Bush Pilot

The producers shipped out a couple of minor Hollywood names (Jack La Rue, Rochelle Hudson) to enhance this very minor outdoor adventure in which stirring flying scenes vie with tinny action on the ground in the fictitious Canadian town of Nouvelle; which employs as a sub-plot what Henri-Georges Clouzot made an entire two and a half hour feature film out of a few years later in 'The Wages of Fear'.

(Austin Willis - who has an introducing credit - who plays the 'good' brother, will be familiar to most viewers with white hair as the rival card player in the opening sequence of 'Goldfinger'.)

Austin Willis has been developing his own one-man pilot service in the far north. He's staying at the lodge run by Florence Kennedy, courting her daughter, Rochelle Hudson, and employing her son, Frank Perry as his mechanic. Just as he's finally showing a profit, his obnoxious half-brother, Jack Larue, shows up to run his own service and skim the cream off his operations. When a load of nitroglycerin shows up, Larue won't run it, but needles Perry into taking it and trying to fly it on his own. Boom!

It's mostly distinguished by the location shooting in Canada. It's a very cheap effort, but everyone does as well as they can with a script by Scott Darling and direction by Starling Campbell.

Miss Hudson was nearing the end of her Hollywood run. She had begun by doing voices for Bosko cartoons at the age of 14. A contract with RKO showed up, and they added a couple of years to her age. Although she became a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1931 and appeared in some interesting movies, she never broke out into the As. She died in 1972 at the age of 55.

Red is a freight pilot somewhere in the North of Canada.He makes his living hauling freight by air all over the wilderness. He's a stand up guy in love with the local school teacher named Hillary. When Red's no good brother Paul comes North he starts up a competing business and tries moving in on Red's girl. Things get worse when Red's mechanic, and Hillary's brother, is killed in a plane crash. Hillary thinks its Red's fault. Will Red be able to win back his girl and put his brother in his place? I guess you'll have to watch the movie and find out.

This is a soapy melodrama about tough guys with a past fighting over business and a woman, but its a compelling movie that runs as long as it has to tell its story. Its small scale and efficient with some great scenery, some good performances and a plot that keeps you interested. Its the sort of thing that played in the wee hours of the Late Late Show after the main movies played but before the news or the farm report came on. The best thing that I can say is its the type of movie you'd stumble across on your way to bed and end up watching to the end (and then have stuck in your head as you tried to figure out what the movie you just saw was because you missed the opening credits)

If you want a good, but not great, movie that will keep you interested for an hours entertainment, this is the film to get. Definitely worth a bag of popcorn.