Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Robert J. Maxwell A product of MGM in its heyday, written by Frank "Spig" Wead, about whom John Ford was to later make a movie ("The Wings of Eagles"), directed by Victor Fleming, a man's man who barked orders, played rough, and boozed it up. Manly Clark Gable is the test pilot who always wants to push the envelope, even though he met and married the devoted Myrna Loy overnight. Spencer Tracy is the sidekick, there to provide common sense, worry about Gable, and maintain Gable's airplanes.With credits like that, it can't be all bad. Yet the characters are familiar. We've all seen movies before in which the hero is involved in some dangerous pursuit and the woman wants him to quit, settle down, and have babies in a normal home instead of all this running around with roughnecks -- and the drinking and swearing and the exhilaration of the adrenalin rush and all those tootsies hanging around and in general everybody carrying on like animals in a zoo. And why doesn't he get a haircut? She wants him to become a farmer or a shopkeeper or something, and start going to church, and she wants to push the perambulator along the sidewalks.Now, usually -- are you following this? -- usually the sidekick is homelier than the hero, as is the case here, and frequently he's in love with the hero's pretty wife, devoted to her in fact, which is not the case here. It's not one of Tracy's better parts, hobbled as he is by a script that turns him into a sullen and disapproving partner before he becomes a sacrificial lamb who turns Gable's life around.It's too talky. I enjoyed the scenes of flight, even the mock ups. I mean, how often do you get to see an experimental model of the B-17 on the screen? Or a Seversky P-35, a kind of forebear of the legendary P-47 Thunderbolt? The airplanes are real. On the other hand, you can usually tell when something dramatic is about to happen -- an engine fails, a stall takes place -- because suddenly we're watching obvious models.There's a scene at a drunken party after one of the test pilots goes all the way in. Myrna Loy happens to mention the dead pilot's name, Benson, and Gable is suddenly enraged and shouts at her, "Who's Benson?" We get a similar exchange, more light hearted, in Howard Hawks' "Only Angels Have Wings" a year or two later. ("Who's Joe?") I'd like to think of it as a case of independent invention but Hawks was notorious for ripping stuff off from himself as well as others.

thinker1691 Victor Fleming directed this film called " Test Pilot " and although it is remade several more times, each has it's own quirks. In this version we have Clark Gable, playing Jim a fun loving, joy seeking test pilot out to tame a plane and the sky-mistress. Spencer Tracy, plays Gunner he dutiful, loyal side kick who tries to play guardian angel over his reckless best friend. Myrna Loy is Ann a beautiful farm's daughter who becomes his girl and later his wife. With Lionel Barrymore playing Drake, his employer, the film dwells mostly on the personal relationship between the main characters and their ambitions. As such the movie is a soft but lofty tribute to foolhardy aviators and dwells painfully on the personal aspects between those who fly and those who expect the inevitable disastrous outcome of a failed aircraft. Though Tracy and Gable are a great team in other movies, they seem at odds in this one. Still, for an early war time propaganda film, it's acceptable, but hardly a classic for either star. ***

mjimih I noticed this movie surfing around on TV and caught a glimpse of racing planes. My mom is from this era, married a test pilot(just after the war), who drank. So I asked her to watch it with me because she used to work for TWA in 1945 running weather data to the pilots. Amazingly neither of us had seen it before. We had a great time because this film has great acting (and lots of fast planes). It's no wonder they grabbed Clark for Gone With The Wind right after this film. He nails all his demanding scenes.very well. Their are moments of pure psychology in this one just like a lot of them from this period imo. Myrna Loy is pleasantly reserved and unpretentious and showed a wide range of acting. The script is quite clever, so it must of been easier for the actors to really act, and it shows. It's not hard to get absorbed in these characters. Spencer too, he's a pretty cool cookie here. During an exciting plane race, my mom asked how they filmed some of the plane stunts! I have no idea :-) very exciting indeed. Have fun.

bkoganbing Clark Gable is the one in the title role and Spencer Tracy is his best friend and mechanic. Test Pilot portrays a footloose and fancy free Gable doing a dangerous job because he's entranced by the beauty and danger of flying. Tracy is along to give him a reality check every now and then.While trying for a coast to coast record Gable has trouble with a fuel line and has to make a landing in a Kansas wheat field that just happens to belong to Myrna Loy's parents. She's the farmer's daughter all right. Of course a little of that Gable charm and she's off in the wild blue yonder with him and spends the rest of the film worried about his daredevil behavior. She's not in Kansas any more.This was the second of the three Gable/Tracy co-starrers. All three of them, San Francisco, Test Pilot, and Boom Town have withstood the test of time and have become classics. Test Pilot's original story was written by Frank "Spig" Wead who's life story was brought to us in the film Wings of Eagles. Wead was a flyer himself until a fall in his home left him a paraplegic. After that he became a writer and several of his stories were filmed. In fact Gable and starred in Night Flight earlier on which was written by Wead. Of course Wead had a great feel for the type and character of the people who chose aviation as a career.The aerial sequences are first rate and the players settle comfortably in their parts. It's got aerial action for the guys and romance for the gals. How can you go wrong?