| Men of the Sky (1931) | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Alfred E. Green |
| Written by | Otto A. Harbach |
| Starring | Irene Delroy Jack Whiting Lotti Loder Bramwell Fletcher Armand Kaliz John St. Polis |
| Music by | Otto A. Harbach Jerome Kern David Mendoza Erno Rapee |
| Cinematography | John F. Seitz |
| Editing by | Desmond O'Brien |
| Distributed by | First National Pictures: A Subsidiary of Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | June 30, 1931 |
| Running time | 71 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Men of the Sky is a 1931 all-talking musical drama film which was produced by Warner Bros. in 1930 and released in 1931. Filming began in July 1930 and concluded in mid-September. The film is now considered a lost film since no film elements are known to survive. No copies of the film are known to exist. However, the complete soundtrack survives on Vitaphone disks.
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The original story and music were written by Otto A. Harbach and Jerome Kern. The film was originally intended to be released, in the United States, early in 1931, but was shelved due to public apathy towards musicals. Despite waiting a number of months, the public proved obstinate and the Warner Bros. reluctantly released the film in June 1931 after making some cuts. The film was released outside the United States (since there was no backlash against musicals outside the United States) as a full musical early in 1931. The film was originally intended to be photographed entirely in Technicolor, but this was dropped midway into production when the studio realized the public was growing sour on musicals. The film was originally titled: "Call of the East" but was retitled before release. This was to have been the first of three of musicals to be written by Otto A. Harbach and Jerome Kern for Warner Bros. Due to the public apathy for musicals, however, Warner Bros. bought out their contract and the team returned to Broadway. Warner Bros. did not debut this film in the usual prestigious movie theaters. The film was immediately placed in general release with no fanfare.
In this drama, the love affair between an American pilot named Jack Ames (Jack Whiting) and a French spy named Madeleine Aubert (Irene Delroy) is chronicled. Madeleine leaves her American boyfriend to join her father (John Sainpolis), another agent, as a spy for France at an estate in Germany. She is supposed to seduce a German officer (Bramwell Fletcher) in order to gain information on a set of secret plans that another spy will steal after landing on the grounds. That spy turns out to be Jack. Madeleine is supposed to signal her compatriot to advance by playing a certain style of song on the piano, but the Germans have found out about the scheme, and Jack is exposed. In the tragic ending, the pair of lovers are led out to a firing squad.