Death Flies East

Florence Rice gives another superb performance in this excellent comedy-mystery from 1935. The story, while being a little outrageous, is nonetheless a very gripping and interesting tale that keeps you interested. I suppose you have to really like old movies to appreciate the style of the day. What i have noticed about Florence Rice is that her acting is not dated or quaint but very believable even tho some of the other actors appear wooden or stuffy. Conrad Nagel, as the man she meets on the plane, also responds to the beautiful Florence. The story is a nurse, Florence, and a doctor are wrongly imprisoned. Florence gets paroled but must remain in California or violate parole. She learns that a criminal in Sing Sing (New York) has information that will clear her and the doctor. She violates parole by flying to New York to try to get a confession before he is executed. Its on the plane that she meets Conrad Nagel. One murder and one attempted murder on the plane cause her real identity to be known. A lot of the story takes place on a commercial airliner. Its interesting to see what a commercial airliner looked like, inside, in 1935. The supporting players are very good, it seems to have been a strong ensemble. None of them are familiar but all contribute positively to the flow of the story. This is another buried treasure. Difficult to find but it needs to be seen.

The thirties was the decade of mystery yarns, thanks I guess to the talkies beginning. Bring suspense with voice instance of captions from the silent era. Hundreds of mystery movies were available in those times. Some taking place in remote houses, on liners, aboard trains, and this one...Guess; an airplane, yes. That's not bad at all for such a B picture directed by a specialist of this time: Phil Rosen, whose filmography is mostly lost, as his "colleague" Lambert Hillyer's movies and so many more. From time to time, you could find interesting gems drowned among those huge filmographies. This one saves not really surprise, just entertainment for movie buffs who are a bit curious to discover thirties rare fillms.

The film focuses upon Florence Rice's character, a nurse who was wrongly convicted of poisoning a patient. Now, Rice has been paroled, although the elderly doctor she worked for is still behind bars. She sets up in her new home but quickly learns than the witness who can clear her and the doctor is scheduled to be executed in New York. She decides to "break" parole and fly to New York to convince the witness to tell the truth.

Now the mystery turns to the plane trip from California to New York. There is much mystery and many subplots, including an inventor, Conrad Nagel, who is travelling to Washington to patent a revolutionary armaments discovery. The film has moved fine to this point and one would think the film would gain intensity during the flight with the mystery that abounds. Yet somehow, the film begins to lose steam.

The plot gets a little shaky as Nagel with little to go on, suspects Rice is hiding from authorities. Likewise, the parole board suspect Rice has taken flight shortly after she has left for New York. Both plot developments are contrived and leave the viewer to accept the unlikely.

Back on the plane, the storyline picks up again as a poisoning occurs. The victim survives, yet indeed this development is bad news for Rice who is quietly trying complete her trip unnoticed. Shortly after, another poisoning brings death. Authorities are quick to uncover Rice's identity and accuse her of the murder. It's left to the clever inventor, Nagel, to find the killer, prove Rice's innocence, and allow her to complete her journey to New York.

It is an "OK" presentation but leaves you a little disappointed. The premise is interesting and with a little more expertise in execution and care to plot this could have been a memorable B mystery.