TEST PILOT

MGM, 1938.  Directed by Victor Fleming.  Camera:  Ray June.  With Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Samuel S.  Hinds, Marjorie Main, Ted Pearson, Gloria Holden, Louis Jean Heydt, Virginia Grey, Priscilla Lawson, Claudia Coleman, Arthur Aylesworth, Dudley Clements, Henry Roquemore, Jack Mack, Richard Kipling, Arthur Stuart Hull, Charlie Sullivan, Ernie Alexander, Buddy Messinger, Donald Kerr, Nick Copeland, Byron Foulger, Frank Jaquet, Roger Converse, Tom Rutherford, James Donlan, Phillip Terry, Robert Fiske, Alonzo Price, Mitchell Ingraham, Frank Dufrane, Cyril Ring, Wally Maher, Lester Dorr, Charles Waldron, Jr., Garry Owen, Bobby Caldwell, Marilyn Spinner, Tommy Tucker, William O'Brien, Hudson Shotwell, Dick Winslow, Richard Tucker, James Flavin, Forbes Murray, Don Douglas, Hooper Atchley, Ray Walker, Frank Sully, Martin Spellman, Knowlton Levenick, Ralph Gilliam, Dix Davis, Jack Cheatham, Dorothy Vaughan, Billy Engle, Brent Sargent, Mary Howard, Gladden James, Douglas McPhail, Fay Holden, Lulumae Bohrman, Estelle Ettaire, Tom O'Grady, Syd Saylor, Ken Barton, Gregory Gaye.

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Because test pilot Jim Lane loves carousing almost as much as he loves flying, his partner, Gunner Morse, has to watch out for him.  During a flight in a plane owned by Drake Aviation in which Jim is attempting to break the cross-country speed record, Jim has to make an emergency landing on a Kansas farm owned by Ann Barton's family.  Ann and Jim are immediately attracted to each other, although each feigns disinterest.  Jim and Ann spend the day together before Gunner arrives to fix the plane and although they have a good time, that evening Ann and her local "sweetheart" announce their engagement.

The next day Jim leaves, but he comes back, and the two fly off to get married.  Drake and Gunner are surprised and annoyed at the marriage, but Ann, whom Drake calls "Thursday" soon becomes an important part of their lives.  Jim continues on the way he has, despite Gunner's warnings, and narrowly escapes death in an air race during which fellow pilot Greg Benson dies when his plane loses its wings and takes a nose dive.  Ann now realizes that they are faced with three roads, all ending in doom, but she promises Gunner that she will stick with Jim no matter what.  Jim keeps flying, blissfully ignorant of the devastating effect that his recklessness has on Ann and Gunner, as both become more and more fatalistic.

On a flight to test the altitude potential of a military plane, Gunner rides along to help.  As the plane reaches thirty thousand feet, the sandbags simulating bombs break loose during a tail-spin and Gunner is crushed.  Jim refuses to bail out and is able to crash-land the plane, but Gunner dies, telling Jim that he has taken the easiest road.

At home, Jim is confronted by an almost hysterical Ann, who says that she wished that he had died too.  Jim then goes to Drake's office where Drake helps him realize that he loves Ann.  Later Drake calls her to say that Jim will no longer want to fly because his heart is on the ground with her.

A few years later, Jim is an army officer, training young pilots and Ann happily brings their little boy to visit the air field.

Notes
Some reviews and modern sources call the character played by Spencer Tracy "Gunner Sloan"; the onscreen credits say only "Gunner," and his surname is only spoken once, by Clark Gable's character, who calls him "Gunner Morse."  The title Test Pilot was first announced by MGM in 1933.  According to news items in FD and HR, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery and Jimmy Durante were to star in the picture with Clark Gable, that was to be filmed partially on location at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio by special permission from the the U.S. War Department.

A February 1, 1936, HR news item noted that MGM was buying the story "Test Pilot" by Frank Wead for a Lucien Hubbard production to be adapted by Bertram Millhauser for Gable.  In late April 1937, another HR news item noted that Homer Berry and John Lee Mahin were doing a treatment for the film.  Wead, who was himself an ace pilot, is credited on the screen with the original story (for which he received an Academy Award nomination), and Vincent Lawrence and Waldemar Young are credited with the screenplay.  No other sources credit Millhauser, Mahin or Berry, and the extent of their participation in the completed film has not been determined.  Although Gable was mentioned in sources from 1933 through production as the star of Test Pilot, it is possible that the 1933 title referred to an unrealized project and is only coincidental to the 1938 film.

Some reviews indicate that events in the film were based on the life of test pilot James "Jimmy" Collins.  Collins died in 1935 in a plane crash similar to the one in the film in which character Greg Benson dies in a nose-dive crash after his plane loses its wings.  According to news items in HR and MPD, Collins wrote a book called Test Pilot shortly before his death.  In July 1938, Collins' widow, Dolores Collins, filed a suit against MGM charging that the studio had plagiarized her husband's book.  The suit was settled in late 1938 when the judge ruled against Collins saying "I am satisfied that there was nothing in the motion picture that confirmed this came from the plaintiff's story."

According to a news item in HR on December 1, 1937, actress Janet Beecher was signed to play the part of Myrna Loy's mother; however, Claudia Coleman played the the role in the released film.  An article in Life magazine state that portions of the picture were filmed at March Field, California, and that the final airplane crash of the film was based on another 1935 incident in which the first "Flying Fortress," a Boeing 299, went down.  Articles in HR prior to the beginning of principal photography noted that location work at the Cleveland Air Races was being done by pilot Paul Mantz, MGM legal department representative Harry Prinzmetal and assistant director Cullen Tate.  HR and IP list additional backgrounds and location shooting at Chino, California, Van Nuys Municipal Airport, Mines Field, Metropolitan Airport and Union Air Terminal in Southern California, Lindbergh Field in San Diego and Langley Field in Virginia.  IP also notes that the picture was scheduled for thirty-five days of location shooting on a seventy day shooting schedule, and that it was the first aviation picture made by MGM in several years.

The MPH review noted that the studio held previews of the picture simultaneously in Westwood and New York on a Thursday and opened it the next morning, usually a sign that the picture would not do well.  The review further noted but that this would definitely not be the case for Test Pilot, which had the added plus factor that Loy and Gable had just been named the "King" and "Queen" of Hollywood.  (This was a reference to a poll of over 20,000,000 fans conducted by fifty-five metropolitan newspapers, and sponsored by New York Daily News and ChicTrib.  Reviews also noted that the film would receive added attention because Tracy had just won an Oscar for Captains Courageous.  The picture was one of the top box office films of the year and, though it received many positive reviews, several critics mentioned that the film was "too exciting" and would not be suitable for young children.  The picture was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Film Editing, Best Writing (Original Story) and Best Picture.  Robert Taylor and Rita Hayworth appeared in a Lux Radio Theater adaptation of the story on May 25, 1942.

American Film Institute Catalog

Additional photos courtesy of Gary