West Point of the Air (1935)

A father and son aviation drama, in which a gruff sergeant wants to make a man and a flyer out of his young son.

Director:

Richard Rosson

Writers:

Frank Wead (screen play), Arthur J. Beckhard (screen play)

Stars:

Wallace Beery, Robert Young, Lewis Stone

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Wallace Beery	...	Big Mike Stone
Robert Young	...	Little Mike Stone
Lewis Stone	...	General Carter
Maureen O'Sullivan	...	'Skip' Carter
Russell Hardie	...	Phil Carter
Rosalind Russell	...	Dare Marshall
James Gleason	...	'Bags'
Henry Wadsworth	...	Lieutenant Pettis
Robert Taylor	...	Jaskarelli
Robert Livingston	...	Pippinger
Frank Conroy	...	Captain Cannon
G. Pat Collins	...	Lieutenant Kelly
Ronnie Cosby	...	Mike Stone - as a Boy
Bobby Caldwell	...	Phil Carter - as a Boy (as Bobbie Caldwell)
Marilyn Spinner	...	'Skip' Carter - as a Girl

Storyline

A father and son aviation drama, in which a gruff sergeant wants to make a man and a flyer out of his young son.

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Plot Keywords:

u.s. army | death | american football | rescue | amputee | 

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Taglines:

"Happy Landings" for Romance! (Print Ad-Milwaukee Journal, ((Milwaukee, Wisc.)) 7 April 1935)

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 July 1935 (Hungary)

Also Known As:

Helden von heute

Filming Locations:

McQueeney, Texas, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Production Code Administration (the censors) requested that the "pansy gag" be deleted from the prints. That gag has James Gleason kissing Wallace Beery, who responds with, "Only men belong in this outfit." However, that scene is in the Turner library print.

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Goofs

Near the end, when Little Mike is up in the air with Big Mike, Little Mike is in the wrong seat. Two-seat airplanes of that time were balanced assuming the pilot would be in the rear-most seat. This was because the forward seat, already being at the center-of-gravity, had no real impact on the balance. With nobody in the rear seat the plane would be too nose heavy to even get off the ground, much less fly as it did in the movie.

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Connections

Referenced in Honkytonk Man (1982)

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Soundtracks

The Stars and Stripes Forever
(1896) (uncredited)
Written by John Philip Sousa
Played during the opening credits
Played as background music for the ceremony at the end

User Reviews

This one was better than I thought it would be

This one has some things going for it. I think it was probably meant to be a B film, but there are two stars who have good careers later that show up in almost throwaway roles - Rosalind Russell and Robert Taylor.

Plus you have some veteran actors - Lewis Stone as the general in charge of "West Point of the Air" and James Gleason who is always great as the wise guy plays good friend to Beery's "Big Mike" Stone. Then there is Wallace Beery, who is actually the star of the film, as a guy who never makes it past sergeant but is dedicated to the Army's aerial force from its infancy. Poor Beery. Sound was the best thing that ever happened to his career with his great growly voice and the production code was the worst thing that ever happened to it, with him being forced out of the "bad guy who may or may not want to make good" roles into gentler parts that just did not play to his strengths.

There are actually two male leads here - Beery as Big Mike and Robert Young as his son, little Mike. The film starts out as the army experiments with different plane designs. Skip (Maureen O'Sullivan), and Phil (Russell Hardie), are the children of Lewis Stone's character, who thus grow up with Big Mike's son, Little Mike (Robert Young). Of course, children play these parts in the beginning, not the actors I have just mentioned.

Well the story skips up to present day and Little Mike has turned into a cocky self-important pill. He is a hero on the football field in college, and just assumes that will translate into being a hero in the Army air corps. Actually it translates into tragedy after tragedy as he ignores the rules and gets people killed, badly injured, and even manages to foul up dad's career. Then something worse than being a pill happens to "Little Mike". He becomes paralyzed with fear after all of the things that happen and tells dad he will never fly again. Unfortunately the air corps are on maneuvers and are counting on him to fulfill an important job when he makes this unilateral decision. The other complicating factor is that Skip loves Little Mike although Mike only has romantic eyes for Russell's character, a party girl who encourages Mike to stay up late, drink, etc.

I'll let you watch and see how this one turns out. It was probably made just to see how some of this new MGM talent would do in a production that probably didn't matter much to MGM's bottom line, but it has pretty good action scenes, good performances, and is the first blush of what will become a staple later on in the late 30's and throughout the 40s - films that celebrate the military. They become much more common after Hitler becomes a tangible threat to the United States and the rest of the world for that matter.