Men Against the Sky Reviews

Richard Dix had already made his mark in the sky with his films ACE OF ACES and THE LOST SQUADRON as well as many others, so it was no surprise when he was cast for this high-in-the-firmament picture. This time, he's a once-famous flier who has fallen from popular favor and now earns his living doing stunt flying at various little air shows and county fairs. He drinks too much and you wouldn't want to be standing under him, but his heart is pure and, when his sister, Barrie, hires on at Lowe's airplane factory as a designer, Dix does what he can to help her. Lowe is one of those early seat-of-the-pants plane manufacturers who is always close to having his business crash, but he has a new design on the board, a high-speed plane that will decimate the competition. Dix helps Barrie in her designs, the plane passes the rigid governmental tests, and she gets the credit for the work, thus enabling her to marry Taylor who is the chief designer. There was a bit of real footage mixed in with the other reels, and we have a chance to see the Howard Hughes airplane that broke the trans-America record with a flight that took just under seven and one half hours from Burbank, California, to Newark, New Jersey. A few laughs, lots of fine aerial camerawork, and tip-top production values throughout. Belmont's name was changed in later years to Lee Bonnell. It's not a great picture and not even a good one, just a fair programmer that could take its place on the second half of double bills.