Test Pilot is an original story that starred Clark Gable as Jim Lane, Spencer Tracy as Gunner Morse, Myrna Loy as Ann "Thursday" Barton and Lionel Barrymore as Howard B. Drake.
Jim Lane is a test pilot for Howard Drake and is considered the best in the business. However, he is a hard drinking, irresponsible, living life on the wild side type of guy. The typical stereotype of test and fighter pilots. The movie starts with Lane trying to break the speed record for a flight from Los Angeles to New York. Mechanical trouble throws a wrench in the plans he is forced to land in Kansas field.
He lands on Ann Barton's parents farm and a quick and short romance ensues between the two. Gunner flies to Wichita to fix the plane while Lane is busy courting Ann. When Gunner arrives he is not happy with Lane because he knows he has been with Ann all day. Gunner tries to warn Ann off, but he is unsuccessful. Even though Lane does leave without her, he turns around and comes back for her and they are married.
I am going to end the synopsis there because I have a bunch of things that I want to get to with this movie and it will mention a bit of what happens later on in the movie. First I want to get to the nominations and then I will discuss the movie in a bit more detail. Test Pilot was nominated for Best Picture and I think it was a worthy nomination. I have read a bunch about the movie and some are a bit upset that Myrna Loy was not nominated in the actress category. I have not seen any of the films that had the Best Actress nominations so I will have to reserve judgment on that until a bit later. At any rate, the other Best Picture nominees were as follows.
- The Adventures of Robin Hood
- Alexander's Rag Time Band
- Boys Town
- The Citadel
- Four Daughters
- Grand Illusion
- Jezebel
- Pygmalion
- You Can't Take it With You
My first impression of this movie is that I really like Clark Gable. He certainly plays the playboy quite well. I certainly enjoyed watching him in this film. Perhaps it is the type of character I have seen him play that I like, either way they cast the right person for that type of character. I find him quite funny and confident and very charismatic. I also think that he and Spencer Tracy made a great duo. I have heard all the great things about Tracy, but this is the first movie I have seen him in, unless you count, It's A Mad Mad Mad World. Hardly Tracy's best role.
The other thing that struck me is the ridiculousness of romance in movies from that time period. Ann and Jim know each other for about twelve hours and they are telling each other that they love one another. It is not just this movie but it seems like it happens in every old movie I have watched. I just can't imagine any parents seeing a stranger land on their farm and then allowing their daughter to fly off with him the next day. Now I don't have a daughter but if I did, I sure as hell would not allow that to happen, but that is just me.
Later in the movie, Jim Lane wins a prestigious air race and he wins $10,000 for his troubles. Now I will not get into how unrealistic I found it that he had an engine fire of some sort and not only continued on, but won the race. I could point to hundreds of movies with other unrealistic events but it reminded me of the spin out scenes in Days of Thunder. I have yet to witness a Nascar driver spin out and recover from the spin and then jump right back in the race.
That isn't the subject of my surprise. I am more amazed by the fact that after winning the ten grand, Lane goes on a couple day bender and somehow ends up in Chicago, but he also spends the ten grand as well. TEN GRAND!!! In 1938!!! That is a lot of booze. I am not sure I could drink that much worth of booze in 3 days now. OK maybe if I bought an old bottle of wine that was super expensive, but ten grand was a lot of money back then. Hell, I think my dad made that annually when I was born.
Another observation is the triangle formed between Gunner, Lane, and Ann. There is something like a partnership set up between Gunner and Ann. Gunner earlier chastised Ann for not thinking through her decision to marry Lane. Especially given the dangerous job he has. Gunner understands that it is dangerous and that death is just around the corner and clearly Ann was not thinking about that when they got married.
It is very clear that Gunner loves Lane and he certainly has a fondness for Ann as well. I was never able to tell if Gunner was in love with Ann as well, but just never acted on it. I suppose it is possible, but I think it was more a partnership as I mentioned earlier. A partnership born out of fear. Fear that Lane would eventually die from a plane crash sooner or later. My wife wondered if maybe Gunner not only loved Lane as a friend, but also as a lover. I suppose that is possible as well, but I don't think society was progressive enough back then to handle such a topic. So, I don't think that was the intention.
I also have a theory on why she might have thought that and suggested it, but I will save that for later. Most likely when I blog about Brokeback Mountain.
Finally, I want to talk about the very beginning of the movie. There was a disclaimer prior to the start of the movie, mentioning the role of the test pilot and what information is gleaned from their jobs. Test pilots do work for both commercial aviation purposes but also for military purposes. There were some scenes in the movie where Lane was doing work for the military. He was doing some test on what I believe was an AT6 Texan and a prototype of the B17 bomber. The film makers were quick to point out that no secrets were let out because of this movie. I found this interesting, because I doubt a film maker would write such a disclaimer these days or for that matter even care if they let any military secrets out.
In the end, I really enjoyed this movie. I like planes and aviation so that may be part of it, but as I said earlier I truly like Clark Gable. Aside from the realism issues I mentioned above I also found the story very entertaining. Four out of Five stars for me.
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