Happy Landing
There was considerable pressure from the Hays Office to remove the examination scene from the movie, but MGM held firm, claiming they paid $100,000 for the rights to the play just for that particular scene. Eventually some aspects of that scene was removed when some exhibitors rejected the film. The TCM print contains the scene, but it may be the abbreviated version.,Tom Kennedy is menacing Bert Lahr because he threw an oil-soaked hat in his face. Pat O'Brien intervenes and punches oil-smudged Tom Kennedy in the stomach. Pat's cheeks are clean. Cut to Tom doubling over. Cut back to Pat with an oil smudge on his right cheek, even though Tom never touched him. Bert enters the shot offering Pat a hammer. Pat says "That's all right." Cut to long shot of Tom retreating and Pat wiping his face. No smudge in next close-up. So it appears there was more to the fight, but it was edited out.,Pansy: I'm going up to a lumber camp and marry a chef.
Sport: What? You're going to a lumber camp? And get yourself all full of splinters?
Pansy: Well if I do I can always get myself a woodpecker.,The credits appear as printed on the side of a dirigible.,Edited into Red-Headed Woman (1932),I'll Make a Happy Landing (the Lucky Day I Land You)
(1931) (uncredited)
Music by Jimmy McHugh
Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Played during the opening credit and at the end
Sung by Kathryn Crawford and chorus and danced by the chorus in a production number,I have not seen FLYING HIGH yet, so no opinion there, but wanted to respond to Lonesome Prospector's ridiculous and ignorant speculation that Bert Lahr could be copying Curly Howard. Just because you saw Curly first doesn't mean he came first.

Bert Lahr began his performing career in 1910. He worked in vaudeville for 17 years, before making his Broadway debut in 1927. According to his biographer (and son) John Lahr, Bert Lahr had established his "gnong gnong" sound before 1920, as he is working it into his cop-and-dancer vaudeville act with his then-wife in the late teens and early 20's.

Curly Howard had not thought about being a performer until 1932, when brother Samuel (Shemp) left Ted Healy's Stooges, and brother Moe asked little brother Jerry (Curly) to join. At this time, Bert Lahr had already made his feature film debut, and was midway through a career as a Broadway headliner. The Stooges were scrambling through various short subject departments until they wound up at Columbia in 1934. A careful observation of their development shows that Curly had not really set his "schtick" until 1934 or 1935.

You might not think he was a big deal because he made few successful movies, but dollar for dollar Bert Lahr was a much, much bigger star than Curly Howard. Moreover, at the conclusion of his career he performed in the American premiere of WAITING FOR GODOT, did Shakespeare. Aristophanes and Feydeau. Not to say that Curly Howard couldn't have done such things, but he was long dead of a stroke, perhaps precipitated by the years of beatings he'd received from his fellow stooges.

FLYING HIGH might not be much cinematically, but it is priceless artifact of theater history, preserving Lahr as he appeared on stage in his early peak years.,