Gallant Journey (1946) User Reviews

John J. Montgomery 1858-1911

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 3 July 2007]

Depending on whether you believe the plot of Gallant Journey verbatim or not, John J. Montgomery may have been the first man to make a heavier than air flight and he did it in 1883, twenty years before the Wright Brothers did their thing at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Whether you do or not there is no denying that Glenn Ford gave a wonderful performance as the earnest young man, consumed as so many were at that time of the dream of manned flight. Janet Blair played the ever helpful and supportive wife of Ford and does it well.

The film is directed by William Wellman, one of many he did in his career combining his two great loves, film and aviation. Of course Wellman reached the pinnacle of his aviation success with the first Academy Award winning Best film, Wings.

The film is narrated by Charlie Ruggles to a group of post World War II kids and he's Montgomery's brother who has outlived him by a considerable period. Montgomery when he wasn't doing his aviation glider experiments, earned a living teaching science at Santa Clara College where a couple of supportive priests are played by Arthur Shields and Charles Kemper. Best in the supporting parts in the film however is Jim Lloyd who plays the balloonist daredevil who helps pilot Ford's experiments when an inner ear problem forces him to stop doing the actual flying.

Aviation historians still debate Montgomery's actual contributions to the saga of manned flight. But I think Montgomery himself would have been well pleased with how Bill Wellman and Glenn Ford told his tale.

Gallant Journey -Jet Lag Sets In **1/2

[edwagreen · 6/10 · 4 July 2007]

What should have been an inspiring film, turns into a slow-moving film about an early aviator John Montgomery. To say that this guy was unlucky was to put it mildly.

A very young Glenn Ford does an adequate job in portraying this man who dreamed of flying in the 1880s. Janet Blair is his co-star as the girl who loved and eventually married him.

Montgomery is viewed as some sort of crackpot for his desiring to fly. Through the film, we see that he is victimized by vertigo, a suit on his patent, the tragic death of his partner, and his inability to move up within the social milieu despite his achievements.

The film is slow paced. By the way, who was the old man who tells his story to the boys at the beginning of the film? Who was he supposed to represent?

Am sure that the earthquake they we see was not the big 1906 one. If it were, the film suffered from the fact that Ford just didn't age. Was he another Dorian Gray?

Nice drama of early aviation pioneers...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 3 July 2007]

Sturdy, dependable GLENN FORD gives another one of his understated but sincere performances as a young inventor, John Montgomery, in the late 1800s who makes a number of semi-successful attempts at getting his flying machine off the ground and soaring into the atmosphere.

JANET BLAIR is the love interest as the childhood sweetheart who stands by her man until the end of his life. While I always liked this actress, the jarring note is her make-up which is so modern that it seems like an anachronism. She has a distinctly 1940s look about her (lip gloss and modern hairdos) that works against the otherwise authentic look of the film.

WILLARD ROBERTSON as Ford's pa is fine but SELENA ROYLE is completely wasted in a minor role as his loving mom. William Wellman directs with a thorough knowledge of his subject and as an aviation drama it maintains interest throughout. All of the aerial scenes are well staged and look glorious in crisp B&W photography.

Summing up: A very unheralded film that is certainly watchable but could have used a stronger and less sentimental script.

Was he the first to fly or not?

[theowinthrop · 3 November 2004]

It is amazing how little has appeared in motion pictures about early attempts at flight before the Wright Brothers. There are no films about Sir George Cayley (the founder of aeronautics), the Montgolfier Brothers, Otto Lilienthal, or Samuel Langley. Actually, except for a television film that starred Michael Moriarty as Wilbur Wright, there is no film about the Wright Brothers. Only two films (that I know of) deal with early aviation pioneers. One is a film with Don Ameche and Myrna Loy about the life of inventor Hiram Percy Maxim (inventor of the Maxim machine gun and the lawn sprinkler - he designed a cumbersome flying machine that almost flew a little in 1895). The other is this film, about John Montgomery.

John Who?

John J. Montgomery was a professional acrobat who had an act concerning gliding in his own glider. It involved some degree of tightrope style balancing and looked very impressive. Less impressive than Montgomery and his fans have made it sound in the last century. To his fans, Montgomery almost flew a plane before the Wrights. Actually the glider he designed was basically stationary, and only went aloft due to a balloon above it. It would detach and drift (or be steered) to go softly to the ground. Otto Lillienthal and Percy Pilcher flew real gliders in the 1890s (both were killed eventually in their gliders), but they flew in the outside air. Montgomery never achieved the results of those two real pioneers*.

But he was a local boy from California, so he had a fan base. And William Wellman tapped it for this very good movie (alas, not shown as often as it should be shown), dealing with his career, up to his tragic death in 1911 (killed, ironically, when trying to fly an early motorized aircraft). It has a typically first rate performance by Ford. Catch it if it is offered on the Turner network.

*Since I originally put this on the Board I have looked a bit deeper into Montgomery's work. He apparently was more experimental than I credited him for, but still it doesn't convince me that he could have beaten the Wright Brothers to powered man-made flight.

Gallant Journey

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 26 December 2023]

If ever there was a drive in movie, this would have to be it. It centres around an the dreams of American aviation pioneer John J. Montgomery (Glenn Ford) who was indeed a visionary individual determined to build a glider in the early 1880s. He studies hard at university where his ambitions are largely supported by the Jesuit order (Arthur Shields) even if they are somewhat frustrated by his own politically ambitious father Zachary (Willard Robertson). Along the way, he falls in love with "Ginny" (Janet Blair) and that's where the film loses it's scientific impetus and surrenders to a series of melodically scored romantic scenes - violins squeaking away merrily as the pace drops as surely as one of his earlier inventions. The thrust of the story still surfaces now and again. He has to fight a costly battle to protect his increasingly successful inventions and there is some nice aerial photography that illustrates the joys (and dangers) of his labours, but for the most part this is a rather unremarkable effort from just about everyone involved that seems to drag just once too often before the historically accurate conclusion. If this were a book, it'd be a very short pamphlet on early aerodynamics, balsa wood and willpower.

The life story of John J. Montgomery....sort of.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 7 January 2019]

When it comes to biopics, Hollywood has a long, long history of playing fast and loose with the facts. Too often, instead of history lessons about great people, the movies are a mixture of fact, fantasy and outright lies. And, as an ex-history teacher, I find it hard to enjoy most of these pictures. "Gallant Journey" is another one of these films that pretty much ignores details and doesn't mind painting a picture of a person who is as much fiction as real life hero. The real life John Montgomery was an interesting man and a biopic of his life would have worked well. Too bad, as Hollywood didn't trust his real life to be interesting enough for a movie.

The real John Montgomery was famous beacuse he was an early inventor of gliders and flew the first one in the Americas. His work led to later inventions, such as the Wright Brothers' plane. Unfortunately, Montgomery was ultimately killed during one of his flights...though the movie gets the details of all this wrong and tacks on a super-sickeningly sweet ending.

As far as the acting goes, Glenn Ford does his best in the lead and the director, William Wellman, was also very good. But the facts were all wrong and Montgomery is hardly recognizable in this movie.

Atmospheric view of John Montgomery's gliding experiments

[suomynona-1 · 8/10 · 4 July 2007]

I missed the start of this film last night on TCM, but I'm glad I tuned in, because I'd never heard of the movie before. I'm from San Diego, and John Montgomery is definitely a 'local boy', even though he was not born here. In 1882, at age 24, he moved with his father and family to a ranch on Otay Mesa, which is right next to the Mexican border, about 15 miles south of downtown San Diego (the 'vaquero' seemed appropriate). His first flight was in 1883, and he continued his experiments there until 1895, when he moved to Oakland. A year later, he started teaching at Santa Clara College (near San Jose), and he was killed in a flying accident near there in 1911. Another reviewer said that the flight scenes were filmed in the Santa Clara Valley, and I wonder how they knew that, and in fact whether it is true. The film seems to be about Montgomery's time in the San Diego area, although I thought the landscape looked rather smooth and grassy for this generally very dry climate. North of Los Angeles, probably, but Santa Clara? Still, wherever it was filmed, it was easy to imagine the empty rolling hills and canyons in the film as the area around Otay, long before urban sprawl.

I was particularly enthralled with the way the scene was filmed where Montgomery's glider and 'Professor La Salle' were carried aloft by a gigantic balloon. I thought the view from far above the balloon, showing it soaring high above the rolling countryside, amongst spectacular cloud formations, was quite dramatic.

I also thought the film did a pretty good job of capturing the flavor of the time, with people's naïve enthusiasm at the prospect of flight. I liked the costuming, except for Professor LaSalle's outfit (spangled shorts over tights), which I thought looked ridiculous. I suppose it was authentic, however. Another reviewer complained about Janet Blair's makeup, saying it was too 'modern'. True, respectable women of the late 1800s didn't wear makeup, which is one reason they generally look so strange in old photographs. However, I doubt if any actress, even in the 40's, would be caught dead without 'modern' makeup, and audiences would not want to see them without it. Incidentally, I thought Janet Blair was a total dish. True, she was too good to be true. I thought it was interesting that she kept showing up with these men she had recruited to help Montgomery. I wondered about her recruiting methods. Simply smiling undoubtedly would have been sufficient.

Apparently this film was a typical Hollywood 'biopic', which never lets the facts stand in the way of a good story. According to one history of Montgomery, he conducted his experiments in secret, just like the Wright Brothers, and the first public mention of his 1883 flight was in an 1894 book by Octave Chanute, entitled 'Progress in Flying Machines'. Montgomery managed to get a patent in 1906, so perhaps like the Wright Brothers he was hoping to profit from his discoveries. So, no 'exhibitions', no 'Professor LaSalle', or any of that. How much drama can you squeeze out of a man conducting gliding experiments in secret?

As to Glenn Ford's performance, I felt a little uneasy about it. He seemed to be trying to portray Montgomery as being somewhat childish, somewhat scatter-brained, almost mentally unbalanced. True, one important aspect of the plot was Montgomery's supposed dizzy spells, but Glenn looked dizzy practically all the time – was that really necessary? His performance reminded me of Montgomery Clift or Anthony Perkins, who were hired for their ability to look crazy. Actually, I wondered why Janet's character was so enthralled with him. His success with gliders seemed to be the only thing he had going for him. His dropping her on the dance floor was inevitable, but I still felt bad when it happened.

Incidentally, a random thought just occurred. This morning, I read an article in the paper about the man who was primarily responsible for the development and 'perfection' of film colorization (aided considerably by Ted Turner making his film vaults available). I'm not necessarily against colorization, but I thought 'Gallant Journey', in glorious, subtle, leave-it-to-your-imagination black and white was just fine. Once all old movies have been colorized, will we even be able to see them in black and white?

Movie not historically correct.

[Phil-900-753924 · 3/10 · 18 January 2014]

Montgomery claimed to have flown his gliders in the 1880's but there were no wittiness, and no parts were kept... therefore it was just flights of his imagination. I have read the only book on Montgomery, by Father Spearman of Santa Clara University, and many claims are made but no real proof is given. I have also read Montgomery's papers which are a jumble of nonsense...the papers came to me from Northern Californians who support Montgomery's claims. Montgomery did build several gliders that were flown from hot air balloons in early 1900's, as shown in the movie, but these lacked any controls and tumbled to the ground...the daredevil "pilots" were lucky to survive! In 1911 Montgomery did build and attempted to fly his glider in San Jose. It had no lateral control, was rather crude, and it crashed after a short hop. He was killed in the crash. No motor could have been installed on his design. The Wright brothers made fully documented powered flights with 3-axis control in 1903! The Wrights were aware of Montgomery's claims and considered him a crackpot. One of the claims was his "parabolic wing"configuration but that was not valid...many others were aware of lift developed by curved airfoil surfaces.

Glenn Ford Continues to Soar....

[heritagehall · 10/10 · 31 August 2006]

I viewed this picture many years ago and acquired a crush on - was it Glenn Ford or John Montgomery? Don't know..... he played the role so well. With Glenn Ford's passing yesterday, that was the first picture that emerged from my recollections, other than Stolen Life, in which he held his own so well with Bette Davis. It is, indeed, unfortunate that Hollywood did not fully tap the dramatic abilities of this fine actor. His comedic ability was evident in Pocketful of Miracles, which could have opened a whole new genre for him had it been further utilized in his career. As for Gallant Journey, it is an inspiring film of early aviation and of the caliber so well suited to family viewing.

Wonderful film of Early Flight attempts.

[mooaks · 28 March 2004]

Saw the film years and years ago...It has always been one of the most enjoyable films of early flight that I have ever seen...When Montgomery was hauled aloft with his glider attached to a hot air baloon and then released, the scenery was breathtaking as he made his decent to earth high above the Santa Clara valley. Janet Blair as I remember, was Montgomery's wife and in one particular scene, she removed her silk petty coat and gave it to her husband who was in desperate need of patching material for his damaged glider...I would like to rent the video of Gallant Journey but have not had any luck finding a rental agency with it even listed. As I remember, it had an excellent story line...

Glenn Ford soars in nice Columbia biopic

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 17 September 2014]

This nice biopic from Columbia stars Glenn Ford as John Montgomery, a man whose ideas about gliders and aerodynamics lead to the creation of the first airplane. The studio has assigned Janet Blair to costar as Ford's love interest, with Selena Royle playing his mother. As expected, there are some excellent aviation scenes with a great deal of suspense. Several sequences depict both the heartbreak and the triumphs involved in an invention of this kind. Ford gives a soaring performance, in a role that seems to draw on his sensitivities as an actor and his feelings about portraying the man as honestly as possible.