Air Mail

media release: USA | 1932 | DCP | 84 min.

Director: John Ford

Cast: Pat O’Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Gloria Stuart

Talented-but-reckless airman Duke Talbot (O’Brien) runs off with the wife of a freshly-deceased fellow pilot, forcing the even-tempered Mike Miller (Bellamy) to finish the downed pilot’s mail route. When Miller’s plane crashes into a mountain during the job, Talbot must decide whether to use his daredevil aviation skills to save his injured comrade. Ford’s stirring yarn combines a Hawks-ian ardor for male camaraderie and professionalism with an undercurrent of moody darkness, accentuated by the Expressionist-influenced cinematography of Karl Freund (frequent cinematographer of Ford favorite F.W. Murnau) (MC). This screening will be the world premiere of a new 4K DCP restoration from Universal Pictures, followed by a special in-person discussion with John Ford At Work author Lea Jacobs.

Admission free for all screenings, seating limited. No admission 15 minutes after scheduled start times. Please visit our website for a complete listing of programs and descriptions.

John Ford at Work

Lea Jacobs, Professor Emeritus of Film at UW-Madison and one of the Cinematheque’s Founders, is the author of a new book about a great director, John Ford at Work. The cinematic study shows the evolution of Ford’s career in the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s through film-by-film production studies that reveal how the filmmaker worked and how Ford weathered the storms of the Depression and the great changes to the movie industry, such as the coming of sound. In conjunction with the book’s publication, the Cinematheque proudly presents six superb Ford-directed movies from the era, beginning with the first theatrical screening of a new restoration of Ford’s Air Mail. Each screening will be introduced by Lea Jacobs and special discussions will follow the showings of Air Mail and Stagecoach.