A tale of sibling rivalry set amidst the community of bush pilots in northern Canada, this Canadian-American feature is considered one of the first Canadian films to be produced outside French-speaking Quebec. However, the commercial failure of this release meant that the production company, Dominion Pictures, in which its director, Sterling Campbell, producer, and its main star, Austin Willis, were partners on its board, would never make another film. The company's main backer, Geoffrey Wood, who had built his fortune running a sanitation company, later confessed that he had foolhardily invested $160,000 in this venture, when he knew as little about movies as movie people knew about sanitation.
The plot centres on Willis' main protagonist and pilot, 'Red' North, trying to eke out a living running a commercial cargo operation across the Canadian wilderness, combatting his own good-heartedness as much as the distances to be covered and unpredictable weather conditions. The last thing he needs is for his belligerent and over-competitive brother to try and muscle in on the same territory, and on his 'girl'.
This is Willis' debut on the silver screen in a lacklustre career the highlights of which were bit parts in 'Goldfinger' and 'The Boston Strangler'. As for his malfeasant sibling, this role was performed by long-established Sicilian actor, versed in playing thugs and villains, Jack La Rue. Discovered on Broadway by Howard Hawks, La Rue was set to star alongside Paul Muni in 'Scarface', but was replaced after just four days by George Raft due to the fact he towered over the main star and had a more commanding voice. The love interest is supplied by Rochelle Hudson, contracted to RKO Pictures at the tender age of fourteen, and whose crowning moment was appearing as Claudette Colbert's adult daughter in the 1931 version of 'Imitation of Life'. Suffice to say here that her laughable display of facial expressions and emotional distress while searching skywards suggest she learned little from her time at the studio. Especially ridiculous is her skyward smile of relief at her beau's safe landing, on the household porch amidst a fog so dense he is warned from making a landing at all. Completing the main cast is the deplorable Frank Perry as Red's mechanic and Hudson's brother, whose death in transporting highly sensitive explosive material cannot come soon enough. Yet, worst member of the cast has to be the supposed comic relief whose dismal Scottish accent suggests the production costs should have included the employ of a dialect coach.
The sole point of interest is the beauty of the Canadian wilderness on show, and one can admire the skills of the real Canadian bush pilots employed on the shoot. The film is full of elliptical narrative gaps, the script predictable, and the pace is sluggish at best. Mercifully, this uninspiring drama is short of an hour, with even the film's finale underwhelming. Having laid the blame for her brother's death upon Red and moved away to marry, Hudson's character is persuaded to return to this outpost to help guide Red's brother on a mission of mercy to get medication to an isolated community suffering from an outbreak of an unidentified disease. When they fail to report in, Red flies out to locate them. A dying confession from La Rue opens up the possibility of reconciliation , while also setting the climax of the feature, with the audience having to experience another extended gallery of silent-era worthy facial reactions as our desperate Hudson tries to signal her location to Red above.
Given that former bit-part actor, Sterling Campbell, had, after serving in the Canadian army in the First World War, acted uncredited as stunt supervisor and military advisor on such classics as 'Wings' and 'All Quiet on the Western Front, and had fought in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, it should not be surprising that his only turn in the director's chair should be on a movie based on aviation. Yet, also surprising that the aerial sequences featured here be so uninspiring, suggestive that budgetary constraints were to the fore. The film's commercial failure would end his days within the film-making business, leading him to try and enter Canadian politics. However, during his 1956 campaign to run for a place on the city council of Toronto, he fell and exacerbated an old war injury, effectively ending any chances of success. Nevertheless, this promoted his wife to run for office thereby launching her career as a successful Liberal politician.
