RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

zardoz-13 Spectacular aerial flying sequences shot by aerial lenser Elmer Dyer distinguish "Tarzan's Revenge" director D. Ross Lederman's criminal conspiracy caper "Murder in the Clouds," a Warner Brothers' B-movie toplining Lyle Talbot and Ann Dvorak. Clocking in at 61 nimble minutes, "Murder in the Clouds" will keep you entertained from fade-in to fadeout. Talbot is cast as blustery "Top Gun" type pilot 'Three Star' Bob Halsey who loves to perform daredevil aerial maneuvers that alarm his desk-bound boss at Trans-America Lines, Lackey (Charles Wilson of "Satan Met a Lady"), but who cannot fire him because he is such an impressive aviator. These reckless stunts worry Halsey's stewardess girlfriend Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak of "Scarface") who keeps putting off marriage. Lederman and scenarists Dore Schary (later a top executive at MGM who championed social consciousness in films like "Bad Day at Black Rock"), and novelist Roy Chanslor, best known for his western novels "The Ballad of Cat Ballou" and "Johnny Guitar," focus on a case of industrial espionage. A scientist, Clement Williams (Edward McWade of "Arsenic and Old Lace"), has created a new kind of explosive, and a U.S. Government official, Brownell (Henry O'Neill of "), requests that Lackey furnish transportation for Williams to Washington on what Brownell stresses is a top-secret mission. What Lackey doesn't know is that office worker Jason (Arthur Pierson) informs the chief villain Taggart (Russell Hicks) about the flight. Naturally, Lackey assigns 'Three Star' to fly Brownell to Washington, while a group of unscrupulous villains led by urban Taggart want to get their hands on it, too. Taggart sends an accomplice to a local bar where 'Three Star' loves to get drunk. This time our pompous hero claims that he will only be drinking cream soda. Instead, 'Three Star' gets suckered into a bar brawl, and George Wexley (Gordon Westcott) volunteers to take over the flight without anybody warning Lackey about the change in pilots. Writing any more about the sophisticated set-up that enables Wexley to put the secret formula in Taggart's hands would spoil this snappy, fast-paced effort. "Murder in the Clouds" is a lot of fun.

JohnHowardReid Director: D. ROSS LEDERMAN. Story and screenplay: Roy Chanslor, Dore Schary. Photography: Warren Lynch. Aerial photography: Elmer Dyer. Film editor: Thomas Pratt. Art director: Jack Holden. Costumes: Orry- Kelly. Music played by The Vitaphone Orchestra, conducted by Leo F. Forbstein. Associate producer: Sam Bischoff.Copyright 3 December 1934 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Rialto: 25 December 1934. Australian release: 25 February 1935. 7 reels. 61 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An aviator and his girl friend battle spies who have sabotaged a plane carrying a new type of explosive.COMMENT: Not a murder mystery, but a straight thriller, routinely if competently directed. However, it's unusual to find a little "B" picture decked out with such impressive aerial photography. And not stock shots either. All the aerial footage was obviously shot especially for this production. Unfortunately, "Murder in the Clouds" is far less stunning on the ground than in the air. Not that the players don't try their damnedest to make it all succeed. The problems all lie in the script. It's such a wearily routine, totally tinpot affair, that it's very hard to believe that famous writers of the caliber of either Roy Chanslor (Final Edition, Front Page Woman, Johnny Guitar, Cat Ballou) or Dore Schary (Boys Town, Act One) had any hands whatever in its composition. Maybe they were just kidding around and assumed that the movie would be played for laughs rather than thrills!

calvinnme This is a 7 if compared with other hour-long B features of the day, not when compared with the A features of the same time period. There are plot holes big enough for ace pilot 3-star (Lyle Talbot) to fly his plane through, but that's OK, because the pace is brisk and the film is full of action. I won't list all of the questions that the characters - not to mention the screenplay writer - should have been asking, because I'd give too much away.Suffice it to say that pilot Bob 'Three Star' Halsey gets himself grounded for hot-shotting in the air near the airport where he is based. His boss would love to fire him, but both the boss and Three Star know he's too good a pilot for him to lose him to another airline. Of course Halsey has a girl, Judy Wagner (Ann Dvorak), and Judy has a brother who is also a pilot based out of the airport. Up to now Judy has been having to share Bob with his love of the air, but along comes an espionage plot centering around an important invention needed by the military that is to be transported by the airline that soon changes everything.There are some great aerial scenes here, and although the laws of reason - and sometimes physics as well as the limitations of human eyesight - are being violated left and right, it turns out to be fun although somewhat formulaic without being corny.

Michael_Elliott Murder in the Clouds (1934) * 1/2 (out of 4) Bob "Three Star" Halsey (Lyle Talbot) is suspended due to his dangerous stunts as a pilot but he's given a second chance when the government needs to transport a scientist carrying explosive material. Three Star gets jumped in a bar so that he misses the flight and the bad guys blow the plane up in order to get the material. This film has some of the biggest plot holes I've ever seen but the screenplay tries to explain them, which leads to one of the dumbest stories ever. There's one terrific bar fight but that's about all this film has going for it as Talbot is pretty poor here as is the supporting players.