User Reviews

I saw this movie on TV and liked it. As a pilot of some experience I was more interested in the aircraft and flying than rest of the story. The portrayal of early air mail operations is a good one, even to the pilot's notes. Jeppeson charts had not yet been published and each pilot had his own notes, which were shared with other pilots. It's easy to forgive the film makers for using a 1930's Stearman airplane instead of a 1920's DH4. I'm not familiar with the air mail route numbers but CAM 5 (which appears on the side of the plane) might well have been correct for that route. The crash itself was the correct choice: don't stretch the glide and go between the tees to shear off the wings. Aviation movies are almost never this accurate. The only thing about the movie that didn't ring true, aviation wise, was that before leaving Boise, he didn't perform a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft. Not doing this after work had been done on the plane was very serious pilot error. He would have seen the oil leak and avoided the crash.

Reeve portrays a ticked-off guy with starvation of social life, whose huge goal is piloting the U. S. Mail. This is after he is shown near the end of World War I where he is a military flight instructor, in which his goofball student panics and crashes both of them. Naturally, they are in the single file cockpit arrangement of a bi-wing aircraft -- that we used to see in Cartoonland. They hit a structure, and Reeve -- in front -- falls out or jumps out. The plane goes boom and explodes in a huge fire. Student-pilot ends up toast. Reeves walks away. Good old Superman. Where's your cape? Why didn't you fly away?

I have studied aviation in university coursework. I have also studied acting and stage makeup. Reeve's fake blood looked pretty real. Did he even take one of his pain pills? Maybe not, being such a tough war veteran who had already been in way worse Hell than the one to which he was subjected when he met the minor-in-age portrayed by Arquette. After the second wolf attack, at the end of the scene he had hardly any blood on his neck. Bad continuity.

There is more profit in flying mail than in hauling passengers. You can put a lot more mailbags in the space that a human can occupy, and make a lot more money than the purchase of one passenger air ticket. Mailbags don't talk back, or have rich fathers.

You can see in this film that passenger flying was rather new (post-World-War-One), and of course that the unimagined future would hold an entire new world of humans flying by the dozens-or-larger numbers in huge propeller and then jet aircraft -- not to mention the astronauts of the future space programs.

Reeve's character may have gotten the mail flying job because after the war ended, he may have been a blue collar person not educated enough to do anything else -- like having a business degree and working in somewhere like a bank -- like the father in this film. You talk about being a two-time loser!

I kept thinking, "Another crash. He's getting beaten up and bloody all over again." Later, he's attacked by trained movie wolves and gets hacked up ad infinitum. I think that with two crashes and two wolf attacks, he shouldn't have had any blood left. All of his unfortunate bad experiences were almost hilarious and entirely predictable.

Arquette has a needle and thread in her bag? Did I hear that right? She knows how to sew? What she does know how to do is "bang" a guy -- her supposed ex-louse-of-a-so-called-boyfriend. All of a sudden, Reeve tries not show his newfound unholy interest. Does he spend Thanksgiving with her in the hospital, or with that prune Mrs. Kotter around the family dinner table? Yes, the ending is ambiguous. Maybe Arquette will shoot Mrs. Kotter. Ugh.

Meanwhile, back at the bickering on the mountainside, all of a sudden the two leads started to soften toward each other. In the beginning, their relationship was hatred-on-wheels. That's the way a lot of movies start out -- they despise each other and later it's all lovey-dovey time. It's that Hepburn-Tracy syndrome. I hate you. You hate me. I can't live without you. Let's get married. Kissy-kissy.

Stunt people made a lot of money on this film. Piloting over the mountains, falling down the mountain and hitting their heads, etc. You know that our pretty lead actors are not going to get bloody or injured in actuality, right?

What stupid moron missed the oil leak? Must have been Reeve's friend. Was he spaced out on something? Maybe three of those pain pills. He was a droll sort.

And then the wolves -- great actors. Did they eat up the parachute that had the lead's "blood" on it? Yes, wolves would follow the people around. The blood scents are the big key. You might think that the cold weather and all that snow would make these cute little darling wolfies quite starved, and you would be correct.

I enjoyed this film. 10/10.

The making of a pilot is not such a shoe-in after all as we are to learn first hand.Christopher Reeve is the second instructor assigned to this young student who has shown courage and aptitude in all other areas of flying except getting the plane on the ground,that is landing.However he lands the plane rather shakily They discuss the possibility, The student and the flying instructor of washing out with but perhaps lets make this work and up they go again,this time the student is given the complete control of the landing as you would to indicate a complete confidence and though driven not by aptitude nor belief panics and as a result there is a very serious accident which not only the student losses his life but the instructor is as well very seriously hurt.This could be said to be blamed on pilot error but in truth there was an inexperienced student who panicked and was the direct cause as to not only his own death but the sufferings of both the instructor and the school where this occurred.We move now to where as a rough and rugged pilot Christopher Reeve is involved with this nations early days of AirMail.A oil line problem in a plane about to be used by Reeve to carry mail some four hundred miles is not serviced as it should be and it ruptures during flight causing a near death experience for two occupants.The second occupant is Rosanna Arquette who in a very rebellious spirit given her 17 years of age was being sent to live with a relative because she was to much for her father to handle.It is even a bit dis-concerting to here this bickering going on but go on it does.The hurtful aspect to this side of the aging problem is that young people are terribly mean and there is a mean spirit that is as well conveyed by the participants Sam Wanamaker and Christopher Reeve.It is not an all there presentation that this film provides for with the unenviable task of allowing a AirMail plane to now have a passenger in Rosanna Arquette.It is interesting to note that Arquette is being given this ride because her father and his bank underwrote the very fortunes of this Airmail airline and felt it was a rather safe bet.The accident this time is even more hard to see how anyone would of survived but they both survive.The antics of this seventeen year old in actuality are a bit much to take.She causes almost singlehandedly both of there deaths,first;she is given a severe admonishment for trying to smoke while sitting on fresh fuel all around the downed aircraft and then like so many of them do say oops when after dark she really does light up and tosses the burning match like some reckless crap onto a piece of cloth and the whole place goes up in smoke.There shelter,whatever survival items the plane may have contained everything goes up in smoke.It really gets bad when in order to find food Reeve uses his handgun while not venturing very far from the wreckage manages to kill a Rabbit.A very short time later, while on the way back to the site a pack of wolves surrounds him and in a moments notice not only his catch but his very life are at stake as the wolves attack.His hand gun discharges and though they are fighting,the wolves scatter.He,Reeve though has been badly hurt with a gash on his left arm,She Arquette helps and uses a sewing needle to actually stitch the wound closed.This gets even more so when it is realized by Reeve that maybe they better get out of there and walk back to civilization.During the walk though they are making presumably good time there is a plane that appears to be searching and in there excitement to contact the plane,Arquette takes a nasty fall and seriously injures herself.Reeve,rigs something up whereby you carry supplies on but instead Arquette is brought in tow and they continue to move however slowly.They arrive at something of a clearing when Reeve notices that there are telephone lines and rushes to locate first the telephone pole and then some perhaps indications of life.He is on his way back to where Arquette is however he does not know that Arquette shot at a Wolf and that the wolf has circled the area and comes back around and attacks Reeve.This time he has no gun and in the best tradition of Annie Oakely,Arquette shoots the wolf dead at 50 yards.To make a long story short they get rescued by the guy who did not do such a good fix-it on the oil line and Arquette gets to kiss Christopher Reeve.The purport of this unbelievable film is that we have a very spoiled youth who in there own right have caused a very near disaster.When that youngster crashed and lost his life at the beginning of the film,he would not of crashed had he been given a virtual right of way,that is no more for now unless you say so.He crashed because he wanted his way.Rosanna Arquette though may appear to be a little different but no alas the difference is she was after bigger game though she is just as spoiled as any rebellious teenager.The attempt to place heroic attributes around this characterization is pitiful and nothing but a lie.The kind of lies that youngsters are influenced by as they grow up in this world.It is not a believable film and even more so it is meant to damage credibility.This is a poor excuse for entertainment.These ridiculous films are really a virtual perversion and there is probably no greater an injustice than to provide any importance to such exploitation as is witnessed by this dribble.