of those sledgehammer-subtle comic-relief turns that bears no resemblance to a plausible human. Expert character actor Matt McHugh, in a brief appearance as a wise-cracking Brooklynite, lifts his role out of stereotype.
The flying sequences (which are the main point of this picture) are impressive and genuinely exciting, relying on stunt pilots (notably the great Paul Mantz) more than usual, and process photography to a lesser extent than usual. Also, it's a pleasure to see a movie devoted to civil aviation for once, rather than the more obvious (and more hackneyed) theme of military pilots. I'll rate this movie 7 points out of 10.
SPOILERS COMING. In the late 1930s, with another world war in the offing, the Civil Aeronautics Authority (precursor to America's Federal Aviation Authority) instituted a training scheme intended to produce 20,000 civilian pilots annually. This movie offers a fictional plotline devised to bring attention to that real-life programme. Randolph Scott plays a military pilot who (for principled reasons) disobeys an order and is cashiered out of the service. He starts a civilian pilot school in the Midwest, near a college campus ... at just the right time to get involved in the CAA programme. One of his first students is Skip Rogers, a bright teenage orphan. Skip's older sister (and guardian) is Ann, a prissy schoolmarm who disapproves of the flight school because the 'planes are unsafe. Of course, she changes her mind ... but not before Skip has to prove his mettle in a daring flight through a narrow canyon, with two other men's lives at stake.
This film's intentions are in the right place. I'm especially intrigued that one of the student pilots in this white-bread movie is an Asian-American, played by Victor Sen Yung. Far too often, Sen Yung was typecast in stereotypical 'Chinaman' roles, but in this film he gives an intelligent performance as a realistic human being. Less welcome here is 'Slapsie Maxie' Rosenbloom, in one of those sledgehammer-subtle comic-relief turns that bears no resemblance to a plausible human. Expert character actor Matt McHugh, in a brief appearance as a wise-cracking Brooklynite, lifts his role out of stereotype.
The flying sequences (which are the main point of this picture) are impressive and genuinely exciting, relying on stunt pilots (notably the great Paul Mantz) more than usual, and process photography to a lesser extent than usual. Also, it's a pleasure to see a movie devoted to civil aviation for once, rather than the more obvious (and more hackneyed) theme of military pilots. I'll rate this movie 7 points out of 10.