Airplanes are being shot down by an unknown killer in a biplane maked with a X. Airplane manufacturer Henry Goering (Henry Hall) and his son Carl (Leon Ames) are rightfully upset. Psychologist Dr. Norris (John Elliott) has a theory that it is an ex-World War I flying ace out to prove himself the greatest, and there’s only five locals who fit the description. So they do the logical thing (yes, in this world, somehow, this is logical): invite the five—Lt. Baron von Guttard (John S. Peters), Lt. Rene La Rue (Gaston Glass), Capt. Roland Saunders (Pat Somerset), Lt. Douglas Thompson (Wheeler Oakman), Lt. John Ives (Reed Howes)—to stay in one house together, and go flying together with the thought that Pilot X will try and kill the others. Also in attendance is Henry’s ward and Carl’s fiancée, Helen Gage (Lona Andre), because…why wouldn’t you just have a hot girl hanging out in the middle of your murder investigation. Finally, there’s young hot-shot pilot Jerry Blackwood (John Carroll), because the story needs a hero.
Death in the Air (aka Pilot X) doesn’t count as a horror film, but I had to include it as it’s so nuts. There’s no faux ghosts, no storm, no comedy, and the house is very bright. Worse, our quirky group isn’t stranded; everyone just sticks around. That not only is the final straw in knocking Death in the Air out of horror, but it’s what makes the story ridiculous. It’s also what makes it fun. The film’s utter nonsense, and it owns it. The pilots wouldn’t stick around and the police would never allow any of this. Just having the initial dinner party is crazy enough, but once one of the five is shot down, local authorities would be all over it. There’s nothing keeping the police away. But no one acknowledges that. Everything is presented as just the normal way that people and the government behave.
It seems it’s also normal to have British, German, French, and American WWI aces all living within a few miles of each other. I don’t know if the film was trying to say something by having victims/suspects from different countries;no message comes through if they were, but it’s interesting.
The aerial photography is pretty good, downright amazing for a B-film, which is handy as nothing else rises to even mediocre. The acting is at first-read-through levels, the sets look like they were slapped together in ten minutes, and the dialog couldn’t have taken longer to write than those sets to build. But with some good dogfights and commitment to the ludicrous concept, it’s fun in a MST3K kind of way. Killers normally use pistols or knives or machetes, or maybe a candlestick in the library. I can’t think of another example where the answer to Clue would be “With the machine gun of a WWI biplane in the sky.”