L'aeroporto del deserto

Emotionally touching movie. It shows that our lives are all about our interactions.

A film that belies its age. There are some corny bits of dialogue and cheesy special effects, but Ford created a good low-key drama utilizing an excellent cast. Strong story written partly by Frank Wead. Could not believe this was made in 1932 and at UNIVERSAL!

As Christmas storms gather, the under-pressure manager of an air mail depot is forced to accept a selfish, boastful foe as one of his new pilots. Ralph Bellamy makes a bland and colourless leading man in a movie that suffers from comparison with Only Angels Have Wings, which is based on the same story by Frank Wead and Dale Van Every. Pat O'Brien doesn't fare much better - he was never particularly convincing in roles that called upon him to be cocky and arrogant - and only Lilian Bond as the unhappy wife of a pilot who falls for O'Brien's dubious charms makes a positive impression, although there is something to be said for Slim Summerville's unerring aim with chewing tobacco and a spittoon (ptooh! ding!!). It starts strongly with an impressive air crash and some insane aerial acrobatics in one of those flimsy-looking biplanes, but there's little else of interest.

Universal pre-coder, directed by John Ford, about the dramatic goings-on at an air mail base. Ralph Bellamy runs the place and has his hands full with arrogant new pilot Pat O'Brien. In future films similar to this, O'Brien would play the Bellamy part of the responsible straight-arrow while James Cagney played the reckless hotshot. So it's interesting to see him playing against his (later) typecasting here. Fine performances from Bellamy and O'Brien. Good support from Gloria Stuart, Slim Summerville, Lilian Bond, David Landau, and Leslie Fenton. Nice special effects and flying sequences. Not quite as good as Night Flight but right up there as one of my favorite aviation films from the '30s.

I have nothing further to add M. Dumonteil's perceptive remarks on "Air Mail", but I just want to say that this film is criminally neglected among Ford's works. I just saw it for the first time in years and I really loved it very much. When I first saw it about 3 years ago, I didn't care for it that much. But now I think it is one of Ford's most stirring and beautiful masterworks. "Air Mail" will inevitably be compared to Hawks' masterful "Only Angels Have Wings" but Hawks' film is closer to the romantic exoticism of Josef von Sternberg, whereas Ford's shows the influence of Murnau. Of course, Ford surpassed this early effort many times in his career but it should not be missed. It should be a fascinating companion to Ford's "The Wings of Eagles", a superb biography of Frank Weade, the scenarist of "Air Mail".