The High and the Mighty (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)

This ia the mother of modern aviation disaster films. Many of the airports, zero hour (the inspiration for "Airplane"), etc. draw from this movie. For those of us who love the golden age of aviation, this is also a great glimpse into the later part. Written by Earnest Gann who was a real airline pilot for American (and later Matson Airways). He actually flew DC-6s from California to Hawaii and so knows his stuff.

This is an all time airplane movie classic. It doesn't get any better the the Duke slapping Robert Stack. How I've longed to do that to some of my co-pilots! Great movie.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and certainly there's nothing like a film being unavailable for years to help build up its reputation to near-mythical status without having to worry about the film itself shattering the illusion. Case in point The High and The Mighty. The biggest hit of 1954 and one of the first major disaster movies, for a couple of decades or more rights issues and a lengthy restoration process kept the film out of circulation and alive only in the fond memory of those who saw it in their youth. It's not just less impressive than director William Wellman, co-star John Wayne and novelist/screenwriter Ernest K. Gann's previous collaboration Island in the Sky, it's not very good at all. Now that the novelty has gone with six decades of airplane-in-jeopardy movies, much of what's left is clumsily executed hokum with a low-octane cast playing a planeload of annoying and extraordinarily badly written stereotypes facing a swim home when an engine catches fire and their plane loses the extra fuel it needs to make it to dry land. While Leonard Maltin warns in his DVD introduction that it's "a film very much of it's time," even in 1954 this was remarkably unsubtle stuff and it really should be a lot better than it is: money has been spent and there's a lot of talent in the credits, with Wellman and Gann's own aviation experience promising much more than an overlong soap opera in the sky with dialogue and characterisation so risible that even Irwin Allen would have rejected it..

Most of the more prominent names in the cast - Claire Trevor's beaten up broad who "never quite managed to make it legal" and Robert Newton's Broadway producer and nervous flier who finds himself an unlikely voice of calm in particular - have little to do and not much screen time to do it in. Wayne's veteran co-pilot still traumatised by the crash that killed his wife and child ("The only man I know with the courage not to kill himself") doesn't have a great deal to do either for most of the film, and it's all too easy to see why first choice Spencer Tracey (among other big stars sought for the passengers) turned the picture down. The presence of a sweating Robert Stack as the pilot at the controls "whose nerves of steel are starting to rust" brings up unhelpful memories of Airplane! for modern audiences, with only Doe Avedon (rather misleadingly billed in the trailer as "a right gal who had to be nice to a lot of wrong people!") making much of a positive impression as the plane's stewardess. Most of the rest of the cast are so annoying that it's the kind of film where you're rooting for the engine failure. It's hard not to agree with Lenny Bruce, who mercilessly lampooned the film in his 'Non-Skeddo Airlines' routine, that if they really wanted to lighten the plane they should have ditched the irritating 'cute' kid while he was asleep.

Very obviously shot almost entirely on the studio lot, the film only briefly kicks into life when Wellman gets to go on location to shoot the various rescue services preparing for the worst, but even these scenes are let down by the distinctly underwhelming big finale. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the film today is the amount of lightweight smut which, though tame today, does push the envelope of what was acceptable within the confines of the all-too easily offended Breen Office's censorship demands of the day - Phil Harris and his wife find themselves the target of a wife-swapping couple at their Hawaiian hotel while nauseating young newlyweds John Smith and Karen Sharpe decide that if they're going to die they may as well go out with a bang.

Aside from the grotty looking title sequence, the DVD transfer is quite superb, working wonders on the usually highly variable WarnerColor system and the lack of detail that was such a problem with the early 2.55:1 CinemaScope lenses. There's an excellent extras package too that's worth the price of the disc on its own, including a decent featurette on Dimtri Tiomkin, whose memorable score is one of the best things about the picture and was played at the Duke's funeral. It's just a shame that the film itself is so hokey.

Wayne, that incredible cast, brilliant color photography, and Tiomkin's haunting theme music (unfortunately the lyrics of the title song aren't sung during the film, that would come later when the great Johnny Desmond recorded it as a hit single) make this one of the greatest films of all. When Tiomkin's theme blasts over the opening credits against a blue sky background, you know it will be a great plane ride. 50s Boomers will remember that in the "I Love Lucy" episode where Lucy meets Wayne, Lucy as well expresses her admiration for this epic. She tells Wayne, "When your engine conked out [in the film], I did, too!" John is great as that old pelican, "Whistlin' Dan" who saves the plane, and the day, when copilot Robert Stack freezes up. Along with "the Alamo," "Big Jim McLain", "Hondo," and "Pittsburgh," one of my favorite Wayne films.

John Wayne without the horse and cowboy boots---but great just the same. Keeps you bolted to your seat. Good watching. Glad I bought it so I can watch it again and again. Another Wayne classic.