HotToastyRag
The High and the Mighty was the grandpa of the plentiful disaster movies from the 1970s, so if you like that genre and haven't yet seen this original version, rent it this weekend. It has all the elements: a large, star-studded cast, backstories for each character to make you care, a reason why each character should survive even when it doesn't look like they will, and of course, a disaster. It's intense and exciting, and while I find the subject matter frightening, it's very good!John Wayne and Robert Stack-who would later spoof this role in Airplane!-are airline pilots on a flight from Hawaii to San Francisco. Keep in mind, back in the day, that route was a twelve-hour flight, not a five-hour flight like it is now. Among the passengers are Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Newton, Phil Harris, Jan Sterling, and Joy Kim. During the flight, the audience is treated to everyone's backstory as the tension builds; we finally learn there's a problem with the plane and it might not make it all the way to Frisco!As a sidenote, Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his memorable theme. If you listen to it, you might recognize it, but while it is a pretty theme, it sounds much more like a romance than a thriller. If it was the theme to Peyton Place, it would have been lovely. For a disaster movie about a plane crash? It just doesn't fit, and it almost ruins the movie.Besides the music, a couple of technical flaws, and a healthy bit of Americana racism, the rest of the movie is very good, especially when you consider it was the first of its kind. John Wayne and Robert Stack, the two with the vastly larger amounts of screen time, are very good. I've never thought John Wayne was the greatest actor in the world, but he puts his whole heart into this movie.
Rfischer8655
How this film can be taken seriously is beyond me. The premise of a plane in trouble over the ocean is interesting. But this movie then completely destroys any such optimistic anticipation. A few of the highlights:Sarcastic comments from airline clerks gossiping about their passengers. Joy Kim as a caricature of the simpleton Asian who fawns over Americans. This along with an equally slow-minded Swedish immigrant with an accent that sounds half Italian. What does this say about arrogant attitudes toward foreigners in the early 50's? An embarrassingly endless closeup scene of makeup removal for unknown effect. Uninteresting flash backs of unsympathetic passengers solely interested in maximizing their personal pleasures. Stone-faced John Wayne saving the day by slapping his copilot silly.As another reviewer said, I wished that all 4 engines had failed and the whole lot of them put to a quick end, along with this painfully tasteless and tacky movie.
Hot 888 Mama
. . . my rating of "8" out of 10 actually is for a supplemental piece titled ON DIRECTOR WILLIAM A. WELLMAN, which is one of the many diverse and unconnected musings thrown together into something called THE MAKING OF THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY for this film's 2005 restoration and DVD release. Wellman, of course, directed that John Wayne vehicle, as well as the first-ever Best Picture Oscar winner, WINGS. Wellman's biographer, Kevin Brownlow, emphasizes here that MIGHTY was NOT Wellman's preferred bag of popcorn, but that the director was a sucker for any story involving flight, since he was a decorated WWI war hero himself as a military aviator. Though it's mentioned in passing that Wellman's masterpieces were such movies as HEROES FOR SALE, this DVD extra clocks in at less than 10 minutes, so there apparently wasn't time for anyone to explain how an authentic American Hero politically to the left of Bernie Sanders could have co-existed during the shoot with Wayne, America's self-appointed "Snitch-in-Chief" at this time, who during the 1950s ruined the lives of Oscar winners such as Dalton Trumbo (please see TRUMBO) and Paul Revere's several-times great grand-daughter Anne, and fingered many Hollywood greats for Black Ops assassination by the CIA, including John Garfield and Errol Flynn.
AaronCapenBanner
William Wellman again directs John Wayne in another airplane-in-crisis thriller. Wayne plays Dan Roman, a copilot on a trans-pacific commercial airline flight from Honolulu to San Francisco. Robert Stack plays the pilot John Sullivan, who loses his nerve after the plane develops engine problems, and he is unable to handle the pressure, forcing Roman to take over. Can he successfully land the plane to safety, saving the lives of the passengers and crew? Reasonably exciting and engrossing film came before the disaster craze of the 1970's, so clichés are noticeable only on reflection. Story does have too many elements, and goes on too long, but can still be enjoyed for the escapist fare that it is. Was unavailable for many years, but can now be seen on DVD.
AD
