20,000 Men a Year
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Alfred E. Green
Randolph Scott
Preston Foster
Margaret Lindsay
Robert Shaw
Mary Healy
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
On the Pacific Airlines' flight from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, the plane hits a thick bank of fog. One passenger assures another that things will be okay as Brad Reynolds is the pilot. Reynolds and his co-pilot, Al Williams, are told by their dispatcher to re-route to Saugus, but Brad safely lands in Los Angeles anyway. Jim Howell, the Southwestern representative for the Civil Aeronautics Authority, and Brad's old adversary, suspends Brad for sixty days. Brad quits in a huff and buys the Comet Airport in Riverdale, California. The airport, except for mechanic Walt Dorgan, is more liability than asset. Brad is even forced to refund his top student Skip Rogers' deposit when his sister Ann tells him that Skip is flying without adult consent. As the bank is about to foreclose on the airport, Brad goes back to Pacific to ask for his old job, but is told that he is too old. The CAA, meanwhile, decides to try a college student flight training program at selected universities, with local airports as the training grounds. Unknown to Brad, Jim convinces Riverdale banker Crandall to get Brad the bid, as nearby Western Institute of Technology is one of the chosen campuses. Brad becomes a college instructor and begins selecting and training his students. Transferring to Western from Texas State is Tommy Howell, Jim's little brother, who becomes Skip's roommate. Skip, unable to get his sister's permission to fly, arranges a meeting between Brad and Ann, who compromise by letting Skip take a ground crew course. During flight training, Tommy acts cocky, but admits to Brad that he is afraid to fly and does so only to please his brother. Brad offers Tommy secret early morning lessons. Jim, thinking that Brad is unfairly grading his brother, gets into a fight with Brad, which is broken up by the arrival of some flight students. During one of Tommy's secret lessons over a cavernous mountain range, the plane's oil line breaks. Tommy panics, forcing Brad to knock him out in order to release the throttle. Tommy, thinking the plane is crashing, parachutes out. Brad lands the plane and convinces a farmer to drive him back to the airport, and then takes a second plane up to search for Tommy, with Skip forcing his way along. They find Tommy hanging by his parachute from a tree over a cliff. Brad lands the plane and climbs the tree to release Tommy. A branch breaks, and Brad falls and injures both legs, making him unable to fly. When they don't return, Walt is forced to tell Dean Norris all. Norris calls Jim and a search begins. The next morning, Skip tells Brad that the search planes cannot see them in the canyon and that he must fly the plane out himself if the two are to survive. Brad agrees, giving Skip strict instructions on how to fly the plane out of the canyon. Skip does so, but unknowingly loses his left landing gear to a mountain top. At Comet Airport, Jim and his boss, Gerald Grant, await word from the search parties. Seeing the plane trying to land without its gear, Walt blocks the runway with his jeep until Jim can take another plane up to warn Skip and Brad. Learning of the problem, Brad tells Skip how to execute a two-point landing. On his second pass at the runway, Skip successfully lands the plane. Tommy, Skip and the others finish their pilot training, as Brad and Ann, now together, watch from below. Walt offers Ann his lucky baby shoes, telling her that, with Brad, she will need them.
Director
Alfred E. Green
Cast
Randolph Scott
Preston Foster
Margaret Lindsay
Robert Shaw
Mary Healy
George Ernest
Kane Richmond
Maxie Rosenbloom
Douglas Wood
Sen Yung
Paul Stanton
Tom Seidel
Edward Gargan
Harry Tyler
Sidney Miller
Edwin Stanley
Holmes Herbert
Brewster Twins
Imboden Parrish
Arthur Rankin
Iva Stewart
Landers Stevens
George Chandler
Matt Mchugh
Dave Morris
Robert Sherwood
Harrison Greene
Carl Stockdale
Selmer Jackson
Crew
Fred Allen
William H. Anderson
Lou Breslow
Alfred Bruzlin
Lewis Creber
Richard Day
Norman Foster
Owen Francis
Charles Hall
Herschel
Samuel Kaylin
Thomas Little
Paul Mantz
Paul Mantz
Charles Marshall
Ernest Palmer
Frank Wead
Sol M. Wurtzel
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The working titles for this film were Aviation Story and Air Story. The film opens with the following inscription: "The nationally-sponsored program of training students to fly, which inspired this picture, is an education for the uses of peace-not war. For dramatic purposes, and to demonstrate the power and reliability of modern planes in great emergencies, this story portrays a flight adventure under purely fictional circumstances." Twentieth Century-Fox reported in a press release that executive producer Sol Wurtzel personally selected this story and sent the screenwriters to the University of Washington at Seattle to study an actual college flight training program. The Box Office review stated that this college training program was a "part of a recently announced government project." Allan Dwan was originally scheduled to direct this film, but was replaced by Al Greene just prior to production. The film did some location shooting at Occidental College in Los Angeles, as well as at the Monrovia Airport in Monrovia, California. A second unit was sent to Cedar City, Utah as well, to shoot some of the aerial sequences. The Twentieth Century-Fox Produced Scripts Collection at the UCLA Theater Arts Library reports that Gail Patrick was considered for the role of "Ann Rogers," as were Frank Jenks, Warren Hymer, Cliff Edwards, Slim Summerville and Guinn Williams for the role of "Walt Dugan." The Call Bureau Cast Service and Daily Variety review mistakenly call Scott's character "Chuck Allen."
