Sky Liner (1949)

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

At least the movie never drags. Considering almost the entire time is confined to the passenger cabin, that's a genuine accomplishment on director Berke's part. The plot concerns foreign intrigue and a killing aboard the plane. It's not really a whodunit since the culprit's pretty obvious. Too bad the script didn't play up the whodunit potential since that would have generated more suspense, especially in such close quarters. This is another Lippert quickie, though more imaginative than most. Too bad, male lead Richard Travis couldn't get more interested in his part. Even though he looks the G-man part, Travis basically walks through the role. Note too presence of 1930's favorite Rochelle Hudson (Amy Winthrop). Unfortunately, she doesn't get much chance to shine. I suspect the film's airline motif was aimed at a US public just then getting used to affordable cross-country flights. One way or the other, we certainly get a lot of real airliner shots. Anyway, it's an okay little 60-minutes of the sort that would soon migrate to TV.

When Sky Liner came out in 1949 this was Lippert Pictures trying to take advantage of current headlines involving espionage in the State Department. Joe McCarthy was a year away from his famous accusations in Wheeling, West Virginia about the Communists in government. But in 1949 Secretary Of State Dean Acheson was defending himself against right wing attacks about the Red Menace invading our State Department. Also remember that the Hiss case was coming to a head as well.So what we have in Sky Liner is spy Rochelle Hudson, secretary to a State Department bigwig apparently ready to defect. A Communist takes her boss's place after killing him and the two are on the way to a conference. You have to believe there's going to be a defection because once they discover the real boss's body, it's all over. And that's supposing no one at the conference will realize there's a phony planted among the delegates.Never fear because the FBI in the person of Richard Travis has her in his sights for a while and he also might get a twofer because foreign agent Stephen Bekassy is also on this transcontinental flight. It turns out as films in this era always did with the FBI protecting us from Red secretaries.Sky Liner is one of the dumbest films from the Cold War I've ever seen and one of the dumbest from Lippert studios. And that is going some.

I am sure that in time the overall rating of this film will change, but for now it's only 4.8. You'd think this would indicate that the movie is rather poor, though I thought the film was actually a bit better--and well worth seeing. However, one thing I need to point out is that although it's now on a DVD entitled "Forgotten Noir", this is really not an example of film noir--nor are many films in this series. It lacks the camera-work, dialog and grittiness you'd expect in noir. Instead, it's a rather straight-forward example of a crime film.The film is set aboard an airliner (a Lockheed Constellation, if you really care). According to IMDb, the markings on the plane kept changing--a silly mistake but it didn't exactly ruin the film. A federal agent is on the plane--following a woman who is involved in some sort of espionage. However, when a dead body is found aboard, it's obvious that there is a killer on the plane! Who did it and how must be discovered before the killer is able to escape.The film is enjoyable...even if the actual murder weapon is a bit far-fetched. Well-paced, interesting and a very good time-passer.

Usually, films of this sort use fictional airlines; this film uses TWA. The "Air Liner" on the film is a Constellation, which became a shuttle aircraft between Boston and New York by the late 1940s.The story has an on-ground prelude, where one person is shot dead as he enters his office after hours without a word being spoken by the killer. But that's the prelude. A number of diverse people are passengers on the airliner, and some of them interact with each other on things established before takeoff.The flight crew are tipped off that there will be a "federal agent" aboard the flight, and one of the passengers, posing as a member of the diplomatic corps thus learns that a G-man was aboard.One thing overrating is the Sly Liner's restroom. It apparently was conventional in those days for more than one person to occupy the restroom at a time. (In all the times I was a passenger on a Constellation, I never checked out the restrooms, but the airline was TWA, so maybe...) Anyway, it was because more than one person used a restroom at a time that the dead body was discovered, one that turned out to have been the victim of a murder.Naturally, if it was a killing (unclear at first), the murderer had to be aboard. The airliner was diverted to a military base (for weather reasons) where a coroner does a quickie autopsy and determines that the cause of death was indeed deliberate) The airliner eventually takes off, while the F-man pits together the pieces.The murder weapon, though clever, might not be immediately recognizable by younger viewers, but was a clever, though understandable, idea of the time.Ebtertaining.