PARACHUTE JUMPER (1933)

A wild and wooly pre-Code action film with a bit of romance thrown in, almost as a second thought. The first five minutes feel like they belong to a whole different movie. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Frank McHugh are Marine pilots who are shot down in Nicaragua; as an extensive search goes on for them, they are living it up with women and alcohol in a small village. When they are found, they are discharged and wind up back in New York City scrounging for jobs. Fairbanks and Bette Davis (with a wildly overdone Southern accent) meet cute on a park bench; he thinks she's a hooker, but she's really an unemployed stenographer and she winds up living with our boys. Fairbanks does a brief stint as a parachute jumper, getting paid to jump out of planes for the enjoyment of paying audiences, then gets a job as chauffer to rich sex kitten Claire Dodd. She comes onto him, and they're caught in a clinch by her gangster lover (Leo Carillo). Impressed by the way Fairbanks takes the situation, Carillo hires him as a bodyguard; coincidentally, Davis also lands a job with him, as a secretary. Carillo has Fairbanks and McHugh take on some shady flights; they think they're running booze, but when Fairbanks discovers they’re really carrying dope, and that some G-men are about to catch up with them, he makes a mid-air attempt to get rid of the cargo and get Carillo busted for good measure. I was pretty sure that either Davis or McHugh would have to be sacrificed, but there's a happy ending for everyone in the last minutes of the film. Fairbanks looks dashing and all, but it feels like he's sleepwalking through the part (not exactly a challenging one). He and McHugh work well together, except for a ridiculously overdone gay-camp bit. Davis doesn't have much to do except flounce around and work her bad accent. With Walter Brennan and George Chandler in small speaking roles. [TCM]