John Travolta’s Propeller One-Way Night Coach is a Soothing Journey Into a More Romantic Age
Propeller One-Way Night Coach marks the directorial debut of John Travolta. The film, which is set in 1962, stars Clark Shotwell as Jeff an 8-year-old, aviation obsessed, boy flying to Los Angeles with his middle-aged actress mother (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), who has possible acting work lined up in Hollywood.
It would be very easy to scoff at Travolta, who wrote, directed and produced the film, and who cast himself in a small part, along with a bevy of other Travoltas, and then dressed up like a 1930s movie director, complete with beret and beard to soak up the atmos in Cannes. Nonetheless the film is done with such guileless sincerity, it would be easy, cruel, and quite unnecessary to do so. Also, the film is rather charming.
Travolta and his cinematographer (who is amazingly not John Travolta, but Paul de Lumen) shoot the planes, the airports, the gorgeous early 60s costume with such warm, romantic hues that it’s hard not to long for this more attractive past, even if it only exists in the imagination of the child protagonist. The film is very pleasant to behold, and a rather comforting watch. The music choices, American song book classics, and a few bits of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, while blindingly obvious choices, add to the rich cosy feeling that the film gives.
Travolta, who wrote the book that the film is based on, also narrates the film (naturally). There is a lot of narration. Some of it is entirely redundant, as if he doesn’t understand the idea of adapting a book to screen doesn’t just mean adding pictures to accompany the words. Nonetheless the writing is very good, delicately written, evocative and amusing. Travolta is a better writer than a director.
Thankfully, Propeller is a genuinely likeable film; there is a sense of adventure and self-discovery, of the journey being life-shaping. In its gentle way the film is a coming of age story. Pretty stewardesses are likely to have that effect. And it’s funny. There’s a good running gag about Jeff being offered cordon bleu over and over that lands well, among others.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach is a nice little film. It’s charming, funny, and is a pleasant way to spend an hour. (The film has a 61-minute runtime) It also feels deeply sincere. For an actor’s ego-trip passion project, you could say we got off lightly. In fact, it isn’t bad at all.
Propeller One-Way Night Coach is now available to stream on Apple TV+.
