China Clipper

Following the filming of Frank 'spig' Wead's successful Broadway play Ceiling Zero, Warner Brothers got one of the stars of that film Pat O'Brien, to star in a Wead screenplay about the creation of the famous China Clipper, the plane that made the first passenger run from San Francisco to the Orient. Back in the day it excited the American public no end.

Wead based his lead character on a World War I aviation hero who went into the commercial flying business, Eddie Rickenbacker. But he invested a lot of himself in O'Brien's character as well.

That's what struck me watching China Clipper today. The scenes with O'Brien and his estranged wife Beverly Roberts reminded me a whole lot of the plot for Wings of Eagles which is John Ford's biographical tribute to Spig Wead. It was like Wead himself through O'Brien was trying to justify his single minded attention to aviation to the neglect of wife and family.

Humphrey Bogart, Ross Alexander and Henry B. Walthall are O'Brien's associates. This was Walthall's farewell screen performance. He collapsed on set and died shortly thereafter. I'm not sure if the film was rewritten to accommodate Walthall's demise or his death was originally part of the story. Whatever it is, it is spookily coincidental.

Marie Wilson plays her usual dumb Dora with eyes for Ross Alexander, in this one she got a bit annoying I have to say.

Bogart was not especially fond of this film though it was a change from the gangster thugs he was doing then. He plays another flier at loggerheads with O'Brien.

The scenes involving the flights were well done, much better than in Ceiling Zero, though that had a better story.

China Clipper is a routine action adventure film from Warner Brothers, yet viewed together with Wings of Eagles it does kind of take on a whole new meaning.

Bogart temporarily left the field of crime to portray a more respectable type in his subsequent effort, "China Clipper." On its simplest level "China Clipper" relates a routine story of an airline owner's (Pat O'Brien) desire to put into operation a trans-Pacific airline… Soap-opera dramatics take over quickly as O'Brien's dedication to his project costs him his wife, his friends, and the clichéd obligatory, for this genre, death of an elderly associate designer...

Bogart's undistinguished role was that of a wise-cracking pilot, frequently engaging in verbal sparring with O'Brien and fellow pilot Ross Alexander, who eventually makes the record-breaking flight across the Pacific in the film's finale...

"China Clipper" is merely artificial drama, but it has a certain value for its generally well-integrated use of newsreel and stock shots of the actual "China Clippers" in operation... One particularly exciting shot is of the mammoth plane flying over an as-yet-uncompleted Golden Gate Bridge with its gigantic opposing spans reaching out into empty air, waiting patiently for its final connecting links

A no-nonsense dreamer drives his men & machines to the breaking point in an attempt to establish a transpacific route for his flying CHINA CLIPPERS.

Warner Brothers gives a rousing production to a story that is essentially, on analysis, a soap opera with wings. Based on the history of Pan American Airlines, the film is at its very best when it takes to the air, especially during the exciting prolonged climax with its race to beat the clock in the initial flight from California to Macao.

Pat O'Brien gives a typically earnest, energetic performance as the tireless & tyrannical protagonist - a man who becomes increasingly obsessed with his lofty aviation goals, no matter what the cost in personal relationships. It's difficult to like the character, but O'Brien also makes it hard not to respect him.

What is especially enjoyable in CHINA CLIPPER is to appreciate the performances of three members of the supporting cast. Henry B. Walthall, the pivotal star of silent cinema, the hero of D. W. Griffith's THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), plays the gentle engineer who designs the great flying ship. His haggard appearance is not a result of makeup. He was genuinely ill with influenza and he would die two months before the release of the film. He was only 58, although he looked far older. Warners rewarded him by ratcheting him down to 10th place billing.

Ross Alexander & Humphrey Bogart play two friendly, dedicated pilots who chafe under O'Brien's dictates. These young actors had very similar acting styles & screen personas and it is quite interesting to see them perform together. Their fates, however, would be very different. Alexander had the necessary talent to become a major star, but the breaks simply didn't come his way, and, his private life spiraling out of control, he would be dead less than five months after the release of CHINA CLIPPER, a suicide at 29. Bogart got the lucky breaks, and, with some good roles in the next five years, was on his way to eventually becoming a screen legend.

Pretty Marie Wilson has a comical recurring role as a ditsy blonde enamored with Alexander. Movie mavens should spot Frank Faylen in an uncredited bit part as the company's weatherman in Columbia.

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.

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)