With: Cary Grant (Geoff Carter), Jean Arthur (Bonnie Lee), Richard Barthelmess (Bat McPherson), Rita Hayworth (Judy McPherson), Thomas Mitchell (Kid Dabb), Allyn Joslyn (Les Peters), Sig Rimann (Dutchy), Victor Kilian (Sparks), John Carroll (Gent Shelton), Donald Barry (Tex), Noah Beery Jr (Joe Souther), Maciste (the Singer), Milissa Sierra (Lily), Lucio Villegas (doctor), Pat Flaherty (Mike), Pedro Regas (Pancho)
Director: Howard Hawks
Production co: Columbia
Screenplay: Jules Furthman
Photography: Joseph Walker
Editor: Viola Lawrence
Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
REVIEWS

“Howard Hawks’s stirring tale of a fledgling airmail service that traverses the Andes from a strip in a South American banana port is the ultimate workplace dramedy.  Hawks weaves brawny romance and humor and a man’s-man sort of heartbreak into his tribute to the ideal of vocation. The risky job of lifting mail over and through the mountains becomes a crucible of character, group feeling, and sexual loyalty. 

Cary Grant delivers a robust, carnal performance as the flyboys’ boss, and Jean Arthur is skittishly charming as an entertainer waiting for a boat out of town; Grant emits an electric charge when he starts to take her seriously.  Hawks surrounds these two actors with a jaunty ensemble, including the impossibly pretty young Rita Hayworth, as Grant’s prior flame, and the cagey Thomas Mitchell, as his best friend and right-hand man.  As Hayworth’s husband, a top aviator with a tainted past, Richard Barthelmess is haunted and moving.  The script is by Jules Furthman, an ace in his own right.”

— Michael Sragow, New Yorker

“The film manages to be goofy, touching, and exhilarating at once: nobody was better than Hawks at making a story shadowed by death glint with vitality and verve.”

— Juliet Clark, Pacific Film Archive 

Restoration by Sony Pictures Entertainment
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin
Wednesday, 28 March, 7:30pm

Wellington
Monday, 21 May, 6:15pm

Nelson
Thursday, 7 June, 6:00pm

Auckland
Monday, 2 July, 6:30pm

Canterbury
Monday, 23 July, 7:30pm

Palmerston North
Monday, 30 July, 6:00pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 21 November, 6:00pm
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Hamilton
Monday, 3 December, 8:00pm
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