The Lost Zeppelin (1929)

Huh. So I came across this wee film while I was wandering about the Netflix site, doing one of those periodic DVD queue replenishment things I do.

Y'see, once or twice a year I go through Netflix's movies genre by genre, slap 40 or 50 I think I might like to see (or see again) into my queue, then forget the whole thing exists until whenever the next "almost empty" reminder shows up. I figure since everything I added holds at least some interest to me, I can just not bother with upkeep and be pleasantly surprised by whatever shows up.

This clever plan works most of the time--every once in awhile I end up with a DVD in-hand that I'd unwittingly streamed on Amazon the week before, or a disc shows up I can't for the life of me figure out why adding it seemed like a good idea, but mostly my little system works and keeps me happily in weekend-movie-watching-mode.

Anyway, enough about my Netflix adding-to-the-queue game plan. YOU came here to read about The Lost Zeppelin. And so you shall:

I think what got The Lost Zeppelin added to my queue in the first place was (a) it's a 1920s talkie and I was curious what that would look/sound like, and (b) what's not to love about a cinematic dirigible disaster? (Don't you just love saying that word? Dirigible. DIRIGIBLE!)

Of course I qualify my what's-not-to-love-ness as being for the cinematic variety versus real life, since the Hindenburg tragedy truly horrifies me even today, but I do so love a good fictional disaster of almost any kind, dirigible-style included. (DIRIGIBLE!) Anyway, upon disc's arrival, this movie pretty much provided me with what I was hoping for.

The film itself runs about an hour and eleven minutes, but it feels longer on account of all the, well, talking going on during the picture. Maybe sound was so new at the time audiences were eating all that dialogue up, but for a 21st century movie-goer this thing moves pret-ty slow. Which is not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did. It was just a slow-mover, like more than a few movies of its time. And in that same vein, the acting comes off a little stilted, the direction a bit static--you know how it is. But with all that in mind, there's still a fair bit of room for enjoyment.

The film concentrated on three main characters, played by Conway Tearle, Virginia Valli and Ricardo Cortez. I don't know enough about 1920s Hollywood to say if these actors were "stars" of not, but each was quite active from the early teens through at least the mid thirties--and in Cortez's case, right up into the sixties. So, no one hit wonders carrying the film.

I didn't see anywhere that this was taken from a short story, but it has the feel of one of those air adventure pulps so popular at the time--you know, like Air Wonder Stories or Flying Aces. Air travel in general--and dirigibles in particular--were all the rage in the late twenties/early thirties, and this movie plays like one of those air pulp mags would read.

So yeah, the early talkie aspects of the film were both frustrating and enjoyable--frustrating because they were primitive enough to get in the way of the film's storytelling, and enjoyable just by way of nostalgia and a sense of "wow, once upon a time that stuff was really new and how cool to see this slice of history today" kind of thing.

The special effects for the film must have been stunning for their day though, and I'll say they actually hold up reasonably well in the here and now. At least nothing took me out-of-story by coming off as ridiculous or overly clunky, effects-wise. A lot of miniatures being effectively used throughout, along with full-sized props, and what with the thing being filmed almost entirely on sound stages, they did a really nice job portraying Antarctic terrain and conditions.

Hmm. I was about to comment on the movie's peripheral sci-fi elements, as a 1920s dirigible certainly wouldn't have been able to make it to anywhere near the South Pole, but a quick Google search tells me my knowledge deficits aren't limited only to 1920s Hollywood star status. Looks like dirigibles (DIRIGIBLE!) of the time can and did make it to the North Pole at least, so that makes this movie more of a straight up adventure, and not really even marginally sci-fi.

Annnd... I guess that's all I have to say about this little picture. Not one you need to seek out unless it's for curiosity's sake (like it was for me), but if you do, chances are you'll come away feeling like it was at least mildly worth your time. Oh, and don't bother with a Netflix DVD, this thing is public domain and all over the internet....

So there. (DIRIGIBLE!)

TWO AND A HALF ICE-COATED-AIRBAG BRAINS