Blaze of Noon (1947) User Reviews

Pioneers

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 15 June 2009]

With the arrival of the airplane in the last century a new era for progress began. Not only did it open air routes, but the need to move the mail faster became a reality. The first impact was the possibility to take the mail to places, that up to then, went only by surface transport. Thus, a letter took much less to reach its destination than before. The only problem was the aircraft used for the operation, which made those trips quite dangerous because the lack of radio and the way the pilots flew using visual aids.

The four McDonald brothers were daredevils that worked a lot of air shows doing their amazing stunts to the delight of the spectators. When the opportunity to get steady work flying for a new outfit in Newark, N.J., the four brothers get hired. Colin, gets the eye of Lucille, a nurse, who ends up marrying him, but due to having to share living quarters, never got to live a normal life. The four brothers were inseparable. The tragic death of the younger brother, Keith, has a terrible impact on the McDonalds. Tad and Colin will also suffer accidents. Only Roland escapes unharmed when he switched aviation for a safer job.

"Blaze at Noon" is a movie rarely seen. It's worth a look because of John Farrow's direction and the cast. Anne Baxter, William Holden, Sterling Hayden, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva, Sonny Tufts, and the rest do compelling work for Mr. Farrow, and although this is not a great film, it has a lot of aerial stunts that for the year when it came out must have looked outstanding.

The Flying MacDonalds

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 30 December 2010]

For those of you who have seen and are a fan of John Ford's classic film Wings Of Eagles, Blaze At Noon was the final project of the protagonist of the Ford film, Spig Wead. As all Wead projects it's about aviation, to be precise the early years of commercial aviation as seen through the lives of the four MacDonald brothers. All four MacDonalds are stunt fliers who follow one of them into the new field of airmail which was done by private contracting back in those days.

Blaze At Noon gave Paramount an opportunity to welcome back from World War II, two of its contract players William Holden and Sterling Hayden. They are two of the brothers, the other two being Sonny Tufts and Johnny Sands. Holden takes the lead in getting the brothers away from carnival stunt flying to transporting the mail. He also takes a bride in the person of Anne Baxter. That despite all warnings to the contrary.

Baxter's not used to the life of a flier's wife. She feels a whole lot like Jane Powell who thought she might have married all the Pontipee brothers in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. One of the others kind of wishes he had seen Baxter first. It all makes for some interesting family dynamics.

Blaze At Noon is not a bad film, but at times it does play like a aerial soap opera. Wead was great at writing about aviation, the personal stuff does not hold the interest as much. As for the plot, it's a whole lot like his play Ceiling Zero which was a James Cagney/Pat O'Brien film at Warner Brothers in the Thirties. Wead doesn't break any new ground here.

Howard DaSilva and William Bendix are in this as well. DaSilva is the gruff, but decent owner of the airmail line which is called the Mercury Aviation Corporation. That was an inside Paramount joke because Cecil B. DeMille back after World War I organized something called the Mercury Aviation Corporation as a sideline from films. DeMille had developed an interest in flying and was a pilot during his younger days. His Mercury Aviation Corporation went bust during the Depression.

William Bendix is good as always as one of the MacDonald's fellow pilot friends whose happy go lucky attitude gets him bounced as an airmail pilot. I wish we'd seen more of him and also of Jean Wallace who is a kind of aviation groupie before that term was in the language.

Blaze At Noon is directed by John Farrow who doesn't do a bad job with a sluggish script. I wish Frank Wead had written something better for a swansong.

Tote that bag, Fly that mail!

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 11 October 2023]

The men that flew the mail planes and the woman who prayed for them to land safely. This biographical drama is the true story of the MacDonald brothers, going from air shows to a lifelong career, and the audience prays that they didn't end like the Sullivan Brothers of the world war that followed in this time period. Ironically the woman who plays the wife, Anne Baxter, played one of the wives in "The Sullivans" just three years before, and coming off of "The Razors Edge" (and an Oscar) was very popular.

This was William Holden's first film in four years and his most prestigious film since "Our Town", indicating that there were serious parts around the corner, not just the frivolous comedies that he had spent the early war years making. He's the oldest of the four brothers and first to marry, supported by Sonny Tufts, Sterling Hayden and Johnny Sands as his brothers. Holden dominates as the other three seem destined to be alternating lines as the screenwriter dictated. Hayden, the best of the three actors, at least gets a subplot involving a crash that leaves his character despondent about not being able to fly again.

However, giving excellent performances in support of the brothers are the always dependable Howard da Silva and William Bendix, getting very well written characters that serve a purpose. Jean Wallace plays an actress who sets her sights on Holden and doesn't let his marriage stop her. It's a film that the viewers will want to be better, and it is as far as the fought sequences are concerned. The main story isn't enough to create a plot as everything that occurs seems to be just a series of incidents passing time, but as a piece of aviation history is educational and interesting.

Engrossing aerial soap opera

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 24 April 2024]

Anne Baxter was just coming off an Oscar win for her portrayal of a drug addicted woman in 20th Century Fox's adaptation of THE RAZOR'S EDGE when she was loaned to Paramount for the lead role in this aviation drama. Interestingly, she heads a cast that includes Paramount's top matinee idols of the postwar period- William Holden who plays the man she marries; and Sterling Hayden who is on hand as Holden's brother and the man she probably should have married.

The idea of putting Hayden and Holden into the same film, directed by John Farrow, is inspired since they actually do look like brothers and have similar mannerisms. In addition to these two, Sonny Tufts whose career at Paramount was in full swing plays an older brother, while Johnny Sands portrays the youngest kid brother. All four of the McDonald bros are pilots, some of them having flown during WWI. Now it is the mid-1920s and since they have bills to pay and since they can't seem to get flying out of their blood, they perform aerial stunts at carnivals. What they do is thrilling and dangerous.

But when Holden meets pretty nurse Baxter, he realizes he needs to settle down and have a more stable job. So he and his brothers leave the stunt shows and start careers delivering airmail. The historical aspect of the airmail business in Ernest Gann's popular novel, adapted by real-life flyer turned screenwriter Frank Wead, gives the story great credibility.

Because this is an 'A' budget picture, the studio ups the drama by putting all four brothers into daring situations. The younger McDonald (Sands) is killed early on; and Tufts' character takes the blame and soon quits flying to become a car salesman of all things.

A friend who is also a pilot, and is played by William Bendix in the film's comic relief role, gets busted for zooming too close to a train on the ground. So, with his license being reviewed and having been put on suspension, he also quits and joins Tufts selling cars.

This leaves Holden and Hayden doing the mail runs, but Baxter is now pregnant and she'd like Holden to stop taking flights in bad weather. Meanwhile, Hayden has fallen hard for Baxter...but he can't have his sister-in-law as more than a friend, so he cracks up in the air and becomes disabled. Sterling Hayden gives a thoughtful performance here. We feel his anguish over his unrequited love; and when he ends up crippled which leads to the end of his career, we sense how much this setback means.

The drama isn't done, because there is one more huge tragedy yet to happen. And this time it involves Holden's character. He takes off in the fog on a special flight that will make extra money he needs to support his wife and newborn child. But the aircraft disappears in the fog, and he's never heard from again.

There's a wonderful scene with Holden at the controls, facing imminent death, talking on the radio to Baxter who's on the ground realizing they'll never see each other again. Anne Baxter is truly magnificent in what amounts to a highly touching role. Most actresses would have gone full throttle with the histrionics near the end, but she wisely underplays it, and I do think this performance is just as good, perhaps even better, than the one for which she earned the Oscar. Her Lucille McDonald is just so believable; very much a 'real person' on screen.

One thing that made me give the film a high score was that when I reflected back on the whole narrative, I could see that the writers were foreshadowing Baxter and Hayden to get together, even though their relationship was impossible. After Holden dies, Hayden as the baby's uncle is present at the christening; and since it would be distasteful to show that Baxter is ready to move on, as it would be too soon after her husband's death, I think we can assume that she will eventually marry Hayden. So we have this suggested happy ending, but not yet quite happy ending, which felt very mature and honest to me.

I also liked how all four brothers who loved flying so much are no longer fliers at the end. Their lives go in such unexpected directions. As a result, this is not a predictable or very formulaic studio picture; and with Baxter's sincere performance at the center of it, it is a real keeper.

Four brothers who loved the thrill of flying...even when it was dangerous and a bit stupid.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 3 May 2024]

When the film begins, the four McDonald brothers are working as barnstormers in the 1920s*. However, the work is super dangerous and they decide to try something only marginally safer...flying the US Mail. In those days, planes had very little safety equipment or instruments and every time they fly, they take a risk. Colin (William Holden) does something the others don't...he gets married. But what sort of a life is it to be the wife of a crazy pilot? And, what sort of life expectancy will he and his brothers have?

This is a decent sort of film though I've seen a few others which are similar enough that I don't exactly see "Blaze of Noon" as a must-see. Instead, it's a decent time-passer and it's a nice change to learn about flying in the 'good old days'.

*As IMDB noted, although set in the 20s, everything looks like it is from 1947 and the filmmakers did NOTHING to try to capture the look of the 20s.

When flying is in your blood you just can't help going too far

[clanciai · 9/10 · 25 April 2024]

The most memorable part here is Anne Baxter as Lucille, a nurse, who marries the eldest of the four brothers, William Holden, while that practically makes her the wife of all of them, since they stick together, live together and work together and even risk their lives together. That's the problem. In such a risky business there has to be some casualties, and they are devastating. In the 20s it was definitely risking your life challenging the weather if it was fog or rains or storms or snows or any rough weather, and unfortunately these daredevil flyers were not sensible enough to back down and refuse the challenge, especially if it gave you a bonus. So actually three of the four brothers end up badly, one of them survives but as a cripple, and one simply disappears completely. The fourth one was sensible enough to stick to the earth while he was still alive and got an ordinary humdrum job on the ground. But the other three had lives worth living.