The Crowded Sky

It has been a long time since I saw this movie but it is pretty good. I keep wondering why it and other airplane disaster movies have not been released on DVD. Another one I have looked for is Fate is the Hunter. Maybe it is because of 9/11. The airplanes are obsolete compared to the kind we fly in today but they are still good movies. The original airplane disaster movie (not just my opinion) is The High and the Mighty from 1954 I believe. Maybe it has been released due to the star being John Wayne. Talk about obsolete planes and the passengers in Hawaii having to go thru customs as Hawaii was not yet a state. It is still a great movie with a lot of suspense. The Crowded Sky is the same type of movie and should be released on DVD. What can I say, I like this type of movie.

A decent cast, most likely under contract who couldn't say no, slogs through some wonderfully awful dialogue. Only a few of them even try to breathe life into their paper thin characters. The rest of them, like the audience, seem to be waiting for the crash so they can go home.

Yes I loved it. What a gem of a movie.

I taped this just on a whim as it was on a very late night run here and I have to say I loved it. I found it a treat and a gem. My favourite part of the film is when a character is thinking out loud the camera focuses in on that person and the lighting around them dims as we head into their world either via voice over or a flashback scene.

I would not mind adding this movie to my collection if it ever comes out on DVD. This is one of the movies, no doubt that paved the way for movies like "Airport" and all those awful disaster movies of the 70s and 80s. Good going I'll give it 7/10

Pretty nice movie, interesting for the plot and effects of the time. (And the appearance of a prop airliner, this movie coming right at the transition from the age of propeller planes into the jet age.) People have commented on connections between this movie and "Airport 1975" in that Dana Andrews and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. appear in both, with their roles reversed in each. (Andrews is the pilot of the airliner in this one, Zimbalist is the airline pilot in "Airport 1975.") There is another similarity between the movies, as well, which I won't spoil.

I was sort of surprised to see that this one isn't out on DVD. So many movies are coming out in that format, and there have to be people who would want to own this one. When I was a kid (1980s, maybe the late 1970s) this was on the local TV stations as an afternoon movie several times. So there are plenty of people besides those who caught the original release who might want to own this one.

Also there is something that interests the modern airline passenger in all these airline movies from 20+ years ago.... those larger seats, how polite people were on a plane, and how people used to actually dress up to fly. Ah, as Ray Walston said in "Damn Yankees," those were the good old days!

And it isn't until all the necessary back stories are told that we get to the crux of the matter--the fact that an airliner and a two-man jet plane are on a collision course. DANA ANDREWS is the tense pilot at the controls of the airliner and EFREM ZIMBALIST, JR. is in the small plane with TROY DONAHUE.

Unfortunately, none of the back stories are really interesting enough to invoke anything more than moderate interest, but at least we get to see ANNE FRANCIS as an attractive stewardess saddled with some bad dialogue and a lifeless romance with JOHN KERR.

The story only gets into high gear late in the proceedings and by that time you'll notice that the storytelling technique is the same one used to even lesser advantage in THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY.

Summing up: Nothing special but worth a look as an example of what eventually led to all those Airport movies of the '70s.

Trivia note: A diner scene with Troy Donahue and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. has the juke box playing "The Theme from A Summer Place," Donahue's hit film from the year before.