Fly Away Baby: Another day, another Torchy Blane headache

Is this for you?

If you like fast-talking reporters who don't know how to shut up, you’ll have a ball with Fly Away Baby. If you need your mysteries to make logical sense or your dialogue to be grounded in reality, you should probably skip this one. It’s light, it’s breezy, and it’s about as deep as a puddle on the tarmac.

Glenda Farrell carries the whole thing on her back, as usual. She plays Torchy Blane with this rapid-fire energy that makes you wonder if she ever actually sleeps. She’s a reporter who treats every crime scene like it's a personal challenge to her intellect, and honestly, it’s refreshing to watch someone be that confident.

Notes from the cabin

The whole 'round-the-world' thing is mostly just an excuse for some shaky stock footage of planes. You can tell they really wanted to make this feel big, but the budget keeps pulling them back to the same three sets. It’s charming in a way, though. Like watching a play where the props are made of cardboard but the actors are really committed.

Barton MacLane is there, too, being grumpy. He’s the perfect foil to Torchy’s non-stop chatter. Their back-and-forth isn't going to win any awards for screenwriting, but it has a rhythm that keeps you from checking your watch too often.

• The pacing is a bit all over the place.
• Some of the supporting cast seem like they just wandered onto the set from The City Gone Wild and got lost.
• The murder mystery itself? Forgettable.

There’s this one scene where a character is trying to act mysterious in a corridor, and they just stand there for way too long. It felt like they were waiting for someone to yell 'cut' but nobody did. I kind of liked it.

It’s not as heavy or 'important' as something like Rasputin and the Empress, and that’s a good thing. Sometimes you just want a movie that knows it’s a B-movie. It’s not trying to change your life. It’s just trying to get you to the end of the flight without crashing.

Is it better than Cain and Mabel? That's a debate for another day. But for a quick hit of mystery, you could do much worse. Just don't think about the logistics of the smuggling operation too hard. Your brain will thank you.

Also, the hats. The hats in this movie are something else. 👒