AllMovie

In an attempt to broaden his image, former Fox cowboy Buck Jones both produced and starred in this silent aviation melodrama. Jones plays Buck Bronson, a ranch hand taking to the air as a barnstorming pilot. Lovely June Halloway, in love with Buck, persuades her wealthy father (Charles Clary) to enter the inexperienced aviator in the Honolulu airplane race. Villainous Ben Barnett (Ernest Hilliard), infatuated with June, drugs Buck's pilot friend (Edward Hearn) right before the race, hoping that Buck's inexperience will prove fatal. The novice aviator does crash along the way, but he is rescued and returns to beat the villain and win the girl. The latter was played by Jobyna Ralston, a 1923 WAMPAS Baby Star who was comedian Harold Lloyd's leading lady in no less than six classic comedies. The only film produced by Jones until a series of low-budget Westerns for Universal in the mid 1930s, The Big Hop came complete with sound effects.