I'm Still Alive

I've mentioned on a bunch of occasions how I feel Warner Bros. had the best B movies. MGM always had great production values, although often times that the opposite of what the B movies needed. And then there's RKO, whose B movies mostly feel a decided step down. One RKO B movie that's surprisingly good, however, is I'm Still Alive.

Kent Taylor stars as Steve Bennett. He's the sort of adventurer pilot who, needing to settle down if only a bit, has become a stunt pilot for Hollywood movies. It's a small community where he and other pilots like his best friend Red (Howard Da Silva) all spend their nights at the same bar. It's also a physically demanding job, so after his latest stunt, he just wants to lie down and rest in his room where the production is doing location shooting. However, that production's star, Laura Marley (Linda Hayes) is quite the diva, and gets in a heated argument with the director that disturbs Steve to no end.

Worse, when Steve confronts Laura, Laura's dog runs out and into the back seat of Red's car, so when Red and Steve drive off they unintentionally dognap the dog until the police come looking for the dog, which might get Steve in legal hot water. Laura would also like a personal apology, so Steve goes over to her Hollywood mansion to give her the smallest legally acceptable apology alogn with a piece of his mind. And then in a bizarre plot twist, it turns out that Laura has given her cook the night off and wants pancakes. She's utterly unable to make pancakes, while Steve knows just how to do it.

It's the start of a beautiful relationship that lasts until the two decide to get married. At this point there's a bit of a problem. Laura is the bread-winner in the relationship, but is also worried about Steve's safety when it comes time to do another stunt, to the point that she hopes he can find some other sort of work. (Even though she knew what she was marrying into, her behavior is plausible and you can hope that Steve will eventually age out of stunt work in favor of something like stunt coordination without actually doing the dangerous stuff himself.) Steve, being in love with Laura, sincerely tries to get "honest" work but isn't quite successful at it. Laura tries to get Steve a job as an actor, but he's not cut out for it. When another stuntman has a stunt that would be up Steve's alley, Steve offers to do it but is turned down. That other stuntman dies in the stunt.

Here, however, the movie turns a bit nuts as Steve responds to all this by leaving Laura behind in Hollywood and going all over the country doing aerial stunts for the carnival crowd. Laura still loves Steve and wants him to come back to Hollywood, but is she going to be able to get him to come back? And if so, what sort of agreement are the two going to come to in order to be able to have some sort of happy life?

Despite the bizarre plot turn, I'm Still Alive is surprisingly good for an RKO B movie, and definitely one worth looking out for the next time it shows up on TCM. One other interesting thing worth mentioning is that silent film director Fred Niblo has a cameo as the director of one of the movies Steve works on. So while there's a reason I'm Still Alive would only be known by die-hard fans of any of the film's stars or of movies about aviation, it's one that's not without its charms.