High Flyers

High Flyers (1937)

SEE AND HEAR...Lovely Lupe sing and swing!

Two men running a carnival airplane ride are hired to fly to retrieve what they think are photos for a reporter. Actually, they are retrieving diamonds stolen from a noted gem dealer. As it turns out, their plane crashes on the very estate of the dealer. Thinking the duo are police officers, the dealer offers his home for their convalescence from the accident. Meanwhile, the diamonds have been snatched by a kleptomaniac dog and buried on the estate. When the smugglers track down the pair, they try to convince the dealer that they are officials from an institution from which the two have escaped. Before long, the carnival fellows, the crooks, the gem dealer and his family, along with a platoon of cops, are tearing up the grounds to find where the dog has buried the diamonds.

Date of release
1937-11-07
TMDB
7.5 / 10 (4)
Runtime
1h 10m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Edward F. Cline

Casting

Interesting facts

High Flyers is a 1937 American musical comedy film directed by Edward Cline and starring the comedy team of Wheeler & Woolsey in their final film together. Robert Woolsey died less than a year after the film was released. The supporting cast includes Lupe Vélez, Margaret Dumont, Marjorie Lord, Paul Harvey and Jack Carson. The film was produced and distributed by RKO Pictures.

Production

High Flyers was based on the 1926 Broadway play The Kangaroos by Victor Mapes; The Kangaroos was also the working title of the film. In February 1937, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Betty Grable was to be the film's star, but Lupe Velez, a well established comic actress, took the lead role.

After Robert Woolsey's death, Bert Wheeler would continue to work regularly on the stage, and later did four more films (two features and two shorts). He would also occasionally appear on television well into the 1960s, most notably as "Smokey Joe" in the short-lived series Brave Eagle. At one point in the film, Wheeler does an impersonation of Charlie Chaplin.

The aircraft in the film was a Sikorsky S-39B, an American light amphibious aircraft.

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