Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...
comedy film based on the 1910 play ''The Aviator'' by James Montgomery and directed by
William A. Seiter
William Alfred Seiter (June 10, 1890 – July 26, 1964) was an American film director.
Life and career
Seiter was born in New York City. After attending Hudson River Military Academy, Seiter broke into films in 1915 as a bit player at Mack Senn ...
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
collection.
Plot
Rollo Smith and his friend Jack Lane are down on their luck and have stowed away on a train, finding a place in the compartment of ace pilot and writer Robert Story. The conductor ejects Rollo and Jack from the train just where the famous writer is supposed to arrive, and Rollo is mistaken for Story.
Peggy Freeman and May Bunch both vie for Rollo's attention, believing that he is a famous pilot. The girls receive free room and meals at the Palm Inn. Rollo, who has never flown, is invited to fly in an air race as Story against a real aviator, "Ace" Benton, with a chance to win a $25,000 wager. After he somehow lifts the plane off the ground, Rollo can barely control the aircraft. Ferguson, the real pilot whom Peggy had locked in a closet, appears, but Rollo continues to unwittingly perform an aerial show, forcing Ace to abandon the race.
When Peggy accidentally pulls her parachute ring, Rollo joins her as they safely float to earth and he proposes.
Lawrence Gray
Lawrence Gray (July 27, 1898 – February 2, 1970) was an American actor of the 1920s and 1930s.
Early life and career
Born on July 27, 1898, in San Francisco, Gray attended schools there and worked in Standard Oil Company's export depar ...
Arthur Hoyt
Arthur Hoyt (March 19, 1874 – January 4, 1953) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 275 films in his 34-year film career, about a third of them silent films.
Career
Born in Georgetown, Colorado, in 1874, Hoyt ma ...
Max Wagner
Max Wagner (November 28, 1901 – November 16, 1975) was a Mexican-born American film actor who specialized in playing small parts such as thugs, gangsters, sailors, henchmen, bodyguards, cab drivers and moving men, appearing more than 400 ...
as Ferguson
Production
''Going Wild'' was filmed in
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles.
As of 2024, Glendale ha ...
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
studios. A Travel Air B-4000 (c/n 1323, NC688K) appearing as the Blue Star is the same aircraft that appears in the '' Tailspin Tommy'' film series (1934) and '' Wings in the Dark'' (1935). The character of Ace Barton flies a Travel Air 9000/4000 (c/n 381, NC4421) named the Zoom, later appearing in '' Skyway'' (1933).
The film was originally intended as a musical, but only one song, "My Hero Mine," is featured, sung by Joe E. Brown and Laura Lee. Several other musical numbers are heard in the background throughout the film. The press sheet for the film did not mention "My Hero Mine."Barrios 1995, p. 330. During production, many cuts to the film were made, including all of the original music. Two other films featuring Brown, '' Top Speed'' (1930) and '' Sit Tight'' (1931), met the same fate.
A French version titled ''L'aviateur'' was released in 1931.
Reception
In a contemporary review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', critic
Mordaunt Hall
Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973) was the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for ''The New York Times'', working from October 1924 to September 1934.
Aviation-film historian Stephen Pendo has noted that ''Going Wild'' contains a similar theme to that of '' The Aviator'' (1929).Pendo 1985, p. 36.
Preservation status
''Going Wild'' survives only in the edited version that was released in late 1930 by Warner Bros. The complete film was released intact in countries outside the United States, but it is unknown whether a copy of this full version still exists.
The edited version has been released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
* Barrios, Richard. ''A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. .
* Pendo, Stephen. ''Aviation in the Cinema''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1985. .
* Wynne, H. Hugh. ''The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies.'' Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., 1987. .