The High and the Mighty (1954)

I watched it because it purported to be a John Wayne action film about piloting a crippled plane across the Pacific. It had 3.5 stars out of 4. Man, what a disappointment.For starters, it's not a John Wayne movie. He's the co-pilot, so Robert Stack the pilot has more lines than the Duke. It's an ensemble cast of stereotypes: the faded beauty, the young couple, the Asian immigrant, the bloviated Englishman, the unflappable stewardess, the shrewish wife, etc. To fill time (I guess), we get waaaay to many details into all their private lives. Phil Harris reliving his ruined Hawaiian vacation of a lifetime is particularly worthless. Others have rightly pointed out how one passenger fires his pistol at another - and nothing is done about it! (Another passenger takes the gun, then later gives it back??) But this flying soap opera is only part of the problem. Potemkin hammers overly dramatic melodies at every opportunity. The angle of a sailor on a ship relaying message is totally unnecessary. It seems like the whole West Coast scrambles when the plane issues a mayday - accompanied by more dramatic tunes.Perhaps the worst part is the handling of the emergency itself. The passengers remain totally calm and cooperative. There's little actual drama to it. Endless shots of the plane flying through stormy skies - and yet none while flying over San Francisco?? 1950s aviation may have been different, but I cannot believe it was solely the pilot's discretion to keep flying right over a major city with a crippled aircraft that by their own calculation was already out of fuel! There's hardly any communication with the tower on this. But they'll make it because, well, because John Wayne knows they will. His "If we can just make it for 30 more seconds." utterance tells you how poorly the sense of suspense was handled.The epilogue sums it up how bad this film was. The plane taxis right up to the terminal like nothing happened. Each passenger dramatically exits one-by-one as the score blares away, breezing through the press and marching off to a better and brighter future. Even the little boy who slept through it all. (How about waking him up to handle the expected crash landing?) The one (?!) airline official stoically puffs his stogie. The crew finally exits, spiffed up like it'd been a normal flight. No reports? No debrief? No nothing? Nope, just an "I'll call you." The best that can be said about this film is that it was the original airplane disaster film. Fans of "Airplane!" should definitely watch, as it borrowed heavily from this particularly the overly-dramatic utterances of Stack (aka Rex Kramer).I want these 2.5 hours of my life back.

The first of the "Grand Hotel's" in the sky is a recent re-discovery, having been out of commission longer than the concord. It has finally gotten a DVD release after no T.V. showings or VHS availability, making it a major curio. Following this soap opera of a variety of people trapped in a precarious predicament were often silly rip-offs, even more melodramatic re-hashes of the same plot, and in a few cases, perfectly dreadful. "Zero Hour" (1957), of course, became the source of the plot for "Airplane!", while "The Crowded Sky" (1960) took ridiculousness to a new high that went way above the clouds. By the time Universal began the series of "Airport" movies, this type of film became unintentionally comical, even without cute old ladies, stewardesses flying the plane (long after Doris Day did the same thing in 1956's "Julie"), and singing nuns with their own guitars.The ridiculousness of the plot here becomes obvious from the time stewardess Doe Averdon makes her entrance commenting on boarding passengers along with an equally gossipy airline clerk. The passenger list is as sordid as any "Grand Hotel" guest list, with strangers suddenly finding unexpected romance, older glamor girls verbalizing regret to the compassionate co-pilot, and a whistling pilot nervous about his past. "The Duke" himself constantly repeats the whistling of the opening theme, a deservedly Oscar Winning theme you won't soon forget. "Airplane!" obviously stole ideas from all of the films with similar themes, and the corny and mostly trite dialog only seems to be missing a laugh track. When I first saw this, I must admit that I was manipulated by its lavishness, and can't admit that it is all truly beautiful photographed trash.There's a ton of professional performers here, and they all deserve credit for keeping a straight face. Why Carol Burnett never spoofed these types of films (with Tim Conway playing the John Qualen role of the "Yumpin' Yimminy!" stereotypical Swede) remains a mystery, as does the inclusion of two supporting actress Oscar Nominees for Jan Sterling and Claire Trevor. They both have some nice moments, with Sterling standing out particularly in one emotional confession, but their inclusion as contenders for the Oscar (as well as William Wellman's for Best Direction) makes practically no sense.I really felt sorry for Joy Kim, the pretty Asian actress who kept a saintly image while diminishing her own intelligence and beauty. Then, there's Robert Stack who obviously saw the camp in this, later on helping spoof it all as part of the "Airplane!" ensemble. All in all, it's certainly not unbearable, and it obviously made a huge impact in 1954 in order to create its own special sub-genre of motion pictures. But when you take into consideration its massive over length, that impact only will remain on the first viewing if you don't fall asleep.

I have to admit I'm a sucker for airline disaster movies. "The High & The Mighty" was one of the pioneers of the genre, along with 1956's "Julie" a Doris Day thriller in which she is playing a stewardess who has to take controls in the cockpit and land an airliner after her estranged husband has shot the pilots. It was followed the next year by "Zero Hour" in which the flight crew is incapacitated after getting food poisoning and a passenger has to land the plane. If it sounds familiar, this would be used in 1980's "Airplane" the hilarious spoof of the genre. "Julie" and "Zero Hour" have one big advantage over THATM in that their running time is each about 90 minutes. THATM comes in at incredibly bloated 147 minutes and I could only imagine how much non-essential backstory was cut from this. THATM easily has about 90 minutes that could have cut, such as thoroughly unfunny flashback scene where passenger Phil Harris (the bandleader and regular from Jack Benny's radio program) recants to another passenger about the various calamities the happened to him and his wife on their Hawaiian vacation or another involving the well-endowed Jan Sterling and her pen pal romance. It's chock full of this kind of tedious stuff about the passengers that goes on and on and on.It's a good time capsule type of movie, in that it gives a wonderful sense of an era in air travel, back when passengers were treated like guests, rather than cattle and dressed as one would going to a fine restaurant or theatre. It is more than a bit preposterous as far as making us believe that we are actually travelling on a DC-4. The set for the cockpit and cabin are more spacious than a 747 and for a piston driven aircraft it is incredibly quiet. Much of the dialogue and performances are pure corn, although Wayne gives a decent low key performance as Dan Roman, a veteran pilot haunted by the memory of the crash of a flight he was captained that killed everyone except him, including his wife and son. If you are interested in commercial aviation history you may find this movie interesting, if you can tolerate some of the silly dialogue. Good cast.

The first thing that struck me as the film began was how comfortable the airplane looked and how personable the airline personnel were. And while those may be exaggerated, this film was made just about the year I took my first airplane ride, and I remember flying being a lot more enjoyable back then. Instead of the rude airline personnel you are likely to meet now and the cramped seats. Ah well.What more needs to be said than that John Wayne was John Wayne in this film! It is interesting that in the earlier scenes of the film, his role is somewhat secondary as the co-pilot; as the crisis deepens, the focus shifts to him...a wise script and director! Claire Trevor as a passenger is fine. Laraine Day is convincing as an angry millionaire getting ready to divorce her husband, although I'm more used to seeing her as a sympathetic character. Robert Stack has never been one of my favorites, and this may be the only film (or television show) that I ever saw him in where I actually liked his performance (as the airplane's captain). Jan Sterling as another passenger has a couple of impressive scenes. I don't quite buy Phil Harris as a sort-of middle-American country bumpkin; the part is overdone, and so is some of his acting; Ann Doran is a bit more acceptable as his wife; but the subplot of their misfortunes in Hawaii is good for a few laughs. Robert Newton as an actor...well, not sure it fit well here. David Brian, whom I always found as a pleasant character actor, has a decent role as a misaccused breaker-upper of a marriage. Paul Kelly has a role as a disillusioned scientist; he had only one screen performance after this one before his death. I usually enjoy the character actor Sidney Blackmer, but I did not find his performance here, as a jealous husband, very fulfilling. Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez as Gonzales, who was also in "Rio Bravo" a few years later, is here as an ham radio operator. John Howard is fairly good as the wife of Larraine Day. Wally Brown has a pretty good role as the plane's navigator. William Campbell is irrelevant as the plane's second officer. John Qualen, as he so often did, plays an accent-role...although this time it was Italian instead of Swedish...but with him it didn't seem like there was a lot of difference...but he was always a fine addition to a film (as in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" with John Wayne). It's nice to see Paul Fix in a sympathetic character...a man dying. Regis Toomey is here as an operations manager -- a fine actor underused. Doe Avedon does nicely as the flight attendant, though I was not at all familiar with her. John Smith is a newlywed husband; was there ever a man more handsome? There are a couple of interesting small roles in the film. William Hopper, who played Paul Drake on television's Perry Mason has a brief role at a cabin. Carl Switzer -- Alfalfa -- has a role as a Coast Guard flier; this film was made 5 years before his tragic death in an argument.In terms of the story, this was the granddaddy of all the disaster pics, and I was reminded of how similar the formula was for Dean Martin's "Airport" in 1970. Each passenger had his or her own story, and each got his or her screen time. Quite nicely done. Stack plays the pilot who sort of chickens out, allowing Wayne to dominate the later parts of the film. The one thing that was just plain wrong was the little boy; I doubt any little boy would sleep the entire flight from Honolulu to San Francisco; and, despite thinking they would crash into the ocean, they put a float device on him (during which he still didn't wake up), but didn't fasten a seat belt. That's illogical.This is a true classic, and one of the films I most remember John Wayne for; guess that was all those showings on network television. Highly recommended.