Fly Away Baby

Second in this entertaining series sees Torchy taking to the air by plane and zeppelin in order to catch a murderer. One of the better Torchy Blane movies. Glenda Farrell as Torchy and Barton MacLane as her boyfriend Steve the cop are both pitch perfect. Fun support from Tom Kennedy and Hugh O'Connell. The cast is good and the runtime is brief so things move along pretty quickly. Perhaps there's not a lot of meat on the bone with movies like this but they sure are enjoyable.

Lieutenant Steve McBride (Barton McLane) stalks away from reporter and girlfriend Torchy Blane (Glenda Farrell). "You've wasted all of my time that you're gonna," he growls back at her. "From now on I handle this case alone."

–Of course, Steve should know better…it's clear by this point that Skipper (as she affectionately calls him) probably wouldn't get anywhere without Torchy's persistent "interference." Glenda Farrell is excellent in this second Torchy Blane series mystery. Perky, pesky, self-assured—Farrell is perfect as the adventurous newshound. McLane is good, too as the affectionate but gruff detective.

The case begins with a diamond robbery and the murder of a jeweler. The leading suspect, at least in Torchy's book, is a rival publisher's son, who is about to embark on a round the world trip as a publicity stunt. On the spur of the moment, Torchy decides to follow him—as does a third reporter, and they all talk their publishers into promoting it as a race.

Also on the trip is Sergeant Gahagan (Tom Kennedy), Steve's one-time driver who has actually quit the police force to set out on a secret new career. Gahagan must have made a hit in the first Torchy picture, because his role here—the lumbering cop with the heart of a Romantic—is much expanded.

Some neat stock footage of foreign locales, ships, airplanes and even a zeppelin add interest; the plot, while it covers a lot of geography, is admittedly pretty basic. In any case, it's the trio of main characters—especially Torchy—who are the main attraction in this very enjoyable comedy-mystery.

Jeweler Milton Deveraux is murdered during a break in of his store. Lt. Steve MacBride is perplexed, but girlfriend Torchy Blane suspects Lucien Croy, reporter for the rival Star Telegram (who is only on the paper because his father, owner and publisher, wants him to earn a living ) because Croy has amassed large gambling debts, but Croy is alibied by Guy Allister (Deveraux's partner) and Ila Sayre (nightclub singer and Croy's girlfriend). Torchy still suspects Croy of being part of the jewel heist, so thanks to her editor and publisher, accompanies him on a promotional race-around-the-world flight, also joined by Hughie Sprague (reporter for the Daily Journal) and former police traffic driver, Gahagan, who is now a private detective watching Sprague for some reason. Ila later confesses to MacBride that Croy's alibi was not what it seemed, and MacBride races to Frankfurt to arrest Croy for the murder of Deveraux and the jewel theft, but is it as simple as all that? Excellent entry in the Torchy Blane series with plenty of mystery that left this viewer curious to the end, with plenty of twists and turns. The performances of Farrell and MacLane are the same fun as the last picture (also picking up where the last film left off with Torchy trying to get MacBride to the altar) and the comic relief between Kennedy (Gahagan) and O'Connell (Sprague) was played down to the point where it was enjoyable. Rating, based on B mysteries, 8.

Some of the Torchy Blane films are better than others and Fly Away Baby falls in the middle. Now you have to approach these series films with a more charitable perspective. Except for The Thin Man series all the series films back in the studio days were B picture programmers.

Fly Away Baby has reporter Torchy Blane hot on the trail of a jewel thief and murderer. She's got one suspect in her sights, but another comes as a bit of a surprise to her. Of course she's once again treading on the toes of her homicide cop boyfriend Barton MacLane as Lieutenant Steve McBride. MacLane is the original alpha male, but Glenda Farrell gives as good as she gets.

In fact even when the plots are sub par as this one really is, the Torchy Blane series always has that marvelous chemistry between Farrell and MacLane. Farrell in this series gets a chance to shine in a way she never did mostly getting parts that Joan Blondell rejected at Warner Brothers. These two are like a working class Tracy and Hepburn.

And Barton MacLane I'm told was a whole lot like Steve McBride other than a lot of four letter words peppered his daily conversation. Usually he's a bad guy in his early film days, but it's a treat to see him on the side of the law. Folks always seem to be a step ahead of him though whether it's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Torchy in this series.

Also there's Tom Kennedy who gives a droll performance as that thick as a brick assistant. Torchy and McBride are miles ahead of him.

Torchy (Glenda Farrell) and her boyfriend, Steve (Barton MacLane) are once again preparing to get married. And, once again, a murder occurs and derails their plans. This is a perennial theme in this series as well as in the Falcon and Bulldog Drummond.

The police, naturally, arrest the wrong man and Torchy thinks that the real killer is going on a worldwide race--and she intends to chase him and prove his guilt. However, there are a lot of twists and turns and she isn't exactly right--but of course she saves the day by the end of the film. All of this is very, very ordinary...EXCEPT the location of the final portion of the film. During this worldwide jaunt, the trail leads to Germany...yes, NAZI Germany! And, with the help of the German police, the mystery is solved...ABOARD THE HINDENBURG!!!! For an ex-history teacher like me, it made the film worth seeing--even if the plot really is a bit pedestrian.