Review of Tail Spin

Tail Spin (1939)
4/10
She's shooting high, but not for Broadway.
15 April 2024
Warning: Spoilers
A different kind of part for Alice Faye who after six years of singing and dancing in big budget Fox musicals puts on a helmet and gets behind the wheel. She's not a race car driver, but a pilot, entering a cross country race with funny girl Joan Davis at her side and finding a rival in society girl Constance Bennett.

With a name like Trixie Lee and a more gregarious, less than ladylike personality, Faye comes off closer to a Betty Hutton style of character. She tries several methods of sabotaging Bennett whom she's obviously jealous of, both in the air and on the ground, in a romantic triangle with Kane Richmond. Nancy Kelly and Charles Farrell also figure somewhere in this.

So-so for its formula plot and cardboard cutout characters, this may be an A list movie (rivaled by Warner Brothers' B variation, "Women in the Wind"), but it's not a great one. Faye's crack up scene isn't believable at all as the plane hits the ground with no explosion and she's only slightly disheveled. I could have done without the comic elements of the silly Wally Vernon. Davis does her typical drop gag girl with gusto, but she seems out of place like Faye does.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed