China Clipper

Aviation drama from Warner Brothers and director Ray Enright. Pilot Dave Logan (Pat O'Brien) starts a company with the intention of making transoceanic flight not only a reality, but a safe and reliable service. To this end he drives his engineers and test pilots to the brink, as well as pushing away his own wife Jean (Beverly Roberts). Also featuring Humphrey Bogart, Ross Alexander, Henry B. Walthall, Marie Wilson, Joseph Crehan, Joe King, Addison Richards, Anne Nagel, Milburn Stone, Frank Faylen, Pierre Watkin, and Wayne Morris.

This is a mediocre B-movie that will hold some interest for aviation buffs. The presentation of O'Brien's character is so off-putting as to make him unbearable, and you cheer when someone socks him in the jaw. Bogart shows some of his future promise as a cool-as-ice test pilot with an easy smile and no small amount of charm. Ross Alexander isn't bad either, playing a loyal friend to O'Brien. Alexander would come to a sad end, taking his own life less than six months after the release of this movie, at age 29. Silent screen legend Henry Walthall, playing an elder engineer affectionately called "Dad", would die of a heart attack in the middle of production, grimly mirroring a plot point in the film. Walthall was 58, but looked twenty years older. They lived rougher in those days.

This is basically a thinly disguised bio of Juan Trippe and his early days after founding Pan American Airways. Yet the credits at the beginning disclaim any attachment to a true life story. Well what can you say? Hollywood's been putting those disclaimers on movies since the beginning of films. But the public can, and always does, figure it out. An aviation buff will have a field day pointing out some of the planes that appear in this movie,... a Fokker Trimotor and much stock newsreel footage of the actual Martin Flying Boat "China Clipper" to name a few. The Martin China Clippers of which there were about 4 or 5 ever built flew those pioneering trips to the Orient and an awful long journey it was. This movie re-creates those pioneering days with some great stock footage & some darn good acting. Warners did a number of these aviation flicks in the 30s, 'Devil Dogs of the Air' starring James Cagney comes to mind. But I enjoyed Pat O'Brien(with his wonderful excellerated speech as usual), Humphrey Bogart(marvelous and before all those classics), Marie Wilson, Ross Alexander, Henry B Walthall and silent star Kenneth Harlan who appears early in the film as an airline inspector.

CHINA CLIPPER (Warner Brothers, 1936) directed by Ray Enright, stars Pat O'Brien in another typical drama in the best Pat O'Brien tradition. With screenplay credited by Frank "Spig" Wead, CHINA CLIPPER is no story about a Chinese barber but an aviation story using plenty of aerial photography and flying time for its pilot actors. Taken from opening credits as a fictional story, it plays more like a biography of an ambitious individual minus the character's childhood story for its opening and aging climax and reminiscing of the past. Overall, an interesting tribute to vision and courage in the pioneering of international airways and the achievement of the first transpacific air route.

Though the beginning doesn't specify the year of its start, the mention of the Great War having ended nine years ago and news about Charles A. Lindburg's historic flight is obvious to historians to be 1927 and beyond. Dave Logan (Pat O'Brien), an importer for the James Horn Company, returns from an unsuccessful business trip in Shanghai via steamboat due to lateness of his arrival there. Upon his return to the states, he's greeted by his wife Jean (Beverly Roberts), whom he affectionally calls "Skippy." After watching the parade celebration of Charles Lindburg's thirty-six-hour solo flight from New York to Paris, Dave feels he can accomplish more in the aviation business by quitting his routine job under James Horn (Joseph King) to pursue a career forming his very own commercial air service. Being a flyer himself in the World War, Dave hires former aviation buddies as Tom Collins (Ross Alexander) and Bill Andrews (Alexander Cross), with B. C. Hill (Addison Richards) as financial backer and "Dad" Brunn (Henry B. Walthall) the airplane designer. Determined to pursue his dream regardless of discouragements, failures and financial disappointments, with the arrival of another aviator friend, "Hap" Stuart (Humphrey Bogart) to join forces with him, Dave intends on expanding the system forming test pilots flying from Key West to Havana, and having Dad Brunn working himself ragged designing an even bigger airplane called the China Clipper to race against time across the Pacific Ocean. With Dave becoming more ruthless and unreasonable as ever, he begins to find himself at further risk by losing both his crew and wife.

Other members of the include Joseph Crehan, Ruth Robinson, Anne Nagel and Milburn Stone. Marie Wilson adds for comedy relief as Tom's (Ross Alexander) tag-along girlfriend. Look fast for Wayne Morris (a year before his 1937 breakthrough performance as KID GALAHAD) visible as one of the commercial flyers.

Aside from being known as another one of Humphrey Bogart's early film roles before his superstardom in the 1940s, CHINA CLIPPER is also noted for the final screen appearance of silent screen actor Henry B. Walthall, having died before the film's completion. In true essence, Walthall looked tired and frail in certain scenes, which may have been true to life in the process. With good production values along and impressive supporting cast of familiar stock players, CHINA CLIPPER is an interesting 89-minute story that should have ranked among one of the finest films of the year. Instead, it's a standard production of routine material made watchable during a cold rainy afternoon or past the after-midnight hours.

Never distributed to home video but available on DVD, CHINA CLIPPER can be seen occasionally on Turner Classic Movies cable channel. (**1/2)

This is a great and exciting movie especially if you are a pilot as I am. It reflects a time in aviation that was exciting. Those days are gone forever. I would have enjoyed travel in those flying boats not to mention piloting them. I am from Miami and remember Dinner Key. Those flying boats parked in the bay looked so magnificent with the cumulus nimbus clouds over the Atlantic in the background. I recorded this movie years ago and watch it from time to time and I always enjoy it's vintage scenes. Those great flying boats were magnificent and I can only imagine the joy and sense of adventure flying around the west and south Pacific island hopping! It is true escapism. I highly recommend this movie.

PanAmerican was asked about participating in the making of the movie before it was made. Pan American declined. So the movie was made "fictional." Pat O'Brien of course represents Juan Trippe. Ross Alexander represents Capt. Hugh Wells. Humphrey Bogart represents Capt. Ed Musick. Ed Musik Jr. and grandson Chuck Musik both flew later for Eastern Airlines.

Today, Dinner key still exists in Miami. The former PanAmerican terminal is now Miami City Hall. The hangars are still there at Dinner Key and are mostly in disrepair; used for boating interests.

Besides the excellent Golden Gate picture, I believe there is also a shot of the Bay Bridge, but you have to look quickly.