gridoon2018 Marjorie Reyolds has one pleasing song ("By The Look Of Things"), and Mantan Moreland has one delightful scene where he dances - surprisingly well! Other than that, "Up In The Air" comes straight off the mystery-comedy assembly line (the cut-rate production department). The lead, Frankie Darro, is a non-entity, and at the end the killer seems to be chosen at random (no clues are given to the viewer). ** out of 4.

bkoganbing Frankie Darro as a studio page boy and Mantan Moreland as a janitor team up to solve a murder in Up In The Air. Singer Lorna Gray is shot to death during a rehearsal when the lights go out and a gun goes off. It's up to Frankie and Mantan to solve the crime especially since the cops are a pair of thickheaded detectives.I have to say the film does have some funny moments. It also has some offensive ones. Both Darro and Moreland are aspiring radio artists and they've worked up a comedy sketch not unlike the act Moreland did in nightclubs with Ben Carter. But putting Darro in blackface was downright disrespectful. Later on in one of the Charlie Chan films Moreland does do that act with Carter and you should catch it if possible.As it turns out Gray has quite a past and it's her past that's the key to solving her murder and that of Gordon Jones who wants to be a cowboy singer and get on the air.For a Monogram Picture, not bad, but we sure didn't need the blackface.

Case B-movie star Frankie Darro and everyone's favorite bug-eyed comic relief Mantan Moreland made several murder mystery comedies together around 1940 (with some other more-or-less recurring cast members, including Tristram Coffin) for Monogram Pictures. In this one, the guys work at a radio station (Frankie as a bell-boy as usual) when they get mixed up in the murder of the station's popular, but problematic singing star, Rita Wilson (played by Lorna Gray) who is shot during a rehearsal. As usual, the police detective who handles the case is quite arrogant and incompetent, but he ends up working together quite fine with Frankie. And Mantan. Who, while doing his regular scared-of-everything act, is definitely much more than a mandatory comic relief here: he gets top billing, proves again that he is an excellent comedian and also takes part in the detective work quite effectively and in general, his role is more similar to what we usually see from Lou Abbott. So even the people who are extra-sensitive about the racial stereotypes of classic Hollywood are safe with this one. And talking about Abbott and Costello: they actually did their own version of the "murder mystery at the radio station" theme two years later in Who Done It? (1942), while Monogram remade the story in 1945 as There Goes Kelly.Up In The Air has a little bit of everything: mystery, action, comedy, musical and the mixture works pretty well, but as the hour-long entry has several musical numbers, comedy acts and even a dance performance by Mantan, you can imagine how thin the plot is. But it is actually nothing more than a tool to keep the story going and to hold the movie together and at that, it does a pretty fine job and makes this a rather enjoyable little time-passer, complete with car chase, Frankie and Mantan's black face comedy act and a mysterious singing cowboy.

MartinHafer The diminutive Frankie Darro made eight films with Manlan Moreland--making their pairing one of the most unusual in screen history. Unfortunately, however, most of their films were pretty ordinary or sub-par B-movies with little to recommend them today. But, unlike the rest, this film is actually pretty enjoyable and holds up pretty well.When I watched "Up in the Air", I felt I'd seen it before--and I had. This film was remade only five years later as "There Goes Kelly". In addition, variations on this plot were made by Abbott & Costello and others--including Claude Rains. So, for old movie buffs, it's likely that you'll have seen something like it as well.The film begins like all Darro/Moreland films--Darro is a very eager and rather hyper young man who has dreams of being so much more. Although employed as a page at a radio network, he has dreams of being an executive or even a detective. So, when an obnoxious diva is killing there, Darro immediately springs into action to try to solve the crime. And, being a B-movie, he actually DOES! It's all enjoyable and works out well except for one problem. About midway through the film, Darro and Moreland recreate a skit made famous in vaudeville by Ben Carter and Moreland. And, since Carter and Moreland were black men, Darro dons black-face and does a routine that is highly reminiscent of Moran and Mack or the original Amos 'n Andy! Seeing this white guy in black makeup is just cringe-worthy and sad.