Dual Control

Take to the skies in this eccentric short starring the newlywed darlings of British aviation, Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison.

This delightful curio sees ace aviators Amy Johnson and Jim Mollison descend on the Home Counties in search of fuel, meeting a gaggle of excitable schoolgirls on the way. With prolific director Walter Summers at the helm, the spiffing short was made to publicise Mollison's bid to become the first to fly westward across the Atlantic - though he is arguably upstaged by his trailblazing wife.

Johnson and Mollison, never quite at ease with such scripted fare, had announced their engagement in May 1932. They first met during Amy's victory tour of Australia in 1930, when she achieved international fame by becoming the first woman to fly solo from England. In 1933 the couple completed a transatlantic crossing in their plane Seafarer, surviving a serious crash-landing, but eventually separated in 1936.