It was not always so. In the 1930s, postal workers, particularly airmail pilots, were lionized as risk-taking rogues who broke as many hearts as they did wingtips. Capitalizing on the fame of airmail pilot–turned–celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh, Hollywood released a spate of sexy thrillers about the dashing men who risked their lives to deliver mail on time—movies like 1939’s Only Angels Have Wings, starring Cary Grant as a driven flyboy who put delivering letters before falling in love (even with Rita Hayworth). At the time, flying was extremely dangerous; airmail pilots were given rudimentary instruments like maps and compasses to find their way over mountain passes, both of which were difficult to see at night or in bad weather. Fatal crashes were common, but this only sharpened the public’s appetite for stories about the young men who signed up for such high-risk work. In his book From the Wright Brothers to Top Gun, historian Michael Paris says the airmail pilot became something akin to an early 20th century cowboy, evoking romantic comparisons to the pony express and ensuring American audiences that “the virtues of frontier individualism” were alive and well.
One of the earliest of these films, in 1932, was Air Mail from director John Ford. It followed a close-knit group of pilots at the fictional Desert Airport, based at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where treacherous conditions and the Christmas mail rush made for a fatal combo. In the opening sequence, a pilot flying in inclement weather overshoots the runaway and crashes to his death. The pilots run toward the plane and try to salvage the mail from the burning wreckage. “You better be careful of them scorched letters,” one of them says, “They’re worth $3 a piece on those stamp collectors.” The Desert Airport crew is led by a devoted pilot, Mike Miller, who still flies even though his eyesight has deteriorated. When a doctor warns Mike that he will have to tell authorities in D.C. that he is not cleared to fly passengers, Mike scoffs, “Who wants to fly passengers anyway? I fly the mail.” Passenger flights get canceled or delayed when the weather gets bad, but the mail soldiers on. Translation: Real men transport parcels, not people.