Airplane in "Lost Horizon" opening scene

[Romani]

I just started watching "Lost Horizon" the Frank Capra movie of 1937, and in the opening scene there's an airplane taking off to fly the refugees out of China. Being the airplane freak I am I couldn't avoid pausing the movie, attempt to identify the airplane, and when everything else fails, ask you fellas


It's a single engine high wing monoplane without bracing struts, except for a vertical (no angle) cylindrical strut that goes to the landing gear, in two sections thicker at the top and thinner at the bottom, apart from that detail, it's very similar to a the Fokker VIIa but the engine and exhaust manifold looks different.

In fact I would daresay it's a Fokker VIIa with a Pratt and Whitney Wasp engine.

I regret not being able to post a screen capture.

Bonus question:

After the first plane takes off, two others arrive and take off. One is shown briefly, a Ford trimotor? and the one the characters board is a DC 2?

[Ransom E. Olds]

Romani: I haven't seen Lost Horizon in a month of Sundays but I do have a recollection about what sounds like a very similar plane in Casablanca (1942)--the one that brings Major Strasser for his eventual confrontation with our Rick. They do seem very Fokker-like, but I was thinking perhaps a Universal? There were evidently a good number of 'em (Universals and Super Universals) in the U.S. and Canada, and by the late 1930s probably looked odd enough to Hollywood art directors to give a bit of exoticism to the films. Ransom

[Froggy]

Hello Romani

Look here http://www.dutch-aviation.nl/index5/...5-2%20F7a.html

May be one of this Fokker FVII is the one you are searching for ?

Cordialement

Bruno

[Kilian]

Yes other is DC-2.

[Romani]

I should have stayed at my own village... I completely got things backwards. I think Ransom was right and it is indeed a Fokker Universal, maybe the same as used in Casablanca?


This is the best I could come up with