And then there’s this lady, who did most of her acting through her eyes. My Arts Editor called her “goat’s eyes.”
Pilot X (1937, aka Death In The Air) is a bit of an odd bird. On the one hand, it’s a clumsily constructed murder mystery in which all the killings take place via World War I style planes attacking their victims, also in World War I planes. The group of suspects, except for the tallish dude, are all World War I vets and practically visually indistinguishable from each other, even with two European pilots among them. Nor are they permitted to build sympathetic bonds with the audience, which means we are neither shocked when X’s identity is revealed, nor tragically affected by his murder of his victims. And this idiot doctor telephones someone to tell him he knows the identity of the murder, come quick! Yeah, he didn’t come quick enough. An irritating trope of the genre.
Yet, there are some positive elements. The special effects were surprisingly good for the era, in particular the guy who dies from his cockpit catching fire, an almost upsetting scene. The “stock footage” (according to Wikipedia) is actually fantastically well photographed for the era, including the planes fated to enter their terminal dives. And there was a scene in which time passing and alcohol being consumed was implied by just a few seconds of scene cutaways. However, that nice bit of cinematography was wasted, as I didn’t know who was drinking heavily, and why it mattered.
Most importantly, though, was the acknowledgment of PTSD (not so-named, of course, in a film of this age) being suffered by several of the suspect pilots. While the portrayal was perhaps a trifle hysterical – I recommended to my Arts Editor that one actor get dental work done after all the scenery chewing in response to PTSD – it was a note of reality that the military was, at the time, resistant to embracing.
All that said, I don’t recommend this unless you’re a big fan of those old planes and their crazy looking dogfights. I found the movie more than a little irritating.
