Air Hostess

The film opens with the words "Somewhere in France..." showing us where we are, and an aerial dogfight going on. One airman tells another that he will go lookup the other's daughter after the war. Then we are "Somewhere in America....". Kitty the air hostess (the beautiful 25 year old Evalyn Knapp) makes a date with a pilot, but has to break it when the rest of the airport workers scare him off. They have been keeping an eye out for her, scaring off men that try to get near her. In the meantime, we are treated to some air stunts by the dashing James Murray as Ted Hunter. He's a loud, outspoken showoff, so we know there will be trouble ahead somewhere down the road. Pretty good photography and sound quality, considering it was the early days of talkies (and flying too!) They pack a lot in this short, pre-code adventure-drama (67 minutes). Good acting and good story, except for the ending, which gets a little hokey. In real life, it didn't end well for Murray -- he drowned in NYC at 35, only three years after this film. Directed by Albert Rogell, who had started in silent movies in 1920. Original story written by Grace Perkins, who had just written "Night Nurse", made into a film starring B Stanwycke.

One reason you watch 1930s movies to experience the mood and atmosphere of the age. Grace Perkins who wrote a handful of those iconic early thirties movies such as NIGHT NURSE also wrote this. She wrote this however when she was just 19 working at a magazine in 1919 so its story, its attitudes are a decade older than the actual film. It's a 1930s picture but it's also a picture from an era even longer ago, from a time even more different and alien to us than the thirties. Not a great film but an interesting snapshot into how we thought, lived and loved in the 1920s.

It was set in a time when men were men, women were women, planes were called ships and aviation was pronounced aah-viation. The blend of Great War attitudes in a 1930s context makes this a little more interesting than your usual Columbia B movie. Evalyn Knapp's Kitty certainly isn't your typical girl of the thirties and certainly not a twenties flapper. She's a sweet young thing and it's the duty of her male companions to protect her from the attentions of other men....until she can marry someone she's only known for a couple of days because that's what girls had to do! It's fascinating to see that that their way of thinking and behaving seems so perfectly normal to them. These people look like us but they're so different even from the familiar faces we see in 1930s pictures; their sensibilities and points of view seem Victorian.

What is most definitely not Victorian is Thelma Todd. She has almost as much fun vamping up her role as the man-eating, sex crazed 'other woman' as we do watching her. Holy mackerel - now that's what I call a dress! I'm not sure I'd be able to resist her charms either. Her character isn't exactly subtle neither is it a well-developed character. And that's a problem with this film: the characters are very black or white. We have a good girl, a nice but boring boy, an exciting bad boy and a naughty bad girl. There's no nuance to anyone, their personalities are just clichés, but..... Grace Perkins was only a teenager when she wrote this so didn't have the experience of life to draw from at that stage....and the story probably didn't cost Columbia much

The story, which is as unbelievable as the characters, centres on Kitty's husband trying to get financial backing for his new airplane from wealthy Thelma Todd who will do so in return for sex. Does Kitty love her husband enough to allow him to achieve his dream by letting him be seduced by the wild, wealthy widow? Is husband actually thinking about airplanes at that point!!! It's not the best acting or direction you'll ever find but it will keep you amused for an hour.

Evalyn Knapp is Kitty King, air hostess. Her dad was an ace pilot who cracked up in the war and so now all the airport crew think she belongs to them and want to protect her—especially from any new fellows around who might try to get fresh. "Say, listen," Kitty finally tells one of them, "I've never been alone long enough with any man to see how it feels to get properly insulted."

Enter James Murray as Ted Hunter, hot shot daredevil pilot who was once great but drank himself out of the flying profession. All of the airport crew hold him in scorn…so naturally Kitty falls for him.

Evalyn Knapp is the best thing going for this occasionally exciting but frequently dreary melodrama. Knapp is bright, cute—and just walks the line between naive kid and focused, determined adult.

The plot is pretty so-so….Ted the pilot has an idea to build a super-duper plane and attempt the first trans-Pacific crossing, but he can't find a backer to help pay for the thing. Kitty keeps her job as air hostess to put food on the table, against his wishes. Can he raise the money? Can he stay sober? Will Kitty's stubborn faith in his essential goodness be rewarded?

Thelma Todd is devilishly wicked as a publicity crazy rich divorcée who proposes to finance Ted's project but instead seduces him with liquor and other temptations. She really gives no hint of Thelma the great comic actress here—this Thelma is all dark side, and she's convincingly dangerous.

A genuinely thrilling climactic chase sequence does partly make up for the slow-moving middle section....Overall, aside from a few exciting moments, I'm afraid it's pretty mediocre—although the flying sequences do add some interest, presumably, for fans of early airplanes.

The most interesting part of Air Hostess (the term stewardess had apparently not come into use yet) is seeing all the early cinematography of passenger airliners and the surroundings. I took my first ride in an airliner as an infant in 1948 and the next one didn't come until the mid Sixties. It's fascinating to see what we take for granted even back then as compared to what the first airline passengers had to deal with.

Perky Evelyn Knight plays a character that if Air Hostess were an operetta, Jeanette MacDonald would have been cast. She's an air orphan who has grown up and around aviation since her dad who was a war ace was killed. Jeanette played just such a character in The Girl Of The Golden West.

She's got a couple of the pilots now who are checking her out, steady and reliable Arthur Pierson and daredevil stunt pilot James Hall. Hall has a scheme to become the Lindbergh of the Pacific and even has a ship designed for the trip if he can ever raise the heavy duty dough needed for it. Knapp winds up marrying Hall.

But a minx gets in the mix when rich playgirl widow Thelma Todd enters the film. The mantrap has it set for the glamorous Hall and he's needing her money real bad for his trans-Pacific voyage.

It's a formula plot despite all the aviation facade and that's where Air Hostess stumbles. The players do make it work, especially Todd who is so enticing.

In fact another thing about Air Hostess is the tragedy surrounding both the tempting and the tempted in this plot. Both James Murray of whom a brilliant career was predicted after his rave reviews in King Vidor's silent classic The Crowd and Thelma Todd would die within four years of this film. Knowing that lends a certain poignancy to their scenes together.

Air Hostess is a must film for aviation buffs, showing a picture of early airliners, for the rest of us it's an easy to take, but strictly formula plot.

The b-level programmers of Columbia Pictures during the 1930's are often quite exciting and well-paced. The studio's assembly line produced audience-satisfying product quickly and inexpensively. And, in this case, with a director like Albert Rogell, veteran of dozens of fine b-westerns in the silent era and who would continue working in bread-and-butter product through the 1950's, AIR HOSTESS (not the most exciting title!) has all the elements of a textbook example of the exciting, efficient b-movie. Daring stunt flier James Murray (of King Vidor's THE CROWD, who would die a few years later due to alcohol) sees his friend and mentor get killed during WWI and helps watch over the friend's young daughter over the years. The film soon switches to the early 30s, where the daughter (played by the perky Evalyn Knapp, perhaps best-known today for starring with John Wayne in the long-time public domain, dollar-rack favorite HIS PRIVATE SECRETARY in 1933) is a grown up airline hostess and Murray is a pilot who is still a daredevil but also an inventor of aviation technology looking for an investor to help see his plans to fruition. Needless to say, they fall in love, a number of problems arise, Thelma Todd appears (looking especially regal!!!!) as "the other woman", and the film ends up with an amazing train-plane sequence. Knapp is quite appealing (although a few flubbed lines are left in, reminding us that Columbia was NOT a major studio in 1932!), and James Murray shows the charisma that made him a star in THE CROWD. He has a brash quality, and had he lived, he surely could have made a career of playing wisecracking newspaper reporters and leads in b-action films. Interestingly, his character is drunk in about 1/3 of the film--one wonders if that was written into the film to capitalize on the bad publicity Murray had received for his drinking problems, or if he actually was drunk on the set and the writers quickly decided to play along with it (I'm betting the former). In any event, he is quite impressive and this is a major role for him, though the movie was undoubtedly a bottom-of-the-bill product that vanished quickly from theaters. In less than 65 minutes, we laugh, we cry (the scene where the WWI flier has his daughter's letter read to him is a real tearjerker), we feel for the characters, we cheer them on, we worry about them, and we are brought to the edge of our seats in a nail-biting climax. What today's directors could learn from a film like this and a director such as Albert Rogell. Also, it's not every film that's set in Albuquerque (at least half of it is!). Finally, those who collect films with spanking scenes can put this one on their lists, although it's a brief one. Highly recommended to lovers of classic fast-moving early 30's b-movies.