Winging Around Europe with Will Rogers (1927) User Reviews

'Plane speaking from Rogers

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 2 October 2002]

When Will Rogers took a holiday trip to Europe in 1927, his travel expenses were partly offset by a deal with the Pathe film company. Pathe sent a silent-film cameraman to follow Rogers on his tour; Rogers supplied some of his folksy witticisms for gag intertitles, and the resulting footage was released to American cinemas as several 10-minute travelogues.

"Winging Around Europe" is the most airborne instalment in this series, reflecting Rogers's love of air travel. Viewed from a modern standpoint, this short film seems extremely ironic; Rogers would die in a plane crash (with aviation pioneer Wiley Post) a few years later.

The footage in this travelogue includes scenes of Croydon Field, near London; the white cliffs of Dover and a Channel crossing; le Bourget airfield; an exhilarating flight over the Arc de Triomphe and an exciting flight across the Alps. Among Rogers's aw-shucks comments is this piece of wisdom: "You can't find a piece of ground in Europe that hasn't been taken at least a dozen times from somebody or other that really think they have an original claim to it."

Winging Around Europe with Will Rogers

[Michael_Elliott · 29 September 2011]

Winging Around Europe (1927)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

In 1927 actor Will Rogers went on a European tour where he was to lecture at several stops and he signed a deal with Pathe who would send a camera crew along with him. These twelve films would eventually be released in a series with this here being the ninth. As with the other entries in the series, this one here starts off with Rogers walking onto a stage, telling a few jokes and then we heard off on the tour. Most of the footage shot comes from inside the airplane so there are times where it's actually somewhat hard to see what we're supposed to be looking at and there are a few times where the footage goes by so quickly that it's gone before you know it. I'm sure many people will look at this series and think it must have been the inspiration for MGM and James FitzPatrick's TravelTalks series. Of course, the narration and color are missing here but what we get instead are non-stop one-liners coming from title cards. It was funny to see that the majority of the early jokes are aimed at America for not warming up to aviation and how they spend way too much time on the golf course. Rogers also jokes that the next war they get it they're going to be armed with a putter. Overall this film wasn't too bad but then again it's mainly of interest to Rogers fans and history buffs.