Friday, July 22, 2016

Movie review - "The Lady Takes a Flyer" (1958) **

Lots of middle aged film stars of the 1950s played pilots - it was a cool tough profession. This one has Jeff Chandler as a pilot who goes into business with an old war time mate (Richard Denning) who is keen on a pilot (Lana Turner). They get married, she nags about him always being at work, he's tempted to have an affair.

Why was this film made? It's not based on a best seller, it was an original story. It's not a comedy, there are no real laughs except for a bossy baby sitter and a cute moment where Chandler flies a plane with a baby in his lap. It's not that romantic, apart from a sweet flirting scene while Chandler and Turner are flying respective planes - most of the film consists of the leads squabbling. There's no story - it's a series of incidents (meet, marry, baby, squabble). The climax consists of Turner flying a plane to prove a point - and to rule out any feminism she crashes it. The conflict is repetitive rather than build. The two don't really resolve their issues.

I think the reason it got made is it offered two choice star parts, both of them flyers. Incidentally the story of a romance between two flyers isn't bad - and the movie has this interesting depiction of flyers as these sexually liberated women (there's another female flyer too) - but unfortunately that's only a small component of this film which concentrates on domestic squabbles.

Chandler and Turner are both okay but that's it. The support cast is full of interesting faces, like Chuck Connors and Alan Hala Jnr. Richard Denning has a particularly thankless role as The Friend.

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