Chain Lightning *** (1950, Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Parker, Raymond Massey) – Classic Movie Review 4,950

Humphrey Bogart stars in Warner Bros’ 1950 black and white aerospace film Chain Lightning as ex-World War Two flying ace Matt Brennan, offered a job by aircraft mogul Leland Willis (Raymond Massey) as chief test pilot.

Humphrey Bogart stars in director Stuart Heisler’s 1950 Warner Bros black and white aerospace film Chain Lightning as lieutenant colonel Matt Brennan, a World War Two war flying ace, now discharged from the military. He is offered a job by aircraft corporation mogul Leland Willis (Raymond Massey) as chief test pilot for the JA-3 experimental high speed jet fighter designed by Carl Troxell (Richard Whorf).

Brennan convinces Willis that testing new jet on a record-breaking flight from Nome, Alaska, to Washington D C, via the North Pole, will impress the US Government. Bogart is in love with wartime Red Cross heroine Jo Holloway (Eleanor Parker), his former flame, whom he meets again as she now works as Raymond Massey’s personal assistant.

The heady mixture of heroism plus romance, as well as the usual high level of performance from the Warner Bros stalwart cast, keeps director Stuart Heisler’s pacy, sparky enough, well produced movie on track and in the air.

What the film is minus is Bogart’s usual charismatic, inspired turn. He seems to be largely sleepwalking through this one, seemingly aware that there is nothing special about it and not looking at all right in an aviator’s costume. But excellent work from Massey makes up for it, and Parker is good too.

Made in early 1949, it is one of Bogart’s final Warner Bros films, along with the 1947 The Two Mrs Carrolls, ending a 20-year association. The Enforcer (1951) is Bogart’s last film for Warner Bros, but it was produced by United States Pictures, and Warner Bros only distributed it.

The original story These Many Years was originally credited to J Redmond Prior, which was a pseudonym for the blacklisted writer Lester Cole, whose credit was restored by the Writers Guild of America in 1997, though the only screen versions say: ‘Suggested by a story by J Redmond Prior’.

Also in the cast are Richard Whorf, James Brown, Roy Roberts, Morris Ankrum, Fay Baker, Fred Sherman, Claudia Barrett, John Crawford, Herschel Doughtery, Mike Donovan, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Clark Howatt, John Morgan, Peter Ortiz, Lonnie Pierce, Joey Ray, Jack Reynolds, John Rogers, Clarence Straight, Henry Vroom, Tommy Walker and Alan Wood.

Chain Lightning is directed by Stuart Heisler, runs 94 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Liam O’Brien and Vincent B Evans, based on the story by Lester Cole, is shot in black and white by Ernest Haller, is produced by Anthony Veiller, is scored by David Buttolph, and is designed by Leo K Kuter.

It is shot at Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 4,950

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