Riding on Air (1937)
5/10
It's Always Elmer
20 December 2018
Joe E. Brown is a small-town newspaperman with an assortment of hobbies, like ham radio and flying. He gets himself accepted as the local correspondent of a Chicago newspaper and is hoodwinked by Guy Kibbee as a successful investor, whom he brings back to town to organize a company for a local radio-controlled plane. Brown also has a girl -- Florence Rice -- and a theory he is pursuing for the paper about a man who was shot seven times and his bones broken.

It's an elaborately plotted comedy, done during the period when Brown left Warner Brothers for independent producer David Loew. While the story is nicely complicated, the gag structure, supervised by Eddie Sedgwick, is pretty tired. There's a thrill comedy sequence, but it's clearly shot on a set with a wing-walker doubling for a brief few seconds. Instead, the comedy depends on Brown's screen persona and big-mouth shtick. It is not, alas, enough to make this movie very funny.
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