Review – Dirigible

This was a huge movie back in 1931. Frank Capra directs (though don’t expect the usual brand of Capra-corn from him here). Fay Wray plays the female lead. Jack Holt and Ralph Graves round out the cast. The studio spent a ton of money on it, and it was a popular picture when it first came out. And yet nearly eight decades later, I honestly had never heard of it until I randomly decided to record it from TCM. A big part of the picture’s obscurity is that it isn’t particularly good. Two rival pilots – a hot shot Air Corps plane jockey and a more subdued Navy blimp commander – are both in love with the same woman. She’s married to the flashy one, and she loves him passionately. But he’s always off on one dangerous mission or another, and his rival is always there, always dependable. So when hubby crashes at the South Pole and Mr. Blimp goes after him, she’s double out of luck. Some of the effects are fun, but the script borders on ridiculous even by the standards of the time. And don’t even get me started on how much fun it wasn’t to watch the ice-bound plane crew struggle to survive. I’m not sorry I watched it, but I wouldn’t sit through it again. Mildly amusing