Lindbergh’s Engine: Hollywood’s Transition to Sound and the Aviation Film

Abstract

This article examines the history of the aviation film in light of the genre’s contributions to the evolution of ‘the talkie.’ Starting with the first sound newsreel of Charles Lindbergh’s take-off, the aviation film became a crucial but understudied site for the testing and development of sound technologies, as well as for the teaching of sound film literacy. Through readings of three classic aviation films—Wings (1927), Hell’s Angels (1930) and Dawn Patrol (1930 and 1938), as well as one outlier—Dorothy Arzner’s Christopher Strong (1933)—this article examines how the sound of flight was codified and argues that these films participated in what Miriam Hansen has termed Hollywood’s ‘vernacular modernism’ by popularising previously élite listening practices.