Fighting Pilot (DVD)

Crime boss Cardigan and his band of high-flying thugs steal an experimental plane invented by brilliant engineer F. S. Reynolds. The loss could bankrupt Reynolds unless hotshot pilot, Hal Foster, can retrieve the stolen aircraft before it is sold on the black market. After a dizzying, roof-vaulting chase through Chinatown and a daring mid-air battle, Hal tracks Cardigan to a remote desert airstrip for a final deadly confrontation.

Exciting aerial stunts and choreographed fistfights highlight this 1935 comic adventure starring Richard Talmadge. After beginning his career as an acrobat with Barnum & Bailey's Circus, Talmadge landed a job as a stunt double for Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922), leading to a 40-year career as stuntman and stunt coordinator. Not to be pigeonholed, he also acted in over 50 films, produced fourteen, directed five, and wrote three more. Talmadge also had a respected career as a second unit director on such great films as Beau Geste (1939), Prince Valiant (1954), How the West Was Won (1962), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), What's New Pussycat? (1965), Hawaii (1966) and Casino Royale (1967).

• drama