Film Critic and Author Leonard Maltin On Some of His Favorite Aviation Films
By S. Mark Rhodes
Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guides have been a great resource for filmgoers to discover new favorites and re-visit old chestnuts. His most recent addition (Leonard Maltin’s 2012 Movie Guide from Signet) is nearly 1,700 pages and weighs in at nearly two pounds (it can crush the Kindle!).
Embedded within this guide are insightful, capsule interviews of some of the most noteworthy aviation films that Hollywood turned out in its golden age. Mr. Maltin was nice enough to speak to In Flight USA’s Mark Rhodes about some of his favorite aviation films and how the aviation film genre might make a comeback.
In Flight USA: Once upon a time the aviation film was as much a part of Hollywood genre films as the Detective film, the Western, the Science Fiction film and so on. What do you think are the reasons that the genre declined?
Leonard Maltin: (Long Pause) “I am just guessing mind you, but I think a lot of it has to do with gaming (video games) which maybe has taken the place of the excitement audiences used to get with aviation movies. When Top Gun (1986) came out in the 80s there was a lot of comment then about how some of the combat flying sequences resembled video games. And in those intervening years, those games have become really vivid and even realistic. This (the rise of gaming) might have replaced some of the thrill that films like Top Gun used to provide movie audiences.”
IFUSA: A lot of legendary actors like John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Clark Gable and William Holden portrayed aviators. Do you have any favorite acting performances in aviation films?
LM: “Right, it (playing an aviator) was part of the repertoire. With regard to actors playing aviators I have to say they all convinced me (laughs). I am a rank amateur, but I have friends who are aviation buffs who would have sharper opinions than my own. As a kind of inexperienced audience member they all did the job for me. I thought Gregory Peck was great in 12 O’Clock High (1949), and Wayne was convincing in High and the Mighty.”
IFUSA: What are the aviation films that have made an impact on you as an audience member?
LM: “Speaking of John Wayne, I think Island in the Sky (1953) is a very underrated and under appreciated film. It is not as well known as a film called the High and the Mighty (1954) which came out a year later with some of the same cast including John Wayne and the same Director, William Wellman, and based also on a novel by Ernest Gann.
“Island in the Sky was striking because it dealt so much with the nuts and bolts of aviation at that time; the technical and navigational challenges that they faced; it is kind of quaint today with all of the sophisticated technology related to modern aviation.
“Island in the Sky also addresses the particular camaraderie that aviators, particularly aviators that came through World War II share. This is what makes this a moving and affecting film for me.
“Another film that I had the pleasure to re-discover recently was Night Flight (1933) which was an MGM production that had been out of print for 75 years. The film is an adaptation of the novel by Antoine du Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince) and is an interesting attempt by MGM to try to make an existential movie about man’s relationship to the heavens. Mind you, this was attempted within the framework of a mainstream Hollywood production. And, as with Island in the Sky, there is that rare sense of the wonder of early aviation with the fliers in an open cockpit and relying on primitive methods to chart a course and navigate.”
IF USA: What do you think it would take to revive the aviation film genre?
LM: “All it takes is one good film to revive a genre. Amelia (2009), a high-profile aviation oriented film with a high-end cast could have done this. Amelia wasn’t a bad film; I liked some of the performances and it had good production values, but in the end it was a little too uninspired to really spark a genre revival.”
