"The White Moth"

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Amelia Earhart was a media sensation long before her disappearance in 1937 (due largely to George Palmer Putnam’s unerring publicity machine) and since her disappearance interest in the aviatrix has only increased, despite the Second World War, the Cold War, and the advent of atomic bombs and computers. 

     

Nothing would stop a dedicated Earhartologist from developing a library of biography and speculation fair and foul except a budget

Some books on Earhart include East To The Dawn*, The Sound of Wings, Last Flight (by Earhart herself), The Fun of It (also by Earhart), Amelia Earhart: The Truth At Last, Amelia Lost, The Search For Amelia Earhart, Amelia Earhart: Beyond The Grave, Amelia Earhart: A Biography, and The Sky’s No Limit. Others abound.

Diane Keaton as Amelia Earhart in the 1994 TV movie The Final Flight

As far back as 1936’s documentary Conquest of the Air Earhart has repeatedly flickered across movie and television screens. Archive footage of her has appeared in documentaries about World War II and in The UFO Files and in Star Trek: Enterprise. She has been played onscreen in biopics by Diane Keaton and Hilary Swank and, fetchingly, by Amy Adams in Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

 

Hilary Swank (right) in 2009’s less-than-memorable Amelia. Swank’s physical portrayal and acting were topnotch but the script was uninspired

Amy Adams played a sexy, spunky, warm and funny Amelia Earhart in 2009’s comic Night At The Museum: The Battle of The Smithsonian

The first not-quite Amelia Earhart movie was 1933’s Christopher Strong, not at all coincidentally the first film developed by George Palmer Putnam when he arrived at Paramount Studios. Based on a novel detailing the illicit and torrid affair between Strong (Colin Clive), a staid Member of Parliament and a shockingly unconventional lady race car driver. George updated the tale to make the racer a lady pilot.

Katharine Hepburn made the most of the limited role of Lady Cynthia Darrington in Christopher Strong (1933)

Christopher Strong is an occasional re-run on Turner Classic Movies for the simple reason that the film features Katharine Hepburn in her first major role as the aviatrix, Lady Cynthia Darrington. 

Hepburn is shoehorned, uncomfortably, into a sex kitten role made most remarkable by her appearance in a flying costume complete with a cape and a cowl sporting curled antennas. In many foreign markets, Christopher Strong is better known as The White Moth. 

 

“The White Moth.” If Hepburn is looking to exit stage right who can blame her in that get-up?

*A title borrowed from aviatrix Beryl Markham whose autobiography was West With The Night.