Island in the Sky (1953)

. . . to transport four tons of fuel over Mount Everest to the Pacific Front during World War Two, narrators detail during FLYING FOR UNCLE SAM, a background piece on the ISLAND IN THE SKY disc. Since the whole world hated Hitler, the Nazis, and their Axis Hench Armies, 21st Century People have to wonder exactly WHY it took almost SIX YEARS to eradicate this hateful bunch. I think a lot of this delay has to do with the inefficient planning of the Air Transport Command (ATC). How many loads of gasoline do cargo planes deliver nowadays? Not very many, because pipelines, ships, and local oil wells all are much more efficient means of delivery. If enemy submarines threaten shipping, you can use escort destroyers and torpedo planes to establish safe corridors for tankers with far greater capacity and efficiency than a fleet of ATC planes. Better yet, just expand the flexible Trans-Oceanic phone cable tubes to pipe petroleum products to one's advance bases. Or send Army Rangers to siphon what you need from the Evil Doers' fuel dumps. If all else fails, let some Navy SEALS protect a platoon of Fighting Seabees as they set up working oil rigs near the front lines (or just drill as you go along "island hopping"). It would seem that Big Oil was running the Allies' WWII Campaigns with an eye toward wasting as much fuel as possible.

For a fair amount of time into the story I suspected that John Wayne was somewhat miscast as Captain Dooley, heading a crew of airmen who force landed their Corsair plane in a vast, uninhabited region of Canadian tundra. It seemed to place him in a passive position as opposed to say, leading a rescue team to find the unfortunate fliers. This all quickly changed during the telling of the story, as Dooley had to summon all the intestinal fortitude he could muster in order to buck up his men's spirits and make decisions in the face of diminishing food, fuel and prospects of a rescue.The picture has an unusually strong supporting cast, though considering the year it was made, a lot of these players probably weren't household names yet. Andy Devine certainly would have been for his many years in movie and TV Westerns, and Lloyd Nolan as well. But James Arness still looked pretty much like a young kid at thirty years old. He had an interesting scene where he got pretty emotional when one of Dooley's transmissions finally makes it proving they were still alive. Paul Fix, another staple character actor of the Western film genre also appears as one of the rescue pilots. You go down the cast list and you surprise yourself with additional names like Bob Steele, Harry Carey Jr., Fess Parker and Gordon Jones, and say, wasn't that Alfalfa Switzer in a co-pilot seat as Sonny Hopper? The film is like a trivia contest come to life.The most heart wrenching scene had to be when one of Dooley's crewmen (Sean McClory as Frank Lovatt) strikes out on his own and gets lost in the fury of an oncoming storm, talking to himself and attempting to back track his footsteps until he succumbs to the elements. There's a bizarre quality to the man's dialog, and the scene is given added poignancy when it's revealed he was within sight of the downed plane when he gives up."Island in the Sky" was made in conjunction with Warner Brothers and John Wayne's own production company BatJac, just about a year before another aviation movie starring Wayne, "The High and the Mighty". Both films were part of the Wayne estate following his death and held in limbo by the family for many years. The later film also has a stellar cast, but suffers in my estimation from a much heralded eleven minute countdown to survival that takes about three times as long in the telling, thereby exhausting the viewer's patience for a resolution. In terms of a recommendation between the two films, flip a coin and then pick this one.

I'll start off by saying that I'm no John Wayne fan. I never liked his wooden western portrayals. They were all alike. I didn't know what to expect with this one but what a surprise...it's an absolute winner.I think this one succeeds because John Wayne isn't the "whole" star of this. This film has an incredible cast that outdo Wayne in most scenes. Most of the film the supporting cast is what you see and boy they really get it done...with conviction.The premise is Dooley and his crew are on their way home from a trip and they run into bad weather over northern Canada and have to crash land the plane in a baron area on the Tundra. The other crew's at their home base in Maine find out and they all proceed to try and find where's he's at in time...before they freeze to death. Here's where the meat of the film is.I can't say enough how great the supporting cast is. They are this film. From James Arness right down to ole Alfalfa from Our gang. They all pitch in make this film a worthy watch.Take a chance on this one and you'll walk away cheering at the end.

This story was one of my favorites. The movie was mediocre at best. But, of course it had some of my favorite actors; John Wayne, Andy Devine...I was very surprised to learn that it was closely based on a real story of even more drama and which turned out to be even more of a miracle.The movie depicts the crashed airplane as a C-47, twin engine cargo aircraft. The true story, it was a C-87, cargo version of the famed twin-tailed B-24 "Liberator" bomber. The C-87 was notoriously difficult to fly and it was said by the pilots who flew them it would not carry enough ice to make a high ball...meaning, it would quit flying when just a little bit of ice would form on the wings, which is what brought the aircraft in the story down after getting lost over the Canadian wilderness.One of the things that make the real story more fantastic than the movie was, no one died in the real story, in spite of the fact the survivors had to spend almost two months on the ice before getting evacuated. Also, there was an attempt by another rescue aircraft pilot to land on the frozen lake to bring the crash victims out and that rescue aircraft mired in the deep snow on the ice. Eventually, it turns out everyone was saved, and all the aircraft were repaired before the spring thaw and flown out, including the original four engine C-87 that crash landed on the frozen lake.Some critics have been saying the story is fake because the area of the crash is covered by numerous bush pilots. That was not so in the days of WWII. The area of the crash was so remote there were not even any maps of the area and most of the mountains were not even named…many of them today are named after the pilots who were part of the search team to find Dooley's aircraft, since they were probably the first persons to see them and locate them on navigation maps.Read Gann's book, Fate is The Hunter for the best details of this story. It is really an excellent read. Gann was an amazing writer with some unusual and delightful ways of gripping the mind of the reader.