"Chain Lightning" is one of the strangest Bogart films you can find. While I could easily envision Bogart playing a part like this in the 1930s before he was a star, by the late 1940s (when the film was made) he was a huge star--and for films that were absolutely nothing like this film! Instead of the world-weary and cool-talking hero, here he is a bit of an action star and plays a role intended for someone significantly younger. Seeing a 50 year-old guy playing a WWII bomber pilot is patently ridiculous--especially since Humphrey Bogart looks all of 50 in the film. He also looks a bit tired and lost--mostly because it's just not his sort of film and you wonder what the folks at Warner Brothers were thinking. I assume they simply stuck him in the movie because he was under contract and they had no other films for him at the time...and any one of several dozen younger actors at the studio could have made this film. Now am I saying it's a bad film? Not really--but it IS a badly miscast picture.

The film begins in the present (1949) and then looks back at the flying career of Matt Brennan (Bogart). It picks up during WWII when he's a thrill-seeking bomber pilot who refuses to go home after he completes his tour of duty and then proceeds to the post-war period where he's rather lost. He's soon recruited to fly experimental aircraft--something that Matt is SO perfect for that it would seem like the welfare of the entire free world depends on him. Now you'd THINK in a country the size of the US that they would find a pilot who is less cagey and willing to go back into the cockpit and they have to practically beg or trick him into doing this! But soon Matt's flying all sorts of craft and he's also reunited with his old flame, Jo (Eleanor Parker). What's next? See the film.

What follows is a fairly standard Warner Brothers movie--one that Alan Ladd would have done well with (as he was quite nice in "The McConnell Story") and which is modestly entertaining but nothing more. The romance and 'controversy' are strictly by the numbers and offer nothing new. Not a bad film but a strange one.

In the recent film The Aviator, one of the points of Howard Hughes's life that was gone into great detail was his post World War II airplane crash in Beverly Hills while testing a new model.

From what was shown in Leonardo DiCaprio's hauntingly accurate portrayal of Hughes, the casting of Raymond Massey in a paper thin version of the flamboyant aviator/businessman is pretty laughable. I'm sure Howard must have seen Chain Lightning and didn't like it a bit.

Jets were certainly a new phenomenon in those years and had the Germans developed them sooner and additionally had invested in aircraft carriers, the course of history would have been markedly and tragically different.

Humphrey Bogart is not bad as the Chuck Yeager like test pilot, in fact Yeager's historic flight breaking the sound barrier is referenced in the plot. Warner Brothers would have been better served with a straightforward biographical film about that flight.

Richard Whorf is the earnest aircraft engineer who worries that Massey is sacrificing safety for flashy headlines. Sad to say, but Howard Hughes would have been the first to agree with Massey's position. Headlines did and still do sell military hardware, just a fact of life.

Warner Brothers cheated on the aerial footages, you can plainly see the stuff is pretty routine. Now one thing about Howard Hughes, he certainly did know how to make aerial films exciting.

Fairly clichéd subplot about Bogart reuniting with war time love Eleanor Parker who is now Massey's secretary.

I would recommend it for fans of Bogey and that's about it.

Lt. Colonel Matt Brennan (Humphrey Bogart) is a bomber pilot during the war. On his last mission, he takes on plane designer Carl Troxell. They encounter a Nazi jet fighter and barely escape. Matt and his crew are set to go home for a bond tour. Matt "celebrates" with his girl Jo Holloway and his crew. After the war, Matt starts his own tiny flying school. His war buddy gets him into plane manufacturer Leland Willis' party. Jo is there with Carl Troxell.

The love triangle needs more. Troxell needs to be bigger. Bogie and Eleanor Parker have a bit of chemistry but the triangle feels limited. Quite frankly, I thought that girlie pilot would be at the party. She could have been Willis' daughter and gets in the middle of the triangle. This movie spends more time with the planes than the relationships which would be fine for a B-movie. That's the feel of this movie. It's a B-movie supercharged with Bogie in the cockpit.