I'm not sure why Tom Selleck's career as a leading man stalled when it did. I'm told he's handsome. And he has that cracked Jimmy-Stewart voice. In interviews he seems bright and articulate. He doesn't do a bang-up job in this light-hearted zap number but who could? All he's called upon to do is act drunk once in a while, and if he doesn't do as good a job as John Wayne did in "True Grit," well, maybe it's because Wayne has had so much more practice. Oh, and Selleck is also given lines like, "Surely, the great Suleman the Exquisite would not harm a small servant of his grateful guest." Something like that, anyway. Selleck did a fine job as Dwight D. Eisenhower in a recent TV movie -- "Ten Days to D-Day," perhaps it was.
The plot here -- self-indulgent pretty socialite hires handsome drunken pilot and his mechanic side kick to fly around most of Asia to find her missing father before she's disinherited -- is pretty familiar stuff. Runaway socialites and canny pilots. I keep thinking of Jimmy Cagney and Barbara Stanwyk lost in the desert. The photography is a bit gloomy but the locations are unusual and the action and comedy balance each other nicely. There's even a dogfight, which the slower, heavier two-seater with its single Lewis machine gun would surely have lost against the more nimble single-seater with its two machine guns. The reason the clumsier airplane wins is that it is flown by Tom Selleck, whereas the superior machine is flown by a stereotyped square-jawed blond German with no sense of humor.
The music is lush and romantic. The scenery rolling. The old airplanes fun to watch as they sputter along or flop over in hammerhead stalls. The dialog sort of lumbers along in the same way, without enough funny lines or wisecracks. Still, it's not offensive in any way. The kids will probably enjoy it. Maybe they will even learn a little something about Buddhism, such as that a world religion by that name exists.
Not a gem, but not bad.
The plot here -- self-indulgent pretty socialite hires handsome drunken pilot and his mechanic side kick to fly around most of Asia to find her missing father before she's disinherited -- is pretty familiar stuff. Runaway socialites and canny pilots. I keep thinking of Jimmy Cagney and Barbara Stanwyk lost in the desert. The photography is a bit gloomy but the locations are unusual and the action and comedy balance each other nicely. There's even a dogfight, which the slower, heavier two-seater with its single Lewis machine gun would surely have lost against the more nimble single-seater with its two machine guns. The reason the clumsier airplane wins is that it is flown by Tom Selleck, whereas the superior machine is flown by a stereotyped square-jawed blond German with no sense of humor.
The music is lush and romantic. The scenery rolling. The old airplanes fun to watch as they sputter along or flop over in hammerhead stalls. The dialog sort of lumbers along in the same way, without enough funny lines or wisecracks. Still, it's not offensive in any way. The kids will probably enjoy it. Maybe they will even learn a little something about Buddhism, such as that a world religion by that name exists.
Not a gem, but not bad.