IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 6,4
Director: Frank Capra
Main Cast: Jack Holt, Fay Wray, Ralph Graves, Hobart Bosworth
"Audiences who only know Frank Capra for his middle/late 1930s and 1940s socially relevant comedies might be surprised by Dirigible. The product of a story by Frank Wead, it's a two-fisted adventure yarn about two US Navy pilots (Jack Holt, Ralph Graves) with very different approaches to work and life. At the center of the story, with apologies to screenwriters Dorothy Howell and Jo Swerling, is the competition of these two men, and their shared goal of reaching the South Pole by air. The romantic triangle with Fay Wray never really takes center-stage, despite a considerable amount of screen time devoted to it - she tries very hard, and Holt, especially, pushes himself to make their scenes together credible, but the best and most convincing parts of the movie are those aerial sequences aboard the dirigible, and the polar scenes in the final 30 minutes. Back in 1931, when many audiences were still dazzled by airplanes and light-than-air ships, Dirigible was considered a major achievement in the field of adventure filmmaking, with superb stunt and model work and even better photography - and fortunately, Capra and his cast threw enough of themselves into their work so that it all still holds up nearly as well today, and even twenty-first century audiences may well find themselves feeling the dazzle factor that filmgoers in 1931 were expected to experience. (For filmgoers in the twenty-first century, there is also the treat of seeing extensive footage of the airship facilities in Lakehurst, New Jersey as well as material shot around New York's City Hall at the time). Additionally, there are surprises to be had in the performances, including Roscoe Karnes, who would later be associated almost completely with comedy, in a serious dramatic role (and, at the risk of spoiling the plot, an agonizing final scene for his character); and Ralph Graves, who is pretty stiff and superficial in his performance here, intoning lines in the film's final section that would later belong, more rightfully, to John Wayne.
While Dirigible is notable as Frank Capra's best early film, the real credit for making something that was both a huge hit during the early years of talking pictures and an old film that will interest even today's jaded action movie fans should go to Editor Maurice Wright. Wright had to assemble this early blockbuster from what Capra shot and what the U.S. Navy provided in the form of stock and promotional footage. He did a great job and you rarely are aware that you watching a movie, let alone a fictional drama." - www.allmovie.com
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