Aeroplane Mystery Above The Clouds

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 99, 20 January 1939, Page 14

Aeroplane Mystery Above The Clouds

T IKE the ghostly sound which has a natural cause, a mystifying incident during the filming of “Flight to Fame,” the Columbia drama, was found to have a most laughable explanation.

One bright morning Charles Farrell and Jacqueline Wells, the film’s featured players, and the entire company reported to an airport outside Hollywood. Aerial scenes had been scheduled and two planes awaited them. One, a big cabin craft, was the camera plane. The other, to be stunted by Farrell, was a trim Army pursuit machine. The fighter's identity ’had been disguised by changing its colour from red to white. Simple water colour, which could afterward be easily washed off, had been applied over the original red. Farrell took off. The camera plane followed. The fact that the company was shooting over an airport, where other ships were aloft, contributed to the mystery. The director in the camera plane saw Farrell’s tiny aeroplane go into cloud banks, and then disappear. , “Start shooting when it comes out on the other side,” he ordered. The large aeroplane manoeuvred for a better position. All eyes were strained on the other side of the billowing cloud banks. They noticed other Ships, and saw a tiny red one come out of the banks, but minutes passed, and still no white one emerged. Somewhat fearful, the director signalled for a landing. He climbed out to meet Farrell, not only alive, but laughing, and pointing to his plane. It was its original red.“We passed through rain clouds,” the actor explained. “Look, she is washed as clean as a whistle." The director ordered a quick repaint, with oil.

PHILADELPHIA University has started a “course in motion picture appreciation.” It comes under the heading of “hobby courses.”