Pilote du diable

Chain Lightning is pretty clearly riding the early '50's interest which arose from the disclosure of Yeager's shattering of the sound barrier in '46. The plane Bogie flies is visually a cross between the Bell X1 and X2. (Paned flush windscreen, but swept wings.) "This is the JA-3, position 300 miles to the north of you...Oops! Just passed you." It's not really a Bogie movie, it's one of the first hot-plane movies. I liked it a lot, since I was a hot-plane fan as a little kid. Bogie does OK, certainly. Little details like the perforations in the bottom of his faceplate (in a "pressure suit"!) rather hint that some members of the crew didn't quite understand what they were creating, but I'd rather watch him trying to shake off that stuck rocket booster or land dead stick than sit through another run down some Death Star trench:). It fits into the genre occupied by The Dam Busters and 663 Squadron, fast flying, but none of their "combat" content. The people support the hardware adequately:).

From 1950, "Chain Lightning" stars Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Parker, Raymond Massey, Richard Whorf, and James Brown. Brown played Lt. Rip Masters on Rin Tin Tin and I believe was my first crush.

This is one of those films Bogart probably made to fulfill his contract obligations with Warners, the other one being "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," a scream of a film in which he's really terrible. He's so rarely bad, and he's certainly not bad in this.

Bogart plays Matt Brennan, a pilot, and in the beginning, he's testing a plane. His girlfriend Joan (Eleanor Parker) rushes up and begs her boss (Raymond Massey) to order him down, as she's afraid for him.

The story then goes into flashback, with Matt and Joan during World War II. He was a bomber pilot, in love with Joan. He flew hazardous missions from England to Germany, while Joan is a nurse. He leaves for the states first - they want to get married, but he is unable to find anyone who can give him permission.

Once back in the states, after bouncing around for a bit, Matt is hired as a test pilot by Leland Willis (Raymond Massey) an aircraft manufacturer.

There, he re-connects with Carl Troxell (Whorf) who is now dating Joan, Willis' secretary. Apparently after he left England, Matt never contacted Joan, even though he wrote letters that he never sent. He felt the life that he could offer her wasn't good enough.

Matt takes the new jet JA-4 on a hazardous flight, and that brings us back to the first scene.

This is a pretty ordinary film, with Parker looking beautiful and Bogart acting tough - kind of Rick Blaine as a pilot. I will take issue with what one person on this board said, that Massey was playing Howard Hughes and doing a bad job. If the studio had wanted someone to play Howard Hughes, they would have hired someone else and named the character Howard Hughes. Massey was playing a Howard Hughes type, and he was fine.

The aviation part of this film was ahead of its time for sure. The rest of it was not special. I've always loved Bogart's acting, and even though he's probably going through the motions here, I'd rather watch him go through the motions than almost anyone. Eleanor Parker, another favorite of mine, gives a lovely performance and is absolutely beautiful.

Humphrey Bogart NEVER took himself too seriously, and LOVED poking fun at any Hollywood types who DID. Mentioning Errol Flynn in Bogie's presence would usually evoke a sneer.

Bogie often said of himself "You're looking at a guy who's made MORE bad movies than anyone else in Hollywood"!

Yeah, along with the great ones, Bogie made his share of howlers. Which brings us to CHAIN LIGHTNING!

In a lot of ways, this film's a REAL stinker, but it's a ton of fun just the same.

From an aviation technology standpoint, the film was 10 years ahead of it's time; the mythical JA-3 that Bogie flew had a level of performance that was totally unheard of at the time of the film's release... Alaska to Washington DC nonstop via the North Pole, at almost Mach 2.

At the same time, the film gives us an interesting glimpse into some of the engineering problems attendant to supersonic flight that were just being addressed in the period... like the JA-4's escape pod.

Some of the stuff presented was just plain WRONG, and the film makers KNEW it. Like Bogie flying thru clouds of meteor dust at 70,000 feet. And like the instrument we catch a quick glimpse of in his cockpit, reading GROUND SPEED... a value which was strictly a mathmatical concept which COULDN'T be directly read at that time.

Don't look too closely at ground shots of the JA-3... you might notice the thin steel cable that's connected to the nose wheel. The JA-3 couldn't move on it's own, and to set it in motion that cable had to be pulled by an off camera truck!

Just the same... the performances here are just plain FUN!

Bogie LOVED playing parodies of "tough guys", and those that he viewed as phony heros, and his character Matt Brennan was a broad, overblown sendup of these guys. "How do you want it Willis... the EASY way, or the HARD way?" Bogie growls at his boss, Raymond Massey, over a radio circuit. Typically laconic phony heroics; I don't see how Bogie managed to keep a straight face delivering that line. I suspect that the oxygen mask he was wearing at the time was hiding a mile wide GRIN as he said it! Bogie's just BEAUTIFUL to watch with his delivery of a dozen trite clichés all through the film!

As Bogie's buddy (and fellow scenery chewer) is James Brown, one of Hollywood's unsung hero character actors. Brown was apparently a Warner's contract player who, along with another Bogie movie "Tough Guy" staple, Joe Sawyer, would later make their marks on television in in THE ADVENTURES OF RIN TIN TIN; Brown playing Lt. "Rip" Masters, and Sawyer playing Sgt. O'Hara.

Contrasting Bogie's private little joke of a performance was Richard Whorf's role as Carl Troxel, the earnest aeronautical engineer. Intense and serious, he's a perfect counterpoint to the laid back, world weary Matt Brennan.

One thing that I noticed... to save money on the production, the producer pulled a slick trick with the sets.

If you'll notice, the radio shack / operations room in Alaska is the SAME set later used for the radio room at Washington National Airport; they just shot the same set from two different angles!

In any case... Bogie flies the airplanes, and gets the girl by the last scene. A bit corny and old fashioned, but what's not to like?

I give it a thumbs up all the way.

In 1950, jet planes were a relatively recent phenomenon and their emergence offered new possibilities for the long-defunct test-pilot genre of film…

In "Chain Lightning," Bogart is a World War H bomber pilot hired as a test-pilot who, after the death of his designer friend (Richard Whorf), successfully tries out a newly designed ejection cockpit…

However, there is as little value in a film in which a line like "JA-3 to Fort George. I am fifty miles North of you—ooooops, I just passed you!" is fairly commonplace…

Eleanor Parker offers the only creative acting in the role of Raymond Massey's secretary and Bogart's love interest

After World War II is over, bomber pilot Humphrey Bogart becomes a test pilot who flies the jet planes Raymond Massey's company builds. There's also a bland romance with Eleanor Parker. It's Bogart's first movie released in the 1950s, a decade he sadly would not survive. Bogie does fine but, truth be told, he's too old for the part. Richard Whorf plays his romantic rival. You'll forget him as soon as the movie ends. Eleanor Parker does what she can with her part as "the prize." Raymond Massey is solid as always. James Brown is the clichéd country bumpkin pilot. The plane stuff is interesting, even exciting in spots, but the story is so dull and put together in as workmanlike a manner as possible. When you chip away the advanced technology, you're basically left with one of those 1930s movies about the perils of flight. Only those were usually more fun than this. Not something I'd recommend unless you're an aviation buff or a Bogart completist.