Corsários das Nuvens

• Having grown up in North Bay Ontario Canada, I would like to point out that the first part of Captains of the Clouds was set on Trout Lake near North Bay . The Actors stayed at The Empire Hotel in North Bay.

All of the people of North Bay were excited about this movie and many of us crowded around the entrance to the Hotel and every other place the Stars were sighted. It was certainly a memorable time for the residents of North Bay!! There are more details I would love to add but at this point I would like to ask if there are any reviews that include ALL the areas where Captains of the Clouds was set? Thank you.

Patricia Kennedy

A number of sharp observations have already been made of this movie. Certainly, there do appear to have been two pictures which have been sliced in two and bonded together. I can't help wondering where the other film is - ie. the film which started out as a wartime RCAF flagwaver and ends as a mountains-and- lakes set movie with the love interest triangle, plus old Alan Hale.

As with so many old films, historical interest alone makes the picture worth seeing again and again; for its day, marks: 6.5 or 7 out of 10.

Certainly, there are one or two pretty corny scenes and fancy Michael Curtiz letting Cagney and D. Morgan get away with surely the least convincing fight ever filmed. He must have taken an early lunch that day.

"Captains of the Clouds", it has always seemed to me, is two distinct movies wrapped up into one. What begins as a crisp, light-hearted, colorful story about bush pilots in Canada suddenly transforms itself into a single-minded grim documentary about the Royal Canadian Air Force in the opening days of World War Two.

I don't suppose this abrupt transition from a light-hearted, peacetime human-interest story to an intense procedural war drama would have occurred if the War had not coincided with the production of the film.

James Cagney and Dennis Morgan, the male stars, were well cast for the peacetime opening acts and scenes of "Captains...". Both of them being fine actors, they were also well cast for the grim wartime sequences.

This is an odd and fascinating film that bears watching again and again.

Watching Captains of the Clouds yesterday, I was struck by the fact that at the time it was made, Canada had no film industry to speak of. If they had I'm sure it would have been a different film.

I yield to no one in my admiration of James Cagney as actor. But quite frankly, he's too urban, too much from the sidewalks of New York to be a convincing Canadian bush pilot. But Brian McLean is a typical cocky Cagney character. So if you can get past Cagney's speech pattern, you'll enjoy the film.

Nice location shooting. I'm not sure where the outdoors stuff was filmed, but it looked convincingly Canadian for me. Shots of Ottawa were blended nicely with back lot studio stuff.

Of the rest of the cast only George Tobias attempts an accent and he's a French Canadien. The rest of the cast does well with old scene stealer Alan Hale leading the pack.

But the official Canadian imprimatur was put on the film because Air Marshal William Bishop appears in it in a scene where graduating fliers are given their wings. For those who don't know, Billy Bishop was the finest of air aces on the Allied side in World War I. He had more confirmed kills than anyone else. He was one of the biggest heroes in Canada at that time and still is held in the highest regard by Canadians.

One thing I am sure though. Billy Bishop may have appeared in the movie, but I can't help thinking he would have much preferred the whole thing be done under Canadian auspices if it could have been.

Okay, I'll admit that this film is NOT Shakespeare! In fact, at times the plot is VERY VERY formulaic and silly but somehow the overall package is still quite entertaining.

Jimmy Cagney is the main lead of the film, though it actually has an ensemble cast consisting of Dennis Morgan and other Warner Brothers regulars. And unfortunately, the worst part of this film is Cagney's character, as he plays essentially the exact same character he played in so many Warner films. You know,...the brash and obnoxious guy who seems greatly in need of a comeuppance (such as in THE FIGHTING 69th and MANY other films). It's too bad, as the rest of the plot is very very good and this is a wonderful propaganda film meant to bolster support for the war. In fact, the more I think about it, Cagney's character and how it was written so derivatively is the only real problem in the film. It's a shame really, as apart from this the acting is excellent and the Technicolor scenes of the Canadian wilderness and flying are beautiful.