Tail Spin

I have absolutely no doubt that Frank 'Spig' Wead must have seen a production of the George S. Kaufman-Edna Ferber classic on stage or saw the screen version with Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. He must have liked it because it certainly inspired his writing of the script of Tailspin.

My guess is that Wead who knew the world of aviation well as we all know from seeing Wings of Eagles, did not of course know it from a woman's point of view. Therefore I think he took what is a woman's story in Stage Door and adapted it for the screen in aviation.

The Katharine Hepburn part is played by Constance Bennett who is a socialite who takes up aviation as a lark to compete with her boyfriend army aviator Kane Richmond. She can afford the best and uses her money to build a custom job that can beat anything in the air. Her father Harry Davenport disapproves of his daughter's avocation the same way Hepburn's father did in Stage Door.

She's got a chief rival in Alice Faye, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who represents the rest of the woman so to speak. As Richmond tells Bennett, these other women are competing for coffee and donut money, their living is in the balance in the Depression Era America of the Thirties.

There is an Andrea Leeds equivalent played by Nancy Kelly and beautifully if I might add. She's married to another aviator Edward Norris and they are bonded together by their love of each other and of flying.

The men come up second best in this film. Surprising when you consider who wrote it, not surprising when you consider what Spig Wead might have used as the source. Because they come up second best you can understand why Fox leading men like Tyrone Power and Don Ameche probably weren't even offered this one. Charles Farrell is in the rather colorless role as the mechanic on Faye's plane who'd like to get something going with her if Richmond would get out of the way. You see he's romancing both Faye and Bennett.

Alice Faye gets one song to sing in Tail Spin, a number from her favorite songwriters, Mack Gordon and Harry Revel. She sings Are You In The Mood For Mischief in her familiar warm contralto and well.

The climax of all of this involves the air races in Cleveland. Tail Spin is an interesting feminine take on the aviation profession with a very familiar plot line.

If you can forgive the implausible casting of some of Fox's female stars caught up in a formula plot about lady aviators and their love lives, TAIL SPIN is easy enough to take.

Alice Faye and Constance Bennett share top billing, with Faye as the earthy waitress type who spends all her hard-earned money on flying lessons, while Bennett is a socialite with similar aspirations who has a hard time adjusting to the environment of gals jealous of her.

Lots of flying scenes and enough crashes to keep you awake while the plot unfolds in leisurely fashion. By the time it's over, you've more or less predicted the outcome.

Joan Davis provides a few laughs in comic support of Nancy Kelly, Jane Wymnan and others, but it's just a trifle that passes the time acceptably with Charles Farrell, Kane Richmond and Edward Norris in the leading male roles who wait patiently for the final clinch.

"Tail Spin" from 1939 is about a group of women pilots in competition. The film stars Alice Faye, Constance Bennett, Nancy Kelly, Joan Davis, Jane Wyman, Charles Farrell, and Kane Richmond.

Faye is a waitress, saving to pay for needed parts for her plane and to get to the competition. The Powder Puff Competition pays $100,000, good prize money even today! She's joined by friends and one outlier - Gerry Lester, who for some reason has her first name pronounced Gary (Bennett), a wealthy woman with a super-fast plane. Needless to say, everyone resents her.

You can see one of the subplots coming a mile away.

There isn't much to this film except a lot of planes in the air. Alice sings, "Are You in the Mood for Mischief?" Nancy Kelly has a very overwrought role - she was a good actress, but there wasn't much she could do with this part, given her dialogue and the way she was photographed (in closeup wearing a wistful look).

Davis is there for the comedy, and she's fun.

Love Alice, love Constance, love all of them, but for me this wasn't much of a film.

Quite a change of pace for an Alice Faye film. Gone are the glorious gowns and exotic locales, but instead we find our Miss Faye as an aviatrix, trying to make ends meet and win the Cleveland Air Races. Her arch rival is the society belle Gerry Lester, played with an arched eyebrow by Constance Bennett.

The performances are a bit overwrought, but that's part of the fun. Faye only gets one song in the final cut, but it's a great sultry number called "Are You in the Mood for Mischief?" Throw in an awkward slap fight in the powder room, a dash of tragedy, and you've got a fun cinematic soapie/tearjerker/stand up and cheer kind of film.

Basically an A-picture that plays like a B, with all the entertaining trappings that implies.

Joan Davis is great fun as the comic relief. Nice rainy-Saturday entertainment.

In their review of "Tail Spin", bkoganging described the film as if the writer, Spig Wead, had taken his inspiration from "Stage Door". At first I thought this sounded silly...then I watched the film. I think they were dead on--as the movie looks like a Wead film (after all, he was a pilot and often wrote about planes--and himself raced planes) combined with this famous RKO film where women are rivals-- but this time for trophies instead of acting parts. As such, the film sticks with the usual clichés. In addition, a HUGE cliché (and it annoyed me) was the husband who was about to go for the speed record. The very second I saw this scene, I KNEW exactly what would happen....just like what happened to DeadMeat in "Hot Shots"! Both of these detract from the movie a bit as it makes it rather easy to predict.

So despite this, is the film any good? Well, it is entertaining and the film features some decent acting. But as I said, the clichés prevent it from being anything more than just a pleasant time- passer. Worth seeing but certainly NOT a must-see movie.