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ridiculous rating

Good concept, poorly executed.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Richard Arlen (Jim Clark), Jean Parker (Shirley Brooks), Eddie Quillan (Riley), Nils Asther (Eric Karolek), Roger Pryor (Rocky Drake), Marie Wilson (Veronica Gimble), Grady Sutton (Chester Gimble), Dick Purcell (Bob Fuller), Kay Sutton (Danila), Joseph Crehan (Nunnally), Charlotte Henry (Corenson's secretary), William C. Thomas (Corenson), William Hall (Lew West, the test pilot), Dwight Frye (Leo Qualen), James Seay (Dave, the Los Angeles dispatcher), Richard Keene, George McKay, Gayle Mellott (bits). Director: FRANK McDONALD. Screenplay: Richard Murphy, Maxwell Shane. Film editor: Robert Crandall. Photography: Fred Jackman, junior. Art director: F. Paul Sylos. Set decorator: Ben Berk. Wardrobe: James Wade. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin. Assistant director: Howard Pine. Sound recording: Mac Dalgleish, Ferrol Redd. Producers: William H. Pine, William C. Thomas.Copyright 29 August 1941 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 29 August 1941. Australian release: 24 December 1941. 6,357 feet. 70 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Spies attempt to smuggle secret formula on board a return honeymoon flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.COMMENT: Like "Emergency Landing", this one starts off as a wacky romantic comedy, then suddenly switches mid-stream into a highly charged espionage drama. Unlike the other movie, however, the drama is more successful here. Both the crash landing and the escape from the inferno are particularly well staged. The players are reasonably skillful too. Richard Arlen, one of Hollywood's busiest stars, enacts his usual forthright self, Miss Parker makes an entrancing heroine, whilst Dick Purcell excels as the "other man". Cultists will enjoy the brief appearance of a blond-ed Dwight Frye as a venal traitor, although Marie Wilson's fans will be disappointed by the extremely labored puns she is forced to contend with. It's also nice to see a few good close-ups of a grown-up Charlotte Henry (the star of Paramount's 1933 "Alice in Wonderland"). And is that producer William C. Thomas playing the part of her handsome boss, Corenson? (The whole sequence involving Henry, "Corenson", Arlen and Purcell would seem to have little point unless it is in fact an elaborate inside joke).

After one dispute too many Richard Arlen quits as a pilot for one airline to start his own. What an idea, Honeymoon Airlines from LA to Las Vegas and back catering to those eloping couples.Arlen has his usual problems especially romantic ones with girl Friday Jean Parker. But some real ones happen when former pilot Roger Pryor wants a ride and foreign agent Nils Asther has some kind of electronic gizmo he's stolen from the Army Air Corps. We're never quite sure what it is.Flying Blind has all the silliness of a serial with the narrow escapes of one compacted into a B film. Some really good character players like Grady Sutton, Marie Wilson, and Eddie Quillan are wasted in some rather forced comedy.This was a Pine-Thomas Production which was Paramount's B picture unit. Arlen was one of many former big box office names they used in the 40s and 50s. Some of the Pine-Thomas films were good. This wasn't one of them.

Don't let the attractive poster/DVD cover fool you. This has a lot of action and thrills, but it is lacking in subtlety and realism. Remember the family driving through earthquake exploding southern California in "2012", then the follow up with them flying? The creators of that scene must have seen this B second feature where a diving plane crashes without exploding and takes off, flying through an inferno without catching fire itself. This surrounds evil Nils Asthers' attempts to hijack the passenger plane to Mexico with stolen military devices, instead going down early where the most absurd situations occur. Pine Thomas productions at Paramount missed the plane (or boat) on this often obnoxious saga that utilizes too Mich humor to hide the fact that the story makes no sense. Pilot Richard Arlen and stewardess Jean Parker quit their regular airline jobs to start a transport plane, taking eloping couples to Las Vegas along the way. Not only is nefarious Asther on board but mismatched and especially annoying Grady Sutton and Marie Wilson who add bubble headed comedy to offset Arlen and Parker's supposedly smart rapporteur. I rolled my eyes with each intended laugh, and ultimately just gave up in trying to figure it all out. The remainder of the cast is filled out with has-beens who were lucky enough just to be minor.

Richard Arlen is a happy-go-lucky pilot who, fired from his job, begins his own airline. It's a line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, mainly for people who want to get married in America's playground. Trips may also be made between Los Angeles and Reno, for those for whom Las Vegas didn't work out.Arlen's stewardess (for that is what they were called) is the pretty Jean Parker. His chief and only mechanic is Eddie Quillan whose wife is due to give birth during this trip.Among the passengers are two newly marrieds, the goofy Scoutmaster Grady Sutton, and his empty-headed but good-natured bride, Marie Wilson. Also aboard are two spies of undetermined origin smuggling a secret, new carburetor out of Los Angeles and into Las Vegas where they plan to place the device on the roulette table, hoping it will be mistaken for a pile of million-dollar plastic chips. Not really. I don't know why they're taking it to Las Vegas. Las Vegas was never known as a hotbed of espionage. Maybe they figure on wining and dining it and, with any luck, wind up spending the night with it in a water bed suite in a fancy hotel.The airplane is also transporting a heavy steel engine block. Arlen is at the controls in mid-air when he learns about the spies. A fight ensues. The engine block breaks loose from its trappings and slides around until it bashes Eddie Quillan against the bulkhead. The airplane crashes on a mountain top. Everybody survives. The stupid scoutmaster tries to light a signal fire but sets off a forest fire instead. The fight continues on the ground. The good guys win. One of the spies is killed and left behind to barbecue. The evildoer-in-charge is packed aboard the airplane. The airplane manages to take off amidst the holocaust. Arlen marries the stewardess. The schedule Quillan had drawn up for the birth of his child is wrong because he'd torn off two pages from his calendar instead of one. (Joke.) Nothing defines "B" status more than this movie. I bought the DVD as part of a "Heroes of War" collection, which included the far more enjoyable "Gung Ho." I had to force myself to sit through it because I'd paid for it. The audio stinks and the images were appropriately in blurry black and white. The score, surprisingly, was by Dmitri Tiomkin. Tiomkin was to go on to more ambitious and better things. He must have been pretty young when he wrote this score, no more than fourteen or fifteen, I'd guess. Tiomkin was a curious guy who had no aspirations beyond doing film scores. It was his perfect métier. He never wanted to sit down and write the great American symphony. Someone asked him what he would like to do if he had his choice of all the professions in the world and he replied, "Write movie scores." The movie isn't dull actually. It doesn't give itself time enough to be dull. It rockets along at a fast clip and if given scenes are dumb or inept or not as funny as they're supposed to be, who's to notice? I know people who would, I think, enjoy this but he lives in a Godforsaken, radioactive place near Trinity Site.