Air Mail

John Ford directed this look at the US Air Mail Service, from Universal Pictures. Ralph Bellamy stars as Mike Miller, the tough boss of an air mail station and supervisor over a number of pilots. The hazards are many, and turnover in the ranks is frequent as many pilots crash, permanently injuring themselves or, more likely, dying. After one such death, hot-shot former war ace Duke Talbot (Pat O'Brien) joins the service and immediately starts rubbing everyone the wrong way, with the exception of the wife of a fellow pilot, whom he tries to rub the right way, causing even more trouble in the ranks. But when the chips are down, Duke may be the only one who can save the day. What's interesting here is that Pat O'Brien is playing the kind of arrogant character James Cagney played in 1936's Ceiling Zero, where in that same film Pat O'Brien is the tough talking supervisor of pilots.

The highlight here is the aerial footage, with some excellent shots from under the planes while doing low-flying aerobatics. Some rear-projection and miniature work is antiquated, though. There's a lot of the typical "men in close, stressful quarters" type of dialogue and camaraderie, which comes off as more genuine than the attempts at melodrama involving infidelity. The movie serves as a nice snapshot of a type of work, and the characters who worked it, that are now distant history.