Elmer CliftonDeath in the Air (1936)

A group of WWI flying aces are gather to combat a psychotic flyer who is shooting down passenger planes.

This item is part of the collection: Feature Films

Director: Elmer Clifton
Producer: Fanchon Royer
Production Company: Fanchon Royer Pictures
Audio/Visual: sound, black and white
Keywords: action; adventure; mystery; aviation

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

Write a review Reviews

Downloaded 5,485 times Average Rating:

Reviewer: billbarstad - - July 26, 2006
Subject: forgetable

Aside from a few confusing distant scenes of biplanes dogfighting, this murder mystery has little to recommend it. A rogue plane is shooting down unarmed commercial flights. A psychologist is brought in and develops a scheme to find the murderer. A straightforward criminal investigation to uncovered the culprit is not considered. Several of the suspects are killed in aerial elimination match-ups before the culprit is found out. One would think this would make for an exciting movie with lots of tension, but no.The ending is a surprise.

I downloaded the mpeg4 file listed as 400 MB in size. It's h.264-encoded, so QuickTime 7 is required to play it -- though there is no indication of this given on the movie's page. This encoding produces a sharp image, comparable to an mpeg1 or mpeg2 -- good for those dogfighting scenes. The print used was somewhat scratched and dirty, but in good shape. The audio is equally good.

Reviewer: neutralist - - July 2, 2006
Subject: This movie is also called Pilot X ?!

I seen Pilot X and it is the same movie as this. The actors and actresses are all the same, same names, situations, etc. However, that copy seems to be all right (at least the mp4 version is). This movie occasionally seems to have lost the audio. It's entertaining but somewhat silly.

Reviewer: CyborgSam - - December 31, 2005
Subject: Not bad...

It was worth watching for the old planes and barnstorming, the plot wasn't very thick, but I hadn't guessed the bad guy.

Reviewer: Bro Bubba - - November 1, 2005
Subject: Lost or Just Forgotten?

A little confusing at times. Not terrible but not much to remember either.

Reviewer: Accountant - - August 25, 2005
Subject: No Sound

I couldn't get a peep out of this picture no matter what I tried. Can one of you computer gurus fix this film ?