Saw this 2/3/17 thanks to cable on demand. Over the years I've become something of a connoisseur of Maury Dexter movies, with "Air Patrol" the latest after having seen (or endured) "Wild on the Beach" (1965), "Surf Party" (1964), and "The Day Mars Invaded Earth" (1963). "Air Patrol" is without question the best on that list, keeping in mind that it is a distinction based strictly on the level of play in Dexter's single-A cinematic league.
In "Air Patrol" a thief steals a Fragonard, helicoptering off with it from a Wilshire Boulevard rooftop. Apparently choppers were still exotic and relatively rare for the 1962 audience, during the time between the end of the series "Whirlybirds" and the Alcatraz operation depicted in "Point Blank" (1967).
The thief threatens to destroy the purloined Rococo masterpiece unless a $100,000 "ransom" is paid. The art buyer's secretary is played by Merry Anders, who, in spite of the limited acting demands of her role, is both effective and beautiful in the tradition of Beverly Garland. Robert Dix narrates as he performs in a first-person styling of Jack Webb's Sgt. Joe Friday, only Dix' cop character not only carries a badge but also flies an LAPD helicopter to catch the thief. The cast includes Willard Parker and Dexter regular Russ Bender as detectives, with Parker's Lt. Vern Taylor sharing with us his knowledge of art history.
The final act resembles last acts in "The Third Man"(1949), "He Walked by Night"(1949) and "711 Ocean Drive" (1950). Only here an agile senior citizen leads the cops on a daylight chase through a partially filled Los Angeles River. Douglass Dumbrille gives us an unconventional-looking thief who reminded me of East bloc chieftans Walter Ulbricht or Gomulka in their final days. He seems to inhabit Del Webb's Leisure World, not Jack Webb's police world.
Unlike the virtual house arrest of the action in "Wild on the Beach", "Air Patrol" makes extensive use of location photography, giving us clear, just-made-yesterday looks at Los Angeles at the beginning of the 1960's, with views of the Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard, the Sepulveda Dam, Los Angeles River, Hollywood (101) Freeway, and the Cahuenga Pass.
In spite of the movie's obvious limitations, which include a strange, ill-fitting score, it all kinda works. Weird, but it works. Never let admiration for Ford, Hawks, Welles and others make us forget their fellow auteurs Dexter, Arch Hall, Sr., Ray Dennis Steckler, William Witney, and the recently departed Ted V. Mikels.
They all made movies.
