Flight Into Nowhere

Blessedly coming in at 64 minutes, this is one of the worst films I've ever seen for several reasons. While the print is immaculate, the story is ludicrous and the characters stupid beyond belief. Plot has hotshot pilot Dick Purcell breaking all the rules to the point of getting fired from his job at an air freight line that seems to service everywhere between Seattle and Panama. But the boss (Jack Holt) knows he's a good pilot so he only demotes him. Next up Purcell hijacks a plane from comic relief James Burke (!) but it has not be fully fueled. They tell him by radio but he chooses to think they're joshing him (!) and he keeps on flying toward Panama until he runs out of fuel and crashes in a jungle. Of course they launch a hugely expensive expedition to find/save the downed pilot (who might be dead) but save some other guy (Robert Fiske) from a tribe of headhunters. Eventually they find Purcell who's shacked up with the chief's daughter (she's half White) in a kindly tribe that wears ankle length dresses. He seems to be married to her, but he's also secretly married to the big boss' daughter (Jacqueline Wells aka Julie Bishop) back home. As they depart the village, Purcell finally gets his comeuppance. Howard Hickman plays the big boss, Ward Bond is a radioman, and Lotus Long plays the tribal wife. Purcell is insufferable, Burke is no Walter Brennan, and Holt's upper lip never moves.