Parachute Jumper

Directed by Alfred E. Green, Parachute Jumper follows Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s Bill Keller and Frank McHugh’s Toodles Cooper as they attempt to find work after completing a stint in the military – with Bill eventually landing a gig with a notorious gangster named Kurt Weber (Leo Carrillo). There’s little doubt, ultimately, that Parachute Jumper fares best in its decidedly episodic first half, as filmmaker Green, working from John Francis Larkin’s script, does an effective job of establishing the affable central character and his myriad of exploits – with, especially, the movie benefiting from an early sequence that finds Bill performing stunts atop two airplanes and eventually landing right in front of an oncoming train. And although Green elicits strong work from his various performers – Fairbanks Jr.’s undoubtedly as charming as ever here, while costar Bette Davis makes the most out of her fairly thankless role – Parachute Jumper eventually progresses into a comparatively plot-heavy third act that just isn’t as interesting or exciting as Green has obviously intended. The end result is a consistently watchable pre-code drama that can’t quite sustain its momentum through to its conclusion, which is a shame, certainly, given the better-than-average bent of the picture’s first half.

**1/2 out of ****