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DVD The High and the Mighty (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
John Wayne personally produced many of his '50s films, which is why some of them have languished in corporate limbo following his death. The High and the Mighty was one of his most popular vehicles (no pun intended). This long, necessarily sedentary drama aboard an endangered airliner is a CinemaScope bridge between 1932's Grand Hotel and 1970s disaster movies. Despite Wayne's iconic presence as a pilot--now copilot--who survived the plane crash that wiped out his family, it's an ensemble movie with an impressive cast: Robert Stack sharing the cockpit, Oscar® nominees Claire Trevor and Jan Sterling, Laraine Day, Robert Newton, Paul Kelly, John Qualen, Regis Toomey, the ubiquitous Paul Fix, and director William A. Wellman's good-luck character actor Douglas Fowley. Dimitri Tiomkin's score won the Oscar, though the fondly remembered theme song isn't as prominent as you'd expect. Wings veteran William H. Clothier shot the aerial footage. --Richard T. Jameson
Review(s): DVD The High and the Mighty (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
Stately Cinematic Drama of the Skies
This film has an almost angelic and spiritual look about it. John Wayne gives one of his best performances as Dan Roman a man who relives a tragic past as an airline pilot. Dimitri Tiomkin's score is truly angelic and the musical refrain that Wayne whistles throughout is haunting to this day. Director William "Wild Bill" Wellman a veteran World War I flyer turns in a monumentally suspenseful and emotionally charged adventure. Robert Stack, forever cautiously stoic, and Jan Sterling in an emotionally moving role give excellent performances. The cinematography is breathtaking, ominous yet calming giving one the impression that faith and the best qualities of man will persevere. This is classic filmmaking. This two-disc edition is really well worth your time. It is both informative and extremely interesting. There are no fillers here. The extras on Dimitri Tiomkin, William Wellman, the Restoration of THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (which by the way is outstanding and impressive) and John Wayne's Batjac Story and other extras are all remarkable and well thought out and presented. I truly enjoy this DVD edition and found it to be a required addition to my collection.
John Wayne ... An Airliner In Trouble ... And That Memorable Theme Song ... This Is "The High And The Mighty"!
1954's "The High And The Mighty", directed by William Wellman, has proven to be a tough movie for me to attach a specific grade to. I'm kind of stuck on the fence. I can certainly appreciate the several wonderful aspects of this good old-fashioned "disaster-in-the-sky" melodrama -- for example:
> That irresistible Dimitri Tiomkin signature theme music used for the Main Titles.
> The extra-wide "CinemaScope" framing of the film. This must have been one of the very first movies photographed in this wide aspect ratio, which measures a little wider than the 2.35:1 that I've seen advertised for this DVD. The Widescreen image measures 2.41:1 on my TV screen.
> The bold, warm color photography (which looks absolutely terrific on this gorgeous 2-Disc "Special Collector's Edition" DVD, which represents this film's very first home-video release of any kind).
> Some nice aerial shots of the four-engined propliner in flight.
> A good tension-filled "will they ditch or make it to the airport?" climax.
> A humorous bit part for Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales, who first appeared in the public eye as a very funny contestant on the Groucho Marx TV show, "You Bet Your Life", in 1953. That "YBYL" program with Gonzales-Gonzales is also available on DVD (via one of the multi-disc compilations of that TV series that has been issued by "Shout! Factory"). A very funny episode too, with Pedro's last name(s) being the subject of a few of Groucho's sharp-tongued wisecracks.
> Robert Stack getting bitch-slapped by big John Wayne.
> And, of course, "The Duke" himself, which makes any film rise a little bit higher on the 'watchable' scale, just by seeing his name on the marquee. (John Wayne was 46 when he made this movie.)
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But, there are some drawbacks and debit points that counteract those plusses listed above (just in my own opinion of course). Debits such as:
> The somewhat heavy and overdone background music during some portions of the movie. Although, as mentioned, the main theme is priceless and one-of-a-kind.
> The awkward, choppy, and rather disjointed soap-opera-like storylines revolving around the airplane's passengers. Some of these "mini dramas" re. the 21 or 22 passengers on the Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight just don't ring very true. And some of these "vignettes" seem to spring up out of nowhere, without much rhyme or reason for them.
At times, it seems as if the characters are delivering "monologues", rather than engaging in one-on-one conversations. Plus, there's the fact that very few of these 20+ people are really all that likeable.
And the script is full of hot-and-cold inconsistencies......
Laraine Day seems to be asking for the back of her husband's hand in some of her scenes here (although the hubby is very restrained when receiving Laraine's spiteful invective and keeps his hands off and his mouth shut during her theatrical tirades).
But, via the magic of a movie script, Laraine's character does a complete (almost impossibly-fast) turnabout by the end of the film, as she suddenly becomes all smiles and kisses. Just didn't ring entirely true to me. But, as the saying goes, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. ;) (At any rate, it was nice seeing Laraine finally lose her frown and sour disposition and crack a smile near the tail-end of the picture.)
Robert Newton's character goes through a similar transformation at the drop of a hat, too -- with Newton's fear of flying so great at the start of the film, he is gripped with terror at the slightest turning of the plane (so says the stewardess, who asks pilot Bob Stack to go and calm down this white-knuckled flyer). And yet, somehow, after the calamitous engine failure (and now facing the prospect of plunging to a watery grave), Newton is suddenly perfectly composed and unfrightened. Not the slightest bit on edge. He even helps to calm down another passenger aboard the plane. Remarkable. And unbelievable.
> The lack of much "background" story provided on either one of the main pilots (Wayne or Stack). Via a third-party acquaintance of "Dan Roman" (Wayne), we do hear the story of how Roman got his bum leg in an earlier airplane crash which he, alone, survived. But other than one very brief "flashback" showing Wayne emerging from some burning wreckage, we really don't get involved at all in Wayne's character. And that's a pity. Because I think more background/flashback scenes with Wayne would have elevated his part more and would have benefitted the script better than, say, the weak subplot attached to comedian Phil Harris' character (and his hysterical wife, whom I'm guessing many viewers of this film wished had gone down in the sea by the final reel).
> Robert Stack's character is another negative IMO. I think Robert did a good job with his role here however. But, for most of the film, it looked like Stack was either ready to (pardon the pun) blow his "stack", or to spit nails. I guess maybe Bob picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue or something. (Oops, wrong airplane flick.) ;)
> And that little boy who must have taken a whole bottle of sleeping pills before boarding "Flight #420". He never wakes up throughout the whole tumultuous ordeal in the air! This kid sleeps through turbulence, screaming passengers all around him, gun-waving fisticuffs in the aisle, and even the no-doubt deafening roar of having one of the plane's doors opened while in flight (yet another "can you imagine this today?" moment in the picture -- a cabin door being opened while in flight to lighten the aircraft's load by tossing all the luggage into the Pacific Ocean!). It's a rather humorous notion today indeed...especially when you consider that you'd be sucked out of the plane instantly if you were to crack open the hatch of a Boeing 747 while the plane is in the air and pressurized.
I suppose, however, the fact that Flight 420 only reached a fairly-low maximum altitude of 8,000 or 9,000 feet (per the lone stewardess' remarks made to a passenger at the start of the flight) made the safe opening of a door a realistic part of the screenplay. But it's kind of funny to see it nonetheless.
> The overlength of the movie (2 hours, 27 minutes). It could have been tightened-up and had at least 30 to 40 minutes chopped out of it, and it still wouldn't have been any the worse for wear as a result of such trimming, IMHO.
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So, when the reviewing dust has settled, I think I'm right about in the "3.5 to 3.75 Stars" range for "The High And The Mighty". That grand theme song deserves a full "5 Stars" though. And via this disc's rich Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround soundtrack, the opening credits are blissful. There's a DD 2.0 Surround track too. No Mono track offered up however. The title theme also can be heard (on a continuous loop) while the DVD's Main Menu is on the screen. Sounds darn good there as well.
On a different note ......
This film can be a pretty funny experience to watch in today's 21st-century environment (which is filled with fears of terrorists slipping aboard commercial jetliners and the stringent security at all U.S. airports). But in "Mighty", passengers can just walk aboard Hawaii-to-California flights armed with handguns in their coat pockets, with one such disgruntled passenger in the movie doing just that, as he packs a rod on the plane in the hope of settling a score with a fellow passenger while in flight. And even after the gun is taken away from this guy in a fight, not a thing is done by the Captain or the crew about the weapon for the duration of the flight -- with the gun-wielding passenger even getting back his pistol by the end of the movie. Can you picture that in your mind today?! You can't even take a plastic butter knife on board an airplane nowadays. LOL.
And then there's the unintended "smoking" humor provided throughout the film. Passengers and (especially) the cockpit crew are just a-smokin' the cigarettes like chimneys during their flight to San Francisco! Obviously, this was indeed commonplace in the 1950s. But it's another example of how "dated" movies of such an era can become. Can you imagine seeing your pilot and co-pilot emerging from the cockpit, both of them puffin' away on their Camels and Winstons while the plane is in the air? :)
It's difficult to not compare "TH&TM" with other disaster outings that would follow in its wake ("wake turbulence" even?). Such as "Airport" (from 1970), which in my view has more positive things going for it, and is a better film (overall) than this one. For one thing, the ground-based airport scenes in "Airport" are far superior to those in "TH&TM". Plus, I believe the story and character development in that later aviation flick are better too.
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This double-disc DVD edition of "The High And The Mighty" contains a goodly amount of bonus features (in addition to the great-looking Anamorphic Widescreen video transfer of the movie on Disc 1). There's a multi-person Audio Commentary Track for the film on the first disc, while Disc #2 contains a wealth of supplementary material -- including a multi-part "Making Of" program, an aviation featurette, newsreel footage of the film's 1954 premiere, trailers, introductions by film critic Leonard Maltin, and a photo gallery.
One of the bonus items is a 23-minute featurette called "Flying In The Fifties", which contains interviews with some old-time pilots and some vintage film footage of a few of the airliners from that era, including the majestic-looking "Constellation". One of the retired pilots made a quip during this program that had me chuckling. When reflecting on the question of why he became an airline pilot, he said -- "Where else are you going to get a job where they give you a multi-million-dollar airplane, fill it full of booze and women, and send you out of town?" ~LOL~
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A Last "Mighty" Word (or two).......
Warts and all, "The High And The Mighty" still has the capacity to entertain an audience, and will immerse the viewer in high-flying, peril-filled, 1950s-style drama for nearly two-and-a-half hours.
So hop aboard Flight 420 to San Francisco and fly along with John Wayne. Or, better yet, just pick up a copy of this beautiful and well-crafted 2-Disc DVD set from Paramount Home Entertainment. It should easily satisfy anybody's "High & Mighty" cravings.
Better Than I Remember.
Last time I saw this movie, I saw it on tv when one of the networks showed it. The movie was good then ,but I didn't think much more about it. After seeing it again on DVD, I really have to say my opinion has improved on this film. Looking at it from a historical perspective, I think this film is very entertaining. Even the stories that we see in each of the characters that are on the plain seems intersting to me. They seem to help build the suspence at the end.
Is this one of John Wayne's best? No, but is a very good film and I really enjoyed it. I'm glad that this film is back where we can see it again.
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