BusyGuyInPTC The US Navy's airship program, including dirigibles, seems to have been lost to history. This is a shame, as the Navy were pioneers in this area.We forget that the Navy was not only pioneers, but also instrumental in the USA airship program, and that they were the victims of history: especially the hydrogen (and aluminum oxide) problem of the Hindenburg.This film reminds us of the US Navy's original efforts in this field. Despite the clichés and acting that seems somewhat hammy today, this is an important film both from a scientific and historical perspective. It's entertaining and (gasp!) educational.

bkoganbing Dirigible was the last film that Frank Capra made with Jack Holt and Ralph Graves about the armed services. In this last one the two of them are more like James Cagney and Pat O'Brien than ever. Dirigible also resembles as the other two Graves/Holt films a film that John Ford was more likely to direct.Again the two men clash over a woman, this time Fay Wray who is married to Graves, but who is being driven nuts by Graves's irresponsibility as a flier. Give me one of those lighter than air guys instead and good friend Holt fills the bill.The film echoes the headlines of the time with the country watching the exploits of Admiral Richard E. Byrd and his polar expeditions. Both Holt and Graves go to the South Pole and each has to rescue the other at times. There is a very poignant performance by Roscoe Karns who usually played fast talking annoying characters who were entertaining, but hardly endearing. Karns plays a frostbitten marine who is truly suffering and you really feel for what he's going through.The film was shot according to the Citadel Film series book on the Films of Frank Capra at a dirigible training facility that was eventually closed down and the land was taken by the newly built Santa Anita racetrack later in the decade. The flight sequences were done in the air, just like Howard Hughes's Hell's Angels was.It's a good action film, I wonder though if John Ford could have gotten more out of it, Dirigible is definitely more his kind of film.

1250man Aside from featuring Fay Wray BEFORE she became famous in King Kong, the movie has value as historical record, because of the scenes of the U.S. Navy's dirigible, LOS ANGELES. The LOS ANGELES served a dual role in the film, first as the fictional PENSACOLA, destroyed in a storm at sea, and then as her real self. The loss of the PENSACOLA is prescient in a way, because her successors, the very real AKRON and MACON, which had yet to enter service when the movie was made, were subsequently both lost at sea in storms, bringing an end to rigid airships in the U.S. Navy. A predecessor, the SHENANDOAH was lost in 1928 in a storm over Ohio.When this movie was made, only the LOS ANGELES was in service. The movie shows excellent closeup film of the ship mooring at Lakehurst N.J. as well as her experimental trapeze which allowed an aircraft to moor to the ship while in flight. This feature was incorporated in AKRON and MACON, along with a hanger to stow the planes aboard. These two, the biggest in USN service at 800 feet could each carry 3-4 planes. The planes could be "captured" on the trapeze, brought inside and then launched from their trapeze. An amazing sight to see!

will lee Lakehurst, the setting for much of this film was the epicenter of American ballooning and dirigibles, before the second world war and through it as well. A recent book, _They sailed the skies : U.S. Navy balloons and the airship program_ led me to this film, since it represents an easy way to get a look at some of the men and machines in action. Frank "Spig" Wead is the writer and Frank Capra directs. Wead of course was a flyer himself and only turned to writing after a crash broke his neck, crippling him. See WINGS OF EAGLES by John Ford for a dramatization of his life. The early sound era is not known for the sleekness of it's screen story-telling, but if you have interest in the history of zeppelins, or pre-WW2 aviaton, this film is worth watching.