Charter Pilot (1940) User Reviews

Roughhouse Romantic Comedy In The Sky

[boblipton · 5/10 · 8 December 2019]

Lloyd Nolan loves flying an Lynn Bari, who is a radio commentator. She refuses to marry him, because he's always flying off to pick up a crate of soft-shelled crabs or something. Nolan agrees to take a desk job, letting another pilot go to Honduras to fulfill a contract. However, when sabotage is suspected, Nolan heads down south to deal with it.

Nolan plays the working-stiff character that he would carry over into the Mike Shayne series in this Fox B, directed by the master of the cheap movie, Eugene Forde; he and Miss Bari wrangle very well, but despite the best efforts of an able cast, including George Montgomery, Hobart Cavanaugh and Etta MacDaniels, it never wanders far enough from the studio backlot and process photography lab to be more than an amiable time-waster.

Don't drink and fly.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 28 December 2023]

Stunt show pilot Lloyd Nolan gets into all sorts of trouble (usually with the the help of some strong libations) with radio personality fiancee Lynn Bari getting him out, and eventually making him a hero thanks to a flying mission to Hondouras. It's an okay B picture with lots of spiky dialog between Nolan and Bari, a fun performance by Etta McDaniel (real life sibling of Sam and the Oscar winning Hattie), and good romantic support by George Montgomery as Nolan's mechanic and Arleen Whelan, villain Victor Varconi and funny man Hobart Cavanaugh.

The flying scenes are pretty decent considering that this is a B film, but the plot itself is pretty messy. They look a bit sloppy when Lynn Bari pulls a Karen Black and has to take control of the gears. I learned one important lesson here. If you're going to hit the copilot over the head with a gun (even when they have a gun), make sure that the man on the controls is completely in control. McDaniel is very funny, complaining about having to fly, claiming that she gets dizzy even mailing an airmail letter. She's the best element of this 20th Fox programmer.

Rubbish...

[searchanddestroy-1 · 1 November 2012]

Maybe I am too used to watch fast Paramount or Warner studios programmers; this Twentieth Century Fox one seems really a sleeper. It is although a B picture, adventure about pilots, as the story line describes it very well. So I won't tell it again, like a parrot. Eugene Forde made some very good Charlie Chan films, but this one - which is not a CC episode - is tepid at the most. And I think that short films must be very fast, nervous, action packed. I have no example of Warner or Paramount little movies, with a 70mn length, which have ever bored me. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, yes; but I am not sure the Lion's studio did ever make any B picture. But MGM style was not showing the most fast moving films... But it remains a worth little film for old Hollywood stuff buffs like me.