High Flyers

The awesome comedy team of wheeler and woolsey, in one of their later full length films. Starts with a synchronized swimming bit in a pool, sung by "a chorus", according to imdb. W & W are Lane and Potkin, running a shady sideshow bit that is on the verge of getting in trouble with the law. They are working with Hanlon (Jack Carson) and get caught up in a jewel heist. They land (crash) a plane in the yard Horace and Martha, (a skinniy Margaret Dumont), mother of the bride to be. Lupe Velez is Juanita, the maid, who is clearly stealing the show. And maybe the jewels! It's fun... W & W's usual gags, wordplay, and pratfalls. Very loosely tied up in a plotline. Features an interesting pontoon Sikorsky convertible seaplane. See the trivia section for details. Directed by Ed Cline... he made five of these with the boys. Based on the play by victor mapes. It's good, but my personal favorite is Peach O Reno. Sadly, after so many great roles, Carson died young at 52 from cancer. Woolsey himself died at 50 of kidney failure, after making this film.

I have long been a fan of this pair.More for the characters than the actual humour.After all the jokes are rarely funny now.I have only just seen this final film of theirs,and i have to say that this is a sad finale to a double act which i have much enjoyed.I think that RKO must have had their doubts because they have cast Lupe Velez,presumably to bolster the laughs.Unfortunately it does not work.She is on one level the boys on another.This film even manages to make the great Margaret Dumont seem unfunny.Also i have to say that poor Robert Woolsey seems to be quite strained,if you look at his face.Sadly,it isn't funny and is a poor epitaph.

Jerry Lane (Bert Wheeler) and Pierre Potkin (Robert Woolsey) are carnival barkers offering a ride, but they have never piloted a plane. Smuggler Dave Hanlon tricked them into flying a real plane. It goes badly and they crash onto the Arlington estate. They have a series of misunderstandings. They fall for the daughter Arlene (Marjorie Lord) and the maid Juanita (Lupe Velez).

I don't find the guys funny. They don't get one single laugh even when one of them try to play the Chaplin tramp. One does a black-face dance and Arlene claims that it's the funniest thing ever. The only slightly funny one is Juanita with her exaggerated Latina character. There is some song and dance mixed in. It's not the best, but at least, that's somewhat fine.

Some false advertising on the part of Wheeler&Woolsey as they run a carnival airplane ride leads the boys into a peck of trouble. Bert Wheeler is advertised as an air ace giving flying lessons.

This bit reminded of a Monk episode where Tony Shalhoub says he can swim because he took a correspondence course. Wheeler has read all on the subject of aviation but he's never flown and even Woolsey didn't know that.

So how stupid does that make crook Jack Carson who is trying to steal some valuable jewels arriving by ship from Europe? Carson's man steals them on ship and drops them over in a life preserver. Bert is supposed to take a seaplane over the spot they are dropped, retrieve them and give them to Carson who is to meet them on another boat. He says it's valuable pictures.

Anyway the boys make a mess of it when it's a police seaplane they steal and then after retrieving the swag get taken in by millionaire Paul Harvey, wife Margaret Dumont and daughter Marjorie Lord. With cops and Carson looking for them and the family dog stealing and burying the jewels the whole steps on the edge of absurdity.

Sadly this was Wheeler&Woolsey's last film with Bob dying a year later. And even more sad is that they seem to have been forgotten.

A pity because this film had some gems. Bert does a homage to Charlie Chaplin with Marjorie Lord with a Little Tramp routine. And Bob gets vamped by the maid Lupe Velez and they do a nice patter song and dance.

If you are a Wheeler&Woolsey fan this one is a bittersweet must.

Robert Woosley and Bert Wheeler are a comedy duo whose career was hurt by the strict enforcement of the Production Code in 1934: their often risquè humor was necessarily reduced to mostly "safe" slapstick. In "High Flyers", their last film together, the comedy is weak and repetitive, and the story is aimless. But there are a few funny bits, and some bright spots, particularly a couple of specialty numbers which have absolutely nothing to do with the "plot": Lupe Velez's terrific impersonation of Dolores Del Rio (what adds an extra punch to this is that Del Rio was probably the only other Mexican female star working in Hollywood at that time), and Wheeler's equally terrific impersonation of Charlie Chaplin. There is also a pretty spectacular plane crash. ** out of 4.