"F.P.1 antwortet nicht" or "F.P.1 Doesn't Answer" is German movie that came out during the Christmas holidays 1932, so this one is already almost 85 years old. As such, it is of course still in black-and-white, but has sound already. And even if this was made one year before the Nazis came into Power here in Germany, it is just another example of how Hans Albers had already worked for a long time as an actor and was very much experienced here. The title may seem a mystery to many and I include myself here, but apparently the letters and number describe a certain airplane. The reason is that this film is about an aviator named Ellissen, played by Albers and we get to witness his struggles high up in the air and also those of a more personal nature down on the ground. The film comes fairly close to the 2-hour mark, but I must say it should have been shorter as there were in fact several sequences that were not too interesting and where the film dragged quite a bit. It's not Albers' fault. He gives his best and is nicely charismatic just like he usually is. I guess who is really to blame here are script writers Walter Reisch and the somewhat famous Curt Siodmak, who also wrote the novel this is based on. The director is Austrian Karl Hartl, who was among the most successful German-language filmmakers in the 1930s. But this one here does not make me curious about other efforts from his body of work. It is really only worth checking out if you are a huge aviation (film) fan and don't mind black-and-white movies. I give it a thumbs-down.
Review of F.P.1 Doesn't Answer
