150 Years Ago Today: Graf Zeppelin Gets a Twinkle in His Eye

March 25, 1874 was the day on which Graf Ferdinand Von Zeppelin (1838-1917) first jotted in his diary his idea for large-scale rigid airships.

“Graf” expresses his noble title; a Graf is like an Earl or a Count. The Good Graf had been interested in the possible applications of such skyborne travel since visiting the U.S. during the Civil War and observing the opererations of the Union Army’s balloon corps, which had been employed mainly for reconaissance. After retiring his generalship in the German army in 1891, Zeppelin devoted all of his time to developing his ideas and rapidly become the world’s leader in lighter-than-air aeronautics, to the extent that his brand name for his company became the generic name for airships in general. Zeppelins, btw, are quite different from blimps. Blimps are what they look like — balloons, with a gondola on bottom. Zeppelins are rigid. They actually have a metal skeleton and outer shell, which contains several gas filled sacks within the structure. Yes! If you put enough enough lighter-than-air gas inside a huge metal structure, it will lift it.

Zeppelins were used militarily by the Germans during the First World War, and became an international luxury transatlantic travel option in the 1920s and ’30s, often in combination with Goodyear. One theoretical explanation for the nickname of Zeppo Marx was that he was a fan of airships. It makes more sense than some of the other theories! Passenger service on balloon craft ceased in 1940 following the Hindenburg disaster. The original company was effectively shut down by the end of World War Two, though there is an epologue to that story, to which we shall return.

This is a show biz and culture blog, not an aeronautics one, but there are times when the topics intersect and I have explored them. I have written on the invention of hot air balloons; on cinematic depictions of the Hindenburg disaster; on flying circuses; on comedy climaxes on airplanes; on airplane disaster movies; on the great aeronautics pioneer and showman Samuel Franklin Cody; and on certain important enthusiasts like Howard Hughes and Harry Houdini.

Today, we write of several motion pictures in which airships are prominently featured. It’s narrowly focused. We leave out the Hindenburg films since they’re in that other post, and also ones about hot air balloons that aren’t quite the same thing per se. I have previously posed on some films about the latter (The Balloonatic, The Wizard of Oz, Around the World in 80 Days) and I’ll include those and others in a dedicated post on Hot Air Balloon Day (June 5).

And now: turn up the gas!

The Lost Zeppelin (1929)

Both an adventure film and a romance. Conway Tearle and Ricardo Cortez are officers aboard a zeppelin bound for the South Pole, who vie for the love of Virginia Valli. As the title implies, the craft crashes and the men must battle time and the elements to get back to the woman they love. Inspired in part by Admiral Byrd’s polar flights, though his were taken in airplanes. Crudely made, but perfectly charming.

Madame Satan (1930)

A jaw-dropping pre-code Cecil B. DeMille spectacle, my enthusiasm for which knows no bounds. Kay Johnson and Reginald Denny are a married couple who are having some problems, mostly stemming from the husband’s stepping out on his wife and partaking of wild nightlife. A good chunk of the film is standard melodrama. But thankfully there’s the second half (actually more than half) of the movie, which is set at a wild, crazy, sexy, decadent costume party aboard a dirigible. Then the climax to the climax: there is a thunderstorm and the ship is damaged, forcing all of the guests to don parachutes and leap to safety. Lillian Roth is memorable as a chorus girl flapper named Trixie. Hollywood legend has it that her misbehavior on this film was so flagrant that she was cast opposite the Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers as her next picture for punishment.

Dirigible (1931)

By now the mixed airship adventure/romantic melodrama was something of a minor mini-genre. Dirigible more closely resembles The Lost Zeppelin in that it juxtaposes its love triangle with an airship expedidition to the South Pole. It also forms a mini-genre within the work of Frank Capra, who had previously made Submarine (1928) and Flight (1929), the latter with the same co-leads as Dirigible, Jack Holt, and Ralph Graves. It has more than a little in common with his better rememberedLost Horizon (1937) as well. (For you cinematic dilettentes, only around 10% of Capra’s nearly 60 films are what the general public thinks of as “Frank Capra movies”.) In this one the men enlist in an expedition led by Hobart Bosworth; the woman at the apex of the lovel triange is played by Fay Wray.

Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937)

Well, a cheat of sorts. While we have no films about the Hindenburg disaster per se in this post, we do have one film that stars the actual Hindenburg! In Charlie Chan at the Olympics, Chan (Warner Oland) crosses the Atlantic to attend the Olympic Games in Berlin! His mode of transporation is the famous zeppelin, depicted in stock footage, process shots, and studio sets. Little did anyone know — the Hindenburg would be history before the movie even came out!

Murder in the Air (1940)

Ronald Reagan and sidekick Eddie Foy Jr. are assigned to foil some commie fifth columnists who are out to steal a U.S. weapon that can shut off engines long distance. The climax of the film takes place on a military dirigible, which naturally crashes. By this point, passenger service on airships was already a thing of the past.

Master of the World (1961)

This is one of that peculiar mid-century sub-genre: contemporary adaptations of 19th century science fiction, set in the past, yet depicting technologies that did not come to be. You could consider it a sort of proto-steam-punk, though not really. It’s not an alternate dimension. We’re just going with a fanciful story that was written in the past, as though we shared the point of view of the author, in this case, Jules Verne. Here, Verne essentially rewrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and transposed it to an airship! Vincent Price plays a demented airship Captain who wants to eliminate war by threatening world governments to blow up their arsenals. Charles Bronson is the hero. Vito Scotti plays the ship’s humorous cook—with a chef hat! Va bene!

The Red Tent (1969)

Very interesting anomaly, based on a true story. In 1928 Italian aeronaut Umberto Nobile commanded an aeriel expedition to the North Pole. His airship crashed on the pack ice, leading to rescue efforts in which many more died, including the famous Norwegian explorerRoald Amundsen,the first expedition leader documented to have reached both poles. (The heroic circumstances of his death should be better known!) Peter Finch plays Nobile, and Sean Connery plays Amundsen. Unusually, this movie is a co-production of Italy and the U.S.S.R.! I wonder if they spied on the crew making Ice Station Zebra!

Zeppelin (1971)

By this point there had been a rock group of this name for a couple of years! This one has a World War One setting. Michael York tries to foil a German plot to fly to Scotland on the titular warship to steal or destroy the Magna Carta! As in nearly every movie with an airship at its center, it crashes, though not until the very end. One wonders if some of the spectacular shots in this movie inspired the 1975 movie The Hindenburg, which sort of marries the setting of this film to the disaster movie trend then in full flame (see what I did there?)

The Island at the Top of the World (1974)

This obscure Disney movie sails through what is awfully familiar territory by now. Set in 1904, it depicts an Arctic rescue mission conducted on a fictional French airship called the Hyperion. The balloon scenes are few but spectacular. The special effects were well reviewed, but the film may have been hurt at the box office by the relative absence of stars. The lead is played by Donald Sinden, best known to American audiences for being fourth-billed in Mogambo (1953). Second lead is David Hartman, best known for being the co-host on Good Morning, America.

Black Sunday (1977)

Beside the majesty and grandeur of the rigid German airships there is something faintly ridiculous and quotidian about America’s homegrown version, the Goodyear blimp (despite the fact that Zeppelin actually travelled to the States to study American balloons). But in the ’70s we actually got a couple of thrillers in which the GB played a role, in both cases in relation to football stadiums. In Black Sunday, Bruce Dern is typecast as a Vietnam Vet with PTSD and a lot of anger who now works as a blimp pilot. Marthe Keller, of Marathon Man, plays a Palestinian terrorist who manipulates him into a scheme where he’ll blow his blimp up over the stadium, taking a lot of sports fans to hell with him. John Frankenheimer directed this silly, fairly insulting movie. Coincidentally, just the previous year, in Two Minute Warning a Goodyear blimp pilot plays a heroic role, when he spots a sniper in the stadium during his flyby.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Spoiler alert! For real. An airship is featured very briefly in the third installment of the Indiana Jones series, but it has always been my favorite part of the movie. Indie (Harrison Ford) and his dad (Sean Connery) utter some dialogue about they’re going to catch the next flight home. We naturally assume they are referring to an airplane, but then in a glorious reveal we see that they meanr a Zeppelin. Later, when Jones needs to make a hasty exit, he takes the “lifeboat”, a small bi-plane that is attached to the zep’s undercarriage. That was actually put into practice in the 1930s!

The Rocketeer (1991)

I recall rather enjoying this movie when it came out — and that’s about all I recall. Enjoyable, forgettable movies is one of those things the Disney people used to do best. It’s not just because the lead actor (Billy Campbell) was not a movie star per se, though star power might have helped. I think the film was forgettable for the same reason that it was enjoyable. It was following a trend set by Indiana Jones (1981-89), Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy (1990), by reimagining adventure entertainment (comic books, radio, movie serials) of the late 1930s. Yet, Disney being Disney, they attempted the feat without any of the edge or darkness that might have spiced it up a little. (At one point the creators considered a low budget production, in black and white, as a thorough homage to ’30s serials. I can almost guarantee that that would have been a better and more memorable movie). Anyway, this is a superhero tale about a stunt pilot who stumbles upon an experimental jet pack, technology he needs to keep out of the hands of the Nazis. The big climax, yet again, happens on an out of control Zeppelin (sent by the Germans to retrieve the bad guys).

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrrow (2004)

I raced to the theatre when it came out and am shocked to learn that it never made back its budget. But it does suffer from the very same problem as The Rocketeer — it looks great, but has no characters. And so for the life of me I can’t recall what happens in it. Good guys and bad guys in an alternate 1939 that’s much further along technologically than the historical year. (Alternately, you could imagine you are in an advanced future that has retained the gorgeous art deco aesthetics of 1939). It’s so CGI-forward that it feels more like a video game (I suppose I’m dating myself by calling it that) than a movie. Of course I will on some level enjoy a movie that takes inspiration from the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, The Wizard of Oz, and the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and features lots and lots of airships. It also features a CGI generated Laurence Olivier in a small role, and that’s the only thing I really remember about the movie from 20 years ago. (Though, full disclosure, I didn’t recognize the big talking head as Olivier when I watched the movie — I learned that’s who it was supposed to be later. And I had seen Olivier in lots and lots of movies). The living cast members included Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Michael Gambon, and Angelina Jolie.

His Dark Materials (1919-2022)

I much enjoyed this series based on a trilogy of YA fantasy novels by Philip Pullman, and which mixes such elements as witchcraft, astrophysics, and Milton’s Paradise Lost. Oh, and talking animals. In the alternate reality of this world, airships are the prevailing method of long distance transporation.

*****

Now, I am well aware that are surely hundreds of other steampunk, dieselpunk and alt-sci-fi novels, short stories, graphic novels, films, tv shows, games, and so forth that incorporate balloon technology of one kind or another into their settings. I am WAY outside that sub-culture. I have stuck my toe into some of that stuff but couldn’t get into it. I’m a full bore antiquarian I am afraid. My jam is to read H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, or to watch the films of Méliès. Most contemporary stuff that attempts to channel it always feels like weak, inexpertly-made tea to me.

BUT I hasten to add that at the moment, reality promises excitement on this front as great or greater than any fantasy. As I hope you know, airships have never stopped being a reality, they just ceased to be used for public transportation. Goodyear, as is well known, uses it for advertising. One has to assume the military continues to employ and experiment with the technology (providing at least a partial explanation for many UFO sightings). The late con artist and boy band manager Lou Pearlmangot his start with a semi-legit airship company.

Best of all, the Zeppelin corporation revived in the 1990s, and has pursued joint ventures with Goodyear that mix elements of blimp and rigid airship technology. These are called NT (New Technology) airships. Naturally, they employ helium rather than the much more dangerous hydrogen which had caused all those disasters in the early 20th century. These next generation airships have been used for tourism and sightseeing. They are still emplyed primarily for advertising, but the romantic in me has hopes that long distance luxury travel on airships will one day return.