source: Sky Liner

Sky Liner

To start with I think the original run time was supposed to be 61 minutes but ended up actually being only 49 minutes. That's definitely the shortest run time of any film I've ever seen. Still, it wasn't half bad. Most of the action takes place on a plane, which provides an interesting and fun take on those early days of commercial flying. Most of the performances are passable but none really memorable. As for the story, it's not bad for such a brief window of opportunity. I thought Sky Liner was (just) fine and worth a viewing if your curious.

To be honest, I got a little lost as far as the plot of this one. Most of it takes place on a plane, and it's fun to look at how it was in the old days, with large, comfortable seats, people who could walk right into the cockpit, a washroom large enough for 3 or 4 people - which I doubt was ever the case, but never mind. The biggest name in the cast is probably Rochelle Hudson, and Richard Travis plays a federal agent who is following someone involved involved in espionage. Then a dead body is found, and obviously, the killer is on the plane. Also on the plane is a man carrying a great deal of money to take to his country, and two old biddies. When there's a murder, the plane has to land unexpectedly. Just okay.

SKY LINER is a 61-minute B picture - short, effective, and reflective of the beginning of the Cold War and of commercial aviation (great publicity for the new defunct TWA. How the world changed in some 40 years!) I do not know the actors but they do not compromise the product in any way. It is a riveting film from beginning to end, and characters have proper motivations for their actions. No waste of time, this!

Frankly, I was not interested in the espionage story of mysterious papers and obvious foreign agents, but once the rugged Richard Travis revealed to some TWA passengers that the sick man removed from the plane was obviously murdered, I became intrigued. With the help of stewardess Pamela Blake, Travis helps keep the passengers under control, and they include the darkly beautiful Rochelle Hudson (whom Travis suspects of being an agent) and the heavily accented Steve Geray. Travis simply tells the passengers that the killer is aboard the plane right then and there. A few twists are ironic and even funny, and that makes the second half of this film a whole lot better than the first half. This does score points for ingenuity with it's revelation of how it happened which is much more interesting than who.

That's a little interesting film we deal with. A sort of GRAND HOTEL, or I should say: AIRPORT scheme, but at a lesser scale. Different people get aboard a plane from La Guardia airport, a thief, a murderer an international spy, an US agent and so on. Their destinies meet. It's pretty rare so soon in the movie industry, except perhaps for GRAND HOTEL. William Beaudine gave us such an aerial suspenser in DESPERATE CARGO, some years earlier; sort of AIR FORCE ONE - also at a lesser scale - before its time. Well, SKY LINER is worth seeing. No boredom in it. Fast paced. Steven Geray is of course the international spy. Who else could he be?

Yet another gem in the Forgotten Noir Collection Vol. 4 DVD set. I'm quickly becoming a fan of the late director William Berke. Although he worked mostly in B-movies, he was one of the better directors in that field. He has a knack for pacing and getting the best out of actors, in this case no name thespians. These films are usually short, some just over an hour and others just under an hour, but Berke makes the best of low budgets and fast pacing. This film involves espionage in the air, on the Sky Liner of the title. It's definitely not typical noir, but it is decent little film. Richard Travis plays a sky marshal for the government tailing a spy network and the story goes on from there. The cast of no names is pretty good led by Rochelle Hudson, the always steady Herbert Evans, Steven Geray and others. The script is good so credit should be given Maurice Tombragel and John Wilste. At less than 50 minutes long, this is a surprising little treat.