The Crowded Sky (1960)

Simply A Masterpiece

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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.

I saw this movie on television at 2am on a Monday morning. i was so damn tired, but after the initial 10 minutes i could not look away. basically through flashbacks we are told the stories of characters on two planes. how did they get there? what motivates them? will we be told this? no. no, we won't. random thoughts and odd conversations that float around in these characters heads don't do much for the story, but still somehow just manage to keep you interested. the acting is terrible, the story is foul and confusing and the end is laughable. so why did i love this movie? was it because there was nothing else on? yes. that is the answer. if you find yourself in the same situation i'm sure you'll agree.

The disaster does not occur until the last half-hour of this frenzied time capsule. With a motley group of passengers on an aircraft, including a stunning stewardess (Anne Francis) in love with the co-pilot (John Kerr), each time a passenger has thoughts, the camera zooms in for a closeup, with the actor's thoughts voiced in the background. It's a kick! My favorite character is Jean Willes, a beauty in the Ava Gardner mold, portraying a thrice-married woman who sits next to an old boyfriend (Keenan Wynn), who does not recognize her. She still is stewing even after the air disaster. When the aircraft is hit by a smaller plane, Francis advises passengers to get ready for a crash position, and to take false teeth out, even jokingly saying she won't tell anyone. All this when they don't even know that they will live or die! Trivia note: Dana Andrews pilots the big aircraft, while Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. commands the small plane; in 1974 their roles were reversed for the similar "Airport 1975."

This movie had a lot of things that I enjoy: vintage commercial airplanes, old military airplanes, radios, radar, art, drama, romance, special effects, etc. In some respects, it must have served as a template for future airliner disaster movies. I don't know why, but I really enjoyed the heavy handed use of flashbacks and scenes where there's a close-up of a character, the surrounding lights dim, and we hear the character's private thoughts. Crowded Sky might not be your cup of tea, but it certainly was mine.