Of course the pair fight, and are endangered when the plane crashes in a mountainous region. Although regulations and Reeve are only interested in carrying the mail, a rich man insists on his daughter (Rosanna Arquette) being carried as a passenger. He is flying as a contract pilot along CAM-5 (Contract Air Mail route #5) between Elko, Nevada, and Pasco, Washington. Not to be confused with the more recent film about Howard Hughes, this film stars Christopher Reeve as an early US airmail pilot. The film also features Pat O’Brien in the roll of a young and boastful airmail pilot – a depiction that played to many Americans’ thoughts about these wild young (and possibly crazy) men. The film looks at the high risk careers of the nation’s early airmail pilots. Ralph Bellamy plays the owner and operator of an airmail operation. While the main character is a mail carrier, the postal system is not important to the film. His tape is confused with one that ties a police chief to criminals. He secretly tapes an American diva at a concert. He lives an eclectic life and is devoted to opera. This French film stars Wilhelmenia Fernandez as a Paris mail carrier.
The serial also featured father and son actors Noah Beery and Noah Beery, Jr. The chapters range from the first, “A Race with Disaster,” to the happy ending of chapter 15, “The Mail Goes Through.” The agents discover that it was not Indians attacking the stages, but white men dressed as Indians, trying to disrupt the mail line. (Sierra Pete) as the investigators and Helen Parrish as the daughter of the company’s manager. Technically not a movie, but instead a 15-chapter serial, “Overland Mail” told the story of stagecoach company men sent to investigate a series of robberies.