Sullivan panics and prepares to ditch immediately, but Dan slaps him back to his senses. The crew quickly extinguishes the fire, but the engine has twisted off its mounting. However, Tracy, a liberal Democrat who fiercely opposed the blacklisting of alleged "subversives" in Hollywood that was rampant at the time, wanted nothing to do with Wayne, an arch-conservative Republican who strongly supported blacklisting and whose Batjac company was producing the film, and turned the part down. Soar into skies on a thrilling airborne adventure. Gann shared the story with Wellman, and the director offered to make a sales pitch. Keating complied, taking out runway lights with his nose landing gear before "peeling off" and executing a go-around. This theme is from 'The High and The Mighty' a John Wayne disaster airplane film, and others by Tiomkin include 'The Old Man and the Sea' and 'Gunfight at the O.K. ], harvnb error: no target: CITEREFLevy1988 (, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFRobertsOlson1997 (, harvnb error: no target: CITEREFMunn2005 (, Maltin ("On Director: William A. Wellman"), harvnb error: no target: CITEREFDavis2001 (, Best Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, "W.L. This is a predecessor in the "Airport" series that achieved splendor in the 70s and 80s . Dan calmly explains the situation, trying to lessen their anxiety, but warns that their chances of making the coast are "one in a thousand." To enjoy it now, you must ignore the prop-driven airplane and remember that it was modern 43 years ago in 1954. "Douglas images, Photo ID: 1011538 (Photograph of a double door on a DC-4)". On a flight from Hawaii to California, the engine dies on the plane Dan is flying. The High and the Mighty is a 1954 American disaster film directed by William A. Wellman and written by Ernest K. Gann who also wrote the 1953 novel on which his screenplay was based. Passenger-cabin and flight-deck interior scenes were all filmed on sets built on a Warner Bros. sound stage. John Wayne's role was first offered to Spencer Tracy. A propellerless, fire-scorched engine on a distorted mount with a 30° "droop" was installed on the left wing of this aircraft to represent the damage which had imperiled the flight. During WWII, a submarine's second in command inherits the problem of torpedoes that don't explode. Capt. His ship seized by the Chinese Communists, American Merchant Captain Tom Wilder languishes in prison but Chinese villagers help him escape to sail them to Hong-Kong. The passengers rally around each other and find changed perspectives about their existing problems. "[38] Joseph Henry Jackson, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, said that the film has "a story that gives you no time to catch your breath". Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (Ens. During the initial scenes in Hawaii, characters are shown showing passports prior to boarding the airplane (this is because at the time the movie was filmed, Hawaii was not yet an actual state) . McLaglen recalled: "He said, 'Well, it never had any love story.' Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. The postwar use of piston-engine aircraft in oceanic flights was a key element of the film which required the use of a then-modern airliner.[26]. The granddaddy of all disaster movies—THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY—holds a special place in the history of film music and the Academy Awards. Jwelch5742. [3] Filmed in WarnerColor and CinemaScope, the film's cast was headlined by John Wayne, who was also the project's co-producer; Wayne stars as a veteran airline first officer, Dan Roman, whose airliner has a catastrophic engine failure while in transit over the Pacific Ocean. [Note 2] Ernest K. Gann wrote the original story while he was flying DC-4s for Transocean over the Hawaii–California routes. "[12] Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez appeared in this film and several others with John Wayne. When one disaster after another happens on a trans-Pacific flight, it … ", Maltin, Leonard. Exterior airport scenes were filmed at the Glendale Grand Central Air Terminal,[19] east of Burbank, California, where an outdoor movie set was constructed to replicate the terminal gates at SFO in the early 1950s. [32], For the other major male lead, Wayne had promised the role to his friend Bob Cummings, who was a pilot and had Wellman's recommendation as well. Use the HTML below. Ernest K. Gann (Island In The Sky) wrote it in 1953 when both air travel and being a passanger was simpler and more exotic. Wellman quipped that the crash would look good in another film.[17]. [21][29] Wellman convinced producer and actor John Wayne to replace Tracy in his role. As the airliner approaches rain-swept San Francisco in the middle of the night and at a perilously low altitude, the airport prepares for an emergency instrument landing. It's exciting and entertaining but overlong , full clichés and stereotypes with passable acting by all star cast . After a routine departure, the airliner experiences sporadic sudden vibrations. The High and the Mighty depicts a dramatic situation in a civil transport aviation context. Young second officer Hobie Wheeler (William Campbell) and veteran navigator Lenny Wilby (Wally Brown) are contrasts in age and experience. The High And The Mighty, poster, : John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, Jan Sterling, Phil Harris, Robert Newton, David Brian, 1954. Ricci, Mark and Boris and Steve Zmijewsky. Credited cast members (in order of on-screen credits) and roles:[5]. [20] The external night and damaged in-flight sequences were filmed in a studio where a large-scale miniature was photographed against backdrops. FULL SYNOPSIS. Was this review helpful to you? Long before "Airport" (1970) ushered in a long line of airline disaster movies, there was "The High and the Mighty". Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? The second way is trying to ignore all the ways air travel has changed since. [39], The High and the Mighty also received some negative reviews, with Richard Griffin of the Los Angeles Times writing that another reviewer had criticized the cast: "All are fabricated characters—and that is the way they are played. Spencer Tracy was offered the role of Dan Roman but turned it down because, Wellman said, that Tracy found the script "lousy" while assistant director Andrew McLaglen claimed that Tracy's friends told the actor he was "in for an ego-bruising ride" which led Tracy to excuse himself from the film. Composer Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his original score while his title song for the film also was nominated for an Oscar (although the title song did not actually appear in release prints nor in the recent restoration of the film). [42] The restoration took more than a year,[43] and three months were spent on fixing the audio.[44]. Meanwhile , the passengers are helped by a flight attendant named Lydia Rice (Laraine Day) but suffer every range of problems and remember by means of flashbacks , such as May Holst (Claire Trevor) , Clara Joseph (Ann Doran) , Jose Locota (John Qualen) , Frank Briscoe (Paul Fix) , Gustave Pardee (Robert Newton), Ed Joseph (Phil Harris) and Sally McKee (Jan Sterling, reportedly shaved her eyebrows for her role in the film and they never grew back) , among others . Cliche-bound but boosted by taut direction, memorable music and, for once, just right for CinemaScope. They toss luggage from the airliner to lighten its load, with May Holst literally kissing her mink coat goodbye. ", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_High_and_the_Mighty_(film)&oldid=1016718971, Films that won the Best Original Score Academy Award, Films about aviation accidents or incidents, Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe-winning performance, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Robert Keys as Lt. Mowbray, USCG (ASR Pilot, Alameda), Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. In the post-war Hawaii, House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter hunt down Communists. 1954 Directed by William A. Wellman. [45] This led to a distribution agreement with Wayne's production and distribution company Batjac Productions and both American Movie Classics (for TV rights) and Paramount Pictures (home video rights). ‘The High and the Mighty’ Movie Summary. After several approaches, Wellman asked for "one more take" touching down even closer to the runway's threshold. [30] Wayne later said during and after production that he did not like his performance. Together with Island in the Sky, the film was released as a "special collector's edition" DVD with new cover art in August of the same year by Paramount Home Entertainment. [6] In 1953, director William Wellman was releasing Island in the Sky when he learned that his screenwriter Ernest Gann was writing another aviation story. Jack L. Warner initially was opposed to the film, believing that audiences would not stay interested in a plot stretching over 100 minutes involving passengers in an aircraft. After Wayne and Robert Fellows had formed Wayne-Fellows Productions in 1952, the duo worked on several films including Big Jim McLain, Plunder of the Sun, and Island in the Sky. [11] William Wellman had reservations about the "intimate" storyline which dominate the production, preferring to focus more on aircraft and pilots, yet, after script deliberations set out the final screenplay, he endorsed the novel approach that harkened back to films such as Grand Hotel.[12][13]. The High and the Mighty When a commercial airliner... MORE > $9.71 Regularly $14.98 Buy Now. Trailer JustWatch. During the 1860s in the South Pacific, Capt. [12] Over the film's run in theaters, it grossed $8.5 million in box office receipts and was the sixth most popular film of the year in North America. [3] Following the recovery of the lost reel, The High and the Mighty, after its meticulous restoration, was rebroadcast on television in July 2005, the first broadcasts in 20 years. I said 'It had the greatest love story that had ever been written. Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. William Wellman's The High and the Mighty has arrived on DVD with the kind of treatment that fans of the filmmaker and the movie, and its star, John Wayne, had always hoped it might receive. Ralls, skipper of the Red Witch, has a series of adventures involving sunken gold bullion, pearls, natives, an unscrupulous ship owner and a giant octopus. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies. See more. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. [2][27] For directing, Wellman received $100,000 as well as a portion of the profits. [21] During cold weather, the soundstage was not properly heated, and cast members suffered from the cold. As he prepares for a crash landing, the passengers reassess their lives. When a commercial airliner develops engine problems on a trans-Pacific flight and the pilot loses his nerve, it is up to the washed-up co-pilot Dan Roman to bring the plane in safely. Keim) derived his nickname from the character. When on shore, he is eager to win back his ex-wife. After nightfall, as the aircraft passes the point of no return, Agnew confronts fellow passenger Ken Childs (David Brian), accusing him of having an affair with Agnew's wife. View production, box office, & company info. You also have to remember that 1954 was a completely different time from now. On a flight from Hawaii to California, the engine dies on the plane Dan is flying. San Francisco Municipal Airport, California, USA. The general idea of 'The High and The Mighty' is that the passengers have pretentious problems and have life-changing epiphanies when so closely confronted with death. The High and the Mighty served as a template for later disaster-themed films such as the Airport series (1970–79), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), The Hindenburg (1975), and Titanic (1997). [8] He hired William H. Clothier,[10] with whom he had worked on many films, as cinematographer (assigned to the second unit sequences, only; Archie Stout, with whom Wayne had a long association, had already been assigned as primary cinematographer). 2 talking about this. The film's fictional airline's name "TOPAC" was painted over the Transocean's red, white, and yellow color scheme for filming. Wellman's experience was that the CinemaScope camera was "bulky and unwieldy", and the director preferred to station the camera in one place. The High & Mighty Featuring Mos Def, EL-P & Mike Zoot: The High & Mighty Featuring Mos Def, EL-P & Mike Zoot - B-Boy Document / Mind, Soul & Body 3 versions : Eastern Conference: EC-006: US: 1998: Sell This Version: 3 versions Transocean Airlines director of flight operations Bill Keating did the stunt flying for the movie. The template for disaster movies with an Oscar-winning score and a cast list that reads like a who's who of 1950s film. '"[31] McLaglen and Wayne argued about Wayne's performance, but Wayne never conceded about his performance. The High and the Mighty Ernest K. Gann's gripping bestseller The High and the Mighty has been turned into an equally socko piece of screen entertainment. [7] It was a widescreen projection process that involved using an anamorphic lens to widen the image produced by regular 35 mm film. The High and the Mighty is one great example of a film that is generally seen in pan-n-scan, even on HD channels, and is never in its original aspect ratio. "Grand Central Air Terminal, Glendale, CA. parodies, the first of which featured Stack lampooning himself). Written by [21] Without Tracy, Jack Warner threatened to remove the Warner Bros. funding unless another prominent lead could be found. 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