Trailer
Plot summary
In 1918 Edgar Anscombe teaches new pilots at an Army flying school. A landing goes wrong, the aircraft catches fire, and the student with him dies. Ten years on he carries Contract Air Mail on a route running from Elko, Nevada, to Pasco, Washington, and he reluctantly agrees to carry a passenger. Tillie Hansen is outspoken, and she has no wish to be sent to her aunt's house; her father Bruno Hansen, the airline's banker, uses his influence to get her a seat. Her questions irritate Edgar, who answers coldly. At a stopover in Boise, Idaho, fellow pilot Jerry changes the oil lines and is called away before he inspects the work. The flight resumes over the mountains, the engine loses oil pressure, and Edgar puts the aircraft down on a remote ridge.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Aviator (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Although The Aviator is set in the northwestern United States, the film was actually shot in Croatia near Rijeka and in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which was then part of Yugoslavia.
- Marc Norman adapted Ernest K. Gann's novel The Aviator, in which Tillie is an 11-year-old girl rather than the teenager of the film, critically injured in the crash of the Stearman mailplane and immobile for the entire rest of the story.
