Flying High

Man-crazy waitress Pansy Potts (Charlotte Greenwood) offers $500 for a husband. She gets Clark Gable. Well... she gets his photo, a come-on to meet penniless aerocopter inventor and all-around goofball Rusty Krouse (film-debuting Bert Lahr who, wouldn't you know, doesn't look a bit like Gable). Rusty wants the $500 as much as Pansy wants a husband. After a series of comic adventures - including a wild scene in a doctor's office and sky-high hijinks in the aerocopter - they both get their wish. Based on legendary showman George White's Broadway hit starring Lahr, Flying High features musical numbers staged by Busby Berkeley and two splendidly unique comic talents in their only screen pairing. Fun and music, ready for takeoff!

FLYING HIGH was a nonsensical Broadway musical hit of 1930 starring Bert Lahr. The film version, made one year later by MGM, made a few efforts to "cinematize" the stage original, but the focus was on Lahr, re-creating his Broadway performance virtually verbatim -- except for his famous (and notorious) gag sequence involving a urinalysis! Lahr plays the goofy inventor of an "aerocopter" flying machine, who is compelled to prove the efficiency of his invention in a slapstick cross-country airmail delivery race. While Lahr's original Broadway co-star Kate Smith does not appear in the film, he was more than amply matched comedically by Charlotte Greenwood. The musical numbers for FLYING HIGH were choreographed by Busby Berkeley; one of his more engaging routines was later excerpted for the 1934 Ted Healy/Three Stooges two-reeler PLANE NUTS.