The IMDb calls this a pre-code movie and gives several examples. The scene that stood out for me was when the couple was found in bed together. I understand that with the codes that were later implemented, a man and woman couldn't be shown in bed together without one having at least one foot on the floor. This was clearly not done here. Even though the characters were married, it would be decades before this scene would be allowed again.
Just a fun observation.
Rick
Also just saw this movie -- thought it worth more than the 1.5 stars it was given bu Osborne & Co.
Jim was reported to be a general in a Chinese rebel army. The starboard fuselage of his seaplane in Cuba has a hammer and sickle emblem on the side and possibly a Chinese ideogram adjacent. The army must have been that of Mao Tse Dung!!! Amazing detail.....
And the trimotors, and the shots of airports comprised of a building with the name on the roof, and what seemed to be universally unpaved strips! Fantastic documenting of the early days of the airline industry, before TSA and taking off your shoes, when people dressed "properly" to fly.
Yes, the scene of Sally Eilers and Tom Brown in bed together seems really surprising, considering the era. Also her undressing in the hotel room and shown wearing only her bra and panties, and that whole business about "connecting doors". Within just a few months of this film's release, the production code would clamp down and all that sort of thing would be banned from American movies for over thirty years. Even married couples (as the two were in this movie) had to be shown sleeping in separate beds. Utterly ridiculous.
CENTRAL AIRPORT is a pretty good movie, I think, though the title is a little odd.
Yeah, I found all of those things to be "shocking", considering other movies made at the time and of course soon after once the code kicked in!
The flying scenes were really pretty impressive!
Pre-Code movies show that the 60s didn't invent sex, drugs, and youth market music with African rhythms. Many people have the impression from the Code movies that their ancestors were complete innocents whose tiny lives were as pure as the driven snow. Of course if they WERE there wouldn't have been a large audience for these things and there wouldn't have been a Code to clamp down on perceived excesses that were seen as endangering national morals and degrading our society.
Another aspect of these movies is the slang. "It's the same difference" and others have clung on to the present. Slang used in common parlance among educated people was another way society was becoming much more informal, or as some thought, coarsened.
I like picking up on pronunciations we don't use now, such as Los Angeles with the hard rather than soft g and ang sound as in the word angle. I hear that today on BBC programs.
Everything was in flux in the first decades of the 20th century. Change was as much a fact of life as it is now. Some embraced change, others rejected it, as now. It was interesting to see the two leading technologies of the day, the plane and the train, as the newcomer buzzed the old timer, just as the train used to rush past horses and wagons.
I was also shocked by the couple in bed and the scene in her bra. I didn;t know whne the code was implemented. As a former military and airline pilot, I found the flying scenes were not very realistic.
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