In 1933, Warner Brothers movie studio under producing supervisor Darryl Zanuck was turning out movies on three week production schedules that are far better and more realistic than anything Hollywood has made since on a production slate schedule. Airline pilot Jim Blane loses his job because he had an accident and "pilot error" is ruled the cause. Blane lands his plane at a Cuban airport and the airport workers days, when Blane identifies himself at the check-in entrance, "You're not the Jim Blane?" Blane says he is just Jim Blane. Sally Eiler, playing his former girlfriend, has one of her best movie roles. She first hooks up with Blane after he leaves his bank job to be a pilot at the air show she works at. Later, Blane becomes a pilot for hire working in revolutions and wars. Action in this movie is with the minimum of exposition, events occur fast. Blane, constantly getting wounded as a mercenary pilot, is no superman. Like many of Warner screenplay writers, co-writer Rian James was a former newspaper reporter whose work experience provided a solid background to write interesting movies. Star Richard Barthelmess was great at playing characters hardened by their downturns in life. Although in real life, I doubt he thought he would go from being an above-the-title star to being cashiered by Jack Warner in under six months, his studio contract not renewed. Director William Wellman put in a lot of hard work to make this movie fast, one reason why after his Warner contract ended, Wellman went freelance. "Central Airport" was missing in action for decades until Turner aired the movie in the early 1990s. Now this old talkie is on DVD in an unrestored version which is good enough to show that 90 years ago, Warner Bros. Was at the peak of movie making.
Review of Central Airport
