The B.R.A. Goes to the Movies: - tonywilk

The B.R.A. Goes to the Movies:
Autogiros/Gyroplanes In Film Imagery - part I
by Dr. Bruce H. Charnov
The publicity value of the Autogiro was not lost on
either Juan de la Cierva or Harold F. Pitcairn, who
regularly made their rotary wing aircraft available for
film production. The earliest motion picture appearance
in America was in the now-rarely-seen 1932 film
Misleading Lady in which the hero Edmund Lowe flies a
Pitcairn PCA-2.
Pitcairn PCA-2
As some of the flying segment takes place a night, it is
not particularly effective, and as a plot device to
demonstrate that the male protagonist is a rugged
adventurer, it is only marginally successful. However, as
the romantic hero played by Edmund Lowe uses the
Autogiro owned by a wealthy man to abduct his spoiled
daughter, played by Claudette Colbert, it perpetuates
the myth that even a rank novice could fly it.
The August 1932 Pitcairn
Autogiro Company of America
Newsletter had noted that a
Cierva Autogiro was featured
in a film titled His Lordship,
which proved even rarer than
© BFI
Misleading Lady as the only
surviving copy of the English
film is in the British Film Institute. BFI personnel
graciously guided me through the process of gaining
permission from the copyright holder to have a copy
made, and for a fee, made a VHS tape. It features what
is probably the only footage of the flight of the de
Havilland C.24, a "one-off" tandem two-place, cabin
aircraft with its then-unusual 3-blade rotor. 1 While the
aircraft was ultimately unsuccessful and never entered
production (it is today in need of restoration and on
display at the Mosquito Aircraft Museum located in
London Colney, Near St. Albans, Hertfordshire, which is
operated by the de Havilland Aircraft Museum Trust Ltd
and bills itself as "Britain's Oldest Aircraft Museum -
Founded 1959") 2 , the films of its flight are stunning, if
somewhat inaccurate. While the film shows three people
in the Autogiro, which was designed to carry that
number, "In practice it was unable to lift more than two
people, and was, therefore, usually flown solo." 3
In the 1933 film International House the star of the
movie, William Claude Dukenfield, appeared under the
name of W.C. Fields. 4 Portraying a charlatan, alcoholic
professor named Henry Quail, he supposedly flew the
"Spirit of Brooklyn", which
was in fact a prop cabin
Autogiro with the registration
number NC12691. This
number was actually allocated
to a Kellett K-3 at the time of
the movie, and there was
brief newsreel footage of
Pitcairn PCA-2 and Kellett K-3
Autogiros in the movie. The
film, which has recently been
reissued as part of a W. C.
Fields collection, has little to
recommend it by way of
rotary-wing flight as the prop
Autogiro is completely
unrealistic as it is large
enough to transport in a
cargo-hold a complete
automobile and it is given
VTOL capabilities. It reflects
the fact that for the public,
while intrigued by the 'Flying Windmill', little was
generally known of this new revolutionary aircraft. Thus
during the movie, when asked "what's the difference
between an Autogiro and a helicopter?", ‘Dr.’ George
Burns answers ‘Nurse’ Gracie Allen: “You can’t play an
Autogyro”. But it may also reflects a desire for personal
transportation that combined air and land travel
capabilities – this would be realized in the Pitcairn AC-35
“roadable” Autogiro 5 and the images of Igor Bensen
driving a Gyrocopter down the road 6 . If International
House is noted at all, is is cited by film historians for its
portrayal of television, the first movie to deal with this
emerging innovation, the inclusion of a performance of
Cab Calloway and the Harlem Highlights performing
“Reefer Man”, a bouncy tune with lyrics describing an
individual under the influence of marijuana, and for the
homophobic performance by Fields – when confronted
by a obviously gay maitre’d in a knowing and overly
familiar manner, Fields response is “don’t let the posey
fool ya!” as he throws away the flower that adorned his
lapel.
The public continued to
misunderstand the nature of
the Autogiro when
confronted the same year
with a serial mystery entitled
"The Whispering Shadow"
which consisted of 12 13-
minute chapters and starred
Bela Lugosi. It featured
some short scenes of a
Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro, but
in a very unrealistic mode.
While there were brief clips
of actual flight, the prop
model aircraft was shown
landing and taking off
BFI see: www.screenonline.org.uk (Ed.)
14 British Rotorcraft Association Summer 2005 GyroFlight

vertically, as well as carrying a crew of several villains,
far in excess of the PCA-2's two-passenger + pilot
capability. Incidentally, Lugosi also had been featured
that same year in International House, thus joining
Claudette Colbert (Misleading Lady and It Happened
One Night) and Stuart Erwin (Misleading Lady and
International House) as multiple Autogiro film veterans.
The video cassette version of this serial was reissued in
1992 by Video Treasures of Troy, MI is available,
although rare, and the few scenes of the Autogiro do not
justify its acquisition except by the most die-hard fans
of the autorotational aircraft, or of Lugosi.
There were also a continual stream of newsreel film clips
of Cierva Autogiros. Shown almost exclusively, many of
the British clips are available for viewing and download
at the digital news archive maintained at www.
BritishPathe.com (commercial-quality downloads are
also available for a licensing fee). But in America at
least one of the newsreel clips was having a decidedly
negative impact on the viewing public that was being
assured by the Autogiro Company of America that the
Autogiro was safe. Currently available on the used video
market, a cassette entitled "Pylon Dusters" contains
incredibly rare footage of legendary pilot John M.
"Johnny" Miller flying his Pitcairn PCA-2 Autogiro in 1932
in Cleveland along with Al Wilson, with fatal results.
On September 3rd after his
flight, he landed but as he
reached for the rotor brake,
his aircraft was struck by a
pre-WWI Curtiss pusher
flown by Al Wilson. Wilson
had elected to end his
performance by 'buzzing' the
PCA-2, unaware that since
the Autogiro had made a
steep descent, there was a
residue column of air from its
rotor. Wilson's plane hit the
downdraft of air, dived into
the ground, resulting in his
death and doing much damage to Miller's PCA-2, the
"Missing Link". It took 27 days before it could fly again,
costing Miller appearance fees, but he knew he had
gotten off lucky - his friend was dead. While it was the
not first death to be associated with the Autogiro (an
experimental direct-control French C.L.10 Autogiro,
designed by Georges Lepère in consultation with Juan
de la Cierva, had crashed on December 19, 1932, in
France at Villacoublay fatally injuring pilot Pierre
Martin) - it was the first to be filmed. 7 It would not be
the last. 8
The most significant Depression-era movie to feature an
Autogiro was one of the most famous movies ever
made, and, even though showed less than a minute of
the same Kellett K-3 (NC12691) that had appeared in
the Fields' movie a year earlier, probably came closest
to the Pitcairn visual ideal of amateur flying to the
aviation country club. It Happened One Night, the first
film to win the four major Oscars (Picture, Director -
Frank Capra, Actor - Clark Gable, Actress - Claudette
Coulbert and a fifth to writer Robert Riskin), however,
presents a particularly unappealing image of the
Autogiro pilot. The Clark Gabel hero is an "ordinary
man suffering from unemployment" and it is "only such
a man... who can offer a
woman an exciting, real, vital
relationship." 9
A just-fired reporter, he
meets fleeing heiress Colbert
and accompanies her on a
cross-country journey to
meet and finally marry "King
Westley, the autogyro ace", 10
who is portrayed as:
"an effete money-hungry
playboy, without a muscle,
or, it seems, an ounce of
blood in his veins” 11
The Autogiro footage comes
towards the very end of the
film when the camera shows
a K-3 slowly banking into a
descent and gently landing on the broad field in back of
the country club which has been decorated for the
wedding.
As King Westley exits from the aircraft in formal dress
with his silk top hat and cane, the view pans slowly
around the Autogiro, showing the unidentified Kellett
pilot crouching in the cabin (it may have been Kellett
test pilot Lou Levy, who would later change his name to
Leavitt) 12 . At the moment-of-truth wedding ceremony,
Colbert jilts King Westley to flee to the arms of Gable
and all ends well, but the final Autogiro impression is
that this is a toy of the idle rich. It was a particularly
ironic impression given that image of an Autogiro
landing at a country club directly reflected the
advertising current ACA advertising campaign featuring
the Autogiro landing at the country estate, at the
foxhunt, at the Dude Ranch, and on the country club
landing field having just deposited the hand-some
couple heading for the tennis court. 13
The Autogiro played an insignificant role in the incredibly
obscure 1935 film Ladies Crave Excitement, in which
there is a minute's footage of a Pitcairn PCA-2 doing two
loops! Although
unidentified and
uncredited, this is
undoubtedly John M.
"Johnny" Miller who
regularly included the
loop in his aerial shows
in the 1930s. Miller had
not performed the first
loop - that had been
accomplished by
Canadian Godfrey W.
Dean at Pitcairn Field,
Willow Grove, PA on
October 13, 1931, 14 but
it was Miller who gained
public recognition for the
daring-do, and this is
the only reason to view
this otherwise
forgettable film. This
film is rarely available
but may be acquired
from Sinister Cinema.
(Continued on page 24)
John Miller - see: www.dmairfield.com/people/miller_jm/
(Ed.)
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British Rotorcraft Association
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The B.R.A. Goes to the Movies...
(Continued from page 15)
flight is easily missed.
Alfred Hitchcock's
better-known 1935 film
The 39 Steps features
about 5 seconds of a
Cierva C.30 directcontrol
Autogiro in flight
over the English moors
searching for the hero
who is fleeing false
charges.
This accurately reflects
experimental flights by
the Metropolitan Police
Department of London
in 1935 for surveillance
and traffic control, but
the footage is so brief
that if the viewer's
attention wanders for
an instant, the Cierva's
The 1959 Japanese film Fires on the Plain is, in many
ways, the most enigmatic of all the Autogiro films.
Directed by Kon Ichikawa, this antiwar film has become
a cult favorite and is sometimes shown in
film festivals. It tells of
an "unhinged private in
the Philippines during
WWII who roams the
war-torn countryside
encountering all manner
of horror and
devastation." 15 The antihero
encounters a dying
soldier who cries out
"the Autogiro will come
to rescue me." While no
aircraft is actually
shown, this is the only
one of a few references
(the only one in film!) to
the fact that Japan
employed Kellettlicensed
Autogiros in
WWII and intended to
use them for rescue
operations in remote
locations. 16
Coincidently, longtime PRA member Akira Ishikawa has
made available his latest discovery, a 9 and 1/2 minute
WWII silent film of the Kellett KD-1A Autogiro being
tested by the military and landing on the Akitsu Maru
aircraft carrier by the Kayaba Company.
The Japanese WWII Autogiro is also featured in the in
the History Channel 2003 documentary "History
Undercover: Secret Japanese Aircraft of WWII." It not
only makes use of footage from the Kayaba film, it also
has animation of the Autogiro landing on the aircraft
carrier while underway and relates the fate of the
Kayaba manufactured Japanese version of the Kellett -
they were lost when an Allied submarine sank the
Akitsu Maru.
Ichikawa - see: www.1worldfilms.com/Japan/firesontheplain.htm (Ed.)
The most famous autorotational aircraft in the cinema is
undoubtedly the Wallis WA-116 autogyro "Little Nellie"
featured in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live
Twice However, prior to that performance, Wallis was
engaged in 1966 to fly the in an Italian film Dick Smart
Agent 2.007 which was filmed
in Brazil and Italy in 1966. 17
This film, apart from the four
Wallis' autogyro sequences, is
eminently forgettable, and had
his film career rested on its
success, no one would have
ever heard of him as the film
has achieved a thoroughly
deserved obscurity! 18 But
fortunately for Wallis, he was
interviewed on radio just prior
to departing for Brazil and the interviewer asked the
retired RAF Wing Commander if he would like to go up
against a helicopter in his autogyro. Perhaps still
smarting from the army decision to buy Bell 47
helicopters 19 over his WA-116 Wallis answered
enthusiastically, "Give me half a chance!" 20
This resonated with Ken
Adam, the art director for
the latest James Bond film
You Only Live Twice that
was completing its
preproduction and
preparing to begin filming
in Japan in six weeks. His
WA-116 had been shipped
to Brazil, and the only
Dick Smart’s “Vesper Autogyro”
autogyro available had
been “pranged” 21 by his cousin, so he was at first
resistant to a flying audition and send a film instead.
This served to whet the film crew’s interest, but they
demanded a demonstration, not unreasonable for a
multi-million dollar international film production. So
Wallis took the available WA-116 to Pinewood Studios
for a flying audition just three day before he was to
leave for Brazil, only to discover that the film’s aviation
consultant, Group commander Hamish Mahaddie,
thought it was a miniature helicopter, but the screen
test went well and he was engaged to fly in the Albert R.
“Cubby” Brocolli and Harry Saltzman production in
Japan six weeks later. They informed Wallis that his
autogyro had to painted in a dramatic scheme and fitted
with prop weapons including machine guns, rocket
packs, air-to-air guided missiles, parachute-launched
grenades and simulated flame-throwers. All of this had
24 British Rotorcraft Association Summer 2005 GyroFlight

to be done, and the aircraft had to be in Japan in six
weeks! Wallis agreed and went off to Brazil – the WA-
116 that was to emerge as “Little Nellie” six weeks later
went to the special effects shop. They would be
reunited when filming began.
As Wallis later explained, there
had been a famous music-hall
performer from the 1930s named
Nellie Wallace, so "you were apt
to be nicknamed ‘Nellie’," 22 a
tradition undoubtedly known to
the film's English producers - so
the WA-116 became the most
famous autogyro in history,
"Little Nellie" 23
While filming in Japan and Spain, 24 Ken Wallis brought
autogyro daring-do to a global audience, becoming in
the process the only internationally recognized autogyro
pilot in history. The thrilling six minutes of screen time
actually required 46 hours of flight time spread over 85
flights and two countries. The shots of "Little Nellie"
flying over the sea of Japan to the Sakurajima volcano
on the volcanic island of Kyushu remain among the
most beautiful autogyro scenes ever filmed, but what
most remember are the aerial combat sequences, which
were filmed in southern Spain over the Sierra de Mijas
mountains. This was necessary because Japanese law
prohibited the firing of guns, even theatrical props, in
the air over Japan, 25 and these Spanish scenes
presented unique problems. The rockets were apt to
turn around after launch, and the parachute grenades
tended to tangle in the autogyro’s landing wheels. The
flame throwers presented a particular hazard, and Wallis
insisted upon dropping them after their use – and later
wondered if anyone filmgoer noticed that they were
missing for the rest of the combat sequences? 26 It was
hazardous and cameraman Johnny Jordan lost a leg
when one of the camera helicopters crashed in Japan
while filming a flying sequence. Although Jordan
recovered and subsequently filmed later Bond movies,
he lost his life when he fell out of a camera aircraft
during the filming of Catch-22.
You Only Live Twice is readily
available on VHS or DVD – get
the new DVD – it has additional
footage of Wallis actually doing
the flying and an interview with
him.
Wallis flew "Little Nellie"
extensively in promotion of the
film, and as in the movie, the
little autogyro travelled encased
in custom suitcases as
accompanied baggage in the hold
of a Boeing 707 airliner.
Promotional flights were made at
Morristown, NJ, appeared on the
www.amazon.co.uk
Today and Tonight television shows, toured West Europe
and, during Christmas 1967, appeared in Australia.
Wallis continued to fly "Little Nellie" around the world,
eventually appearing at over 750 air shows, thrilling
audiences and introducing additional thousands to the
autogyro.
Dr. Bruce H. Charnov
Concludes in the next issue
Bibliography:
1 Riding, Richard "The de Havilland C.24" reprinted in Lovegrove, Peter
Gyroplane Miscellavia Volume 1 England: The B.R.A. Nov. 2002 pp. 232 - 249
2 Ogden, Bob British Aviation Museums and Collections. (2nd ed.) Stamford,
Lincolnshire, England: Key Publishing Ltd. 1986 p. 39
3 Brooks, Peter W. Cierva Autogiros: The Development of Rotary-Wing Flight.
Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988; Shrewsbury, England:
Airlife Publishing Ltd. 1988 p. 161
4 The movie was quite successful and is described in Curtis, James W. C.
Fields - A Bibliography. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf 2003 pp. 258 et. sec.
5 Swinford, George R. "AC - 35" Popular Rotorcraft Flying Vol. 7 No. 1
January - February 1969 pp. 20 - 22; reprinted in Lovegrove, Peter Gyroplane
Misellavia Vol. 5 England: The British Rotorcraft Association 2004 pp. 82-88
6 See e.g., the cover of the Spring 1965 issue of Popular Rotorcraft Flying
where there is featured a photo of Bensen driving down the road.
7 Brooks, Peter W. Cierva Autogiros: The Development of Rotary-Wing Flight.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Press 1988 p. 165; see also Charnov, Bruce H.
"The Worst Autogiro Accident: Remembering Charlie Otto" Autogyro 1/4ly. Iss.
18 2003 pp. 32-33
8 John "PeeWee" Judge died in a crash of a Wallis WA-117 Autogyro on
September 11, 1970 at Farnborough. Wallis WA-117 Autogyro G-AXAR Report
on the accident at Farnborough, Hants., on 11 September 1970. (AAIB, DOT -
CAA accident Report 7/74) 1974
9 Mellen, Joan Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the American Film. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1977 p.103
10 Carney, Ray American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra. Hanover, NH:
Wesleyan University Press, 1986 p. 233
11 Mellen, Joan Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the American Film p. 103
12 For Lou Levy, see "Autogiro in 1936." Fortune Vol. XIII No. 3 March 1936
88 - 93, 130 - 131, 134, 137 p. 89; Miller, John M. "Test Flying for Kellett
Autogiro Corporation" Rotorcraft. Vol. 30 No. 7 October - November 1992 pp.
22 - 28 p. 22; "The First Scheduled Rooftop Flying Operation in Aviation
(Autogiro Air Mail Service at Philadelphia, 1939-40)" Rotorcraft. Vol. 30 No. 6
September 1992 pp. 24 - 33 p. 24; Gregory, Hollingsworth Franklin. Anything
A Horse Can Do: The Story of the Helicopter. Introduction by Igor Sikorsky.
New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1944.
13 For copies of the advertising paintings, see Young, Warren R. The
Helicopters, Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books, 1982 pp. 62 - 63
14 Brooks, Peter W. Cierva Autogiros: The Development of Rotary-Wing Flight.
Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988 p. 130
15 Craddock, Jim (ed) VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever. Farmington Hills,
MI: Visible Ink Press 2001 p. 348
16 For a discussion of Japanese Autogiros see Brooks, Peter W. Cierva
Autogiros: The Development of Rotary-Wing Flight; Francillon, R. J. Japanese
Aircraft of the Pacific War. London: Putnam, 1970; Tamate, Eiji Imperial
Japanese Army Ka Go Autogiro. (Japanese) Tokyo, Japan: Kojin Sha, 2002;
Charnov, Bruce H. From Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Amazing Survival of an
Aviation Technology. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers 2003
17 For a description of the filming in Brazil, see Wallis, (Wing Commander)
Kenneth H. "Movie Flying In Brazil" Rotorcraft. Vol. 33 Number 9 December-
January 1995 - 1996 p. 10
18 See Wallis, Ken H. "I was 50 Before I was ‘007’" Rotorcraft p. 9 where
Wallis recounts that he was almost been hit while flying low by a football kicked
high into the sky by a local football star. It was more exciting than the other
autogyro sequences that portrayed the craft as capable of underwater travel
and the ability to transform into a motocycle. Wallis relates that the motorcycle
is currently on view in a museum in Milan.
19 Whiteman, Phillip "Pilot Profile: Ken Wallis" Pilot p. 24; but see Wallis, Wing
Commander Ken "The Longest Spin." Rotorcraft Vol 33, No. 3 May 1995 pp.
18 - 24:19 where he recounted that the military had decided to purchase the 3-
seater Augusta-Bell "Sioux". At that time the Italian company Augusta was
building the Bell-47 under license.
20 Recounted in "Profile: Wing Commander K H Wallis" Popular Flying p. 17
21 He described this model as then suffering from "a bout of "Macitis" [engine
difficulty with the McCulloch engine]. For a description of the filming of the
Bond film, see Wallis, Ken H. "I was 50 Before I was ‘007’" Rotorcraft. Vol. 28
No. 2 April 1990 pp. 8 - 14
22 Wallis, Ken H. "I was 50 Before I was ‘007’" Rotorcraft p. 9
23 For a detailed technical discussion of "Little Nellie", see Dougall, Alastair
James Bond: The Secret World of 007. London: Dorling Kindersley 2000 pp.
46 - 47; additionally, for a description of Wallis' role in the filming of You Only
Live Twice, see Rubin, Steven Jay The Complete James Bond Movie
Encyclopedia. Chicago. IL: Contemporary Books, 1995 pp. 241 - 242. For a
photo of "Little Nellie" see above-cited sources and see Wallis, Ken H. "I was
50 Before I was "007" Rotorcraft p. 8
24 Wallis described the Bond-movie filming in Wallis, (Wing Commander)
Kenneth H. "The Longest Spin." Rotorcraft pp. 18 - 24 and "I was 50 Before I
was "007" Rotorcraft Vol. 28 No. 2 April 1990 pp. 8 - 14
25 Rubin, Steven Jay The Complete James Bond Movie Encyclopedia. Chicago.
IL: Contemporary Books p. 242
26 Wallis, Ken H. "I was 50 Before I was "007" Rotorcraft p. 11
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