It's in the Air
Cast & Crew
Charles F. Riesner
Jack Benny
Ted Healy
Una Merkel
Nat Pendleton
Mary Carlisle
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Confidence men Calvin Churchill and "Clip McGurk," in the business of fixing races, fights and other sporting events, are forced to go on the lam when when Henry Potke, special investigator from the Revenue Department, pursues them for tax evasion. Potke catches up with them in a hotel room, where the con men shake off the hapless officer by feigning the contraction of a highly infectious influenza. Calvin soon has the officer worried that he may have caught the disease, and after performing an on-the-spot examination and diagnosing him with the dreaded influenza, he sends the gullible oaf home. In a hurry to skip town, Calvin separates from Clip, who is told to go to Desert Springs, California, to see Calvin's estranged wife Alice, who has been teaching tennis at a resort. When Calvin meets W. R. Gridley, an unscrupulous airplane salesman, Gridley takes him for a sucker and uses his lovely daughter Grace to seduce Calvin to help him sell his unwanted air balloon. Calvin believes that Gridley is the sucker, however, and negotiates a free airplane from him in order to find the perfect location for a stratospheric flight in his new balloon. Calvin continues to bamboozle the unwitting Gridley, and even introduces the acrophobic Clip to him as one of the most daring balloonists in America. Later, Alice tells Calvin that she will not return to him until he reforms and becomes more financially stable. No sooner does she tell him this, than she witnesses the huckster fleecing some hotel guests to pay for his room. Despite his attempts to avoid photographers, Calvin's picture is taken, and when it appears in the papers, Potke recognizes him and heads for the desert. The hotel management, realizing that Calvin is a confidence man, assigns a guard to watch his room, but Calvin manages to escape by causing a diversion. After leaving $85,000 in cash with Alice, Calvin goes after Clip, who has fled in order to avoid having to fly. At a launching ceremony, the sponsors of the record-breaking flight announce that flyers Calvin and Clip have run out on them, until Alice takes over the microphone and promises their arrival. When the two finally arrive, they soar off into space and make radio contact at a record 73,900 feet above the earth's surface. Shortly after they broadcast their promotors' advertisements, Calvin and Clip find themselves in trouble when the balloon falls apart. They are forced to parachute to safety, and upon landing, Calvin tells reporters his desire to be reunited with his wife. Potke arrives to announce that the charges for delinquent tax payments have been dropped, and Calvin gets Alice back in his arms.
Director
Charles F. Riesner
Cast
Jack Benny
Ted Healy
Una Merkel
Nat Pendleton
Mary Carlisle
Grant Mitchell
Harvey Stephens
Charles Trowbridge
Johnny Arthur
Al Shean
Purnell B. Pratt
Phillips Smalley
Howard Hickman
Larry Wheat
Dick Kipling
Jim Toney
Maude Allen
William Tannen
Stanley Andrews
Tyler Brooke
Clarence Hummel Wilson
Sarah Edwards
Milton Owen
Ivan "dusty" Miller
Margaret Seddon
Harold Entwistle
Claude King
Olaf Hytten
John "skins" Miller
Richard Powell
Claudia Coleman
Crew
Dr. William Axt
Harry Conn
Paul Crawley
Cedric Gibbons
William S. Gray
Lew Lipton
Herman J. Mankiewicz
E. J. Mannix
Byron Morgan
Harry Rapf
Sandy Roth
Charles Schoenbaum
Douglas Shearer
Dolly Tree
Edwin B. Willis
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Working titles for this film were Let Freedom Ring, In the Bag and Chiseling Chiselers. According to Hollywood Reporter pre-release news items, the studio changed the release title of this picture from Chiseling Chiselers to It's in the Air following Jack Benny's refusal to plug the film if it was released under the former title. Hollywood Reporter production charts list actor Stuart Erwin in the cast, but he was not in the released film. Various Hollywood Reporter production charts and news items list actors Jean Acker, Richard Tucker, Claudelle Kaye, Polly Bailey, Gertrude Astor, Eddie Tamblyn, George Chandler, Herbert Ashley, Eddie McPail, Ben Hendricks, Jr. and Jeannie Gunn in the cast, but their appearance in the released film has not been confirmed. The New York Times review of the film incorrectly credited "Harry Ralph" as the producer.
