Watch Test Pilot For Free

Let's be realistic.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Test Pilot surprised me with how good it is. As a love story, I rank it right up there with The Way We Were.Clark Gable plays a test pilot, Jim, who lives hard and fast. Like many who live on the edge, he is superstitious and has an addictive personality. To cope with the risks he must take, he never deals with his feelings and drowns his fears in excesses of liquor and women.Then he meets Ann, played by Myrna Loy--a fresh-faced, wisecracking Kansas girl who falls hard for the guy. Likewise, he falls for her and before you know it, they are married.After they are married, Ann learns quickly what life with Jim must be like. It is a harsh reality that she cannot shake; she loves the mug. Jim's sidekick is Gunner, a guy who also loves him but has learned to cope with Jim's short-sighted view of life. When Ann enters the picture, it becomes more than he can bear; he can endure his own pain, but cannot stand to witness hers.We see a love story that can only end in pain, made all the more painful because all three characters are lovable.The writing in this movie is among the best I have seen. There is not a false note in the entire film. It's difficult to write this kind of banter without making it seem false or shallow. Later in the film, when the going gets tougher, the writing conveys the feelings deep within even when they are talking only about the mundane.It has been written that Myrna Loy liked this film best of all she acted in. Personally, I would give her the Best Actress award for this performance, though she was not even nominated.Gable holds his own. And Tracy plays Gunner with a convincing subtlety.Victor Fleming, who directed The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind the very next year, had another winner in this one. I am surprised it does not get much mention.

Yes, it did seem a little odd that the screwball style dialogue and wittiness at the beginning of the movie changed tone a little into the movie, but Myrna Loy was wonderful! She's what every guy would want - beautiful, upbeat, able to hold her own in a war of words and wills, witty, endearing, emotionally feminine, and a little flirty, all at the same time! If you liked her in the "Thin Man" movies, you'll love her here since it's more of the same - and yet a little more, since she isn't married at the beginning of the movie and that singleness adds a little to the flirtatiousness. What Myrna could do with those eyes of hers!No wonder it is said that this was Myrna Loy's personal favorite film of hers - she has many shots of her that are just downright flattering! How did they used to describe it? "Fetching," I think it was.Gable is the smooth-talking, brash egomaniac, able to do anything and charm anyone. Tracy I thought didn't have much of a role and was kind of pushed into the background.Although the real flying footage was good, the many "walking" and "driving" scenes in front of obvious rear-projected background film really cheapened the look of the movie.One of the most unintentionally funny lines, seen in today's light, is when Gable admonishes a somber Tracy during a post-victory drunken celebration. It went something like this, "You need to get gay. You might even shock yourself."

The flying shots are often very good, particularly since they look to have been taken from another aircraft. The planes are antique, even by late 30s standards. The sleekest fighter resembles a P-36, already obsolete (vs. the Zero and the Me 109). The B-17 is the early model sans tail gun. Loy is an improbable farm girl and her conflict with the flamboyant Gable (in love with the wild blue dress yonder) is unconvincing compared to the witty interchanges with Powell in the Thinman films. Tracey, without a great part, shows how good he is. He just raises an eyebrow or lowers a lip -- no wonder Gable envied his acting! But watch this one as part of a "history of flight" course -- not necessarily how it was done back then but how it was depicted. And there is some truth to the mythology that inter-war flying in this country was done by a bunch of loners, rogues, and madmen. We were only a few years from the more mechanized approach to turning out pilots in great and necessary quanities, in schools where "training" was really done.

The first 40 minutes features some sharp, witty dialog, much of it by Myrna Loy as she puts down the arrogant Clark Gable.Then the story just gets too silly and begins to bog down with a one-day romance that results in marriage, of course (only in Hollywood!). Then you get a predictable death scene and then Gable shown winning a big race. However, after the race he goes on a four-day drunk with no explanation of why he did it.The film continues with this kind of stupidity and ovedoner melodramatics by both Gable and Loy, ruining what started out to be a very promising two-hour film. Instead, after awhile I just couldn't wait for this to end. Not recommended.