GetPapa Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

secondtake The High and the Mighty (1954)This overblown title is misleading for a movie that is a mainstream and uninspired airplane in trouble film. It's not terrible, but there aren't even pretensions here of greatness beyond the title. John Wayne? He's fun to see without a cowboy hat, and he's got great presence, but don't expect much from him, either.This is a classic "ship of fools" story that has an early Hollywood example in the 1939 "Stagecoach" which featured Wayne and another co-star here, Claire Trevor. In that fashion, which involves each character being defined and contrasted to the others in a moment of crisis, the story is one about psychology more than survival. Who will be strong, who will be the threat, and what skeletons will come from which closets?Or that's the general idea of these kinds of plots. Here, nothing much will turn up on any of these fronts. In the sad decline of Hollywood through the 1950s, as writers left for t.v. and money grew thin, stories like these, and filming decisions like shooting a whole movie inside a plane (cheap and effective) throw some limitations in our face. Director William Wellman is one of the stalwarts of Old Hollywood, and he's done a competent job here—the pacing and the overall feel of things is reasonable if not special. The producers include Wayne himself, and it's got to be tricky when the money for the director and crew is coming from the leading actor. Both cast and crew were miserable about shooting conditions (cold outside, cramped inside). And the cinematographer struggled to make the widescreen shooting work in the tight space.So why watch this? Why indeed! The movie has some fans, but even praise is usually mixed with misgivings. The movie did undergo an expensive restoration (Wayne as producer/owner of the film had kept the original himself and it was damaged in storage). The score by Tiomkin is overbearing but it won an Oscar all the same. You can look for Robert Stack as pilot, and recall that he revisited that role in the spoof "Airplane!"You might even remember the source and inspiration for "Airplane!" as the forgotten 1957 "Zero Hour!" (note they even kept the exclamation point) which is also a flawed but certainly more exciting film than "The High and the Mighty." If you do watch this one, you might like it, but it's no classic.

ozmaozoz This movie had shades of Stagecoach, and JW didn't do much acting, no one really did, but who cares...again its the mold for most airline, airplane movies. Its a trip back to the 50s-60s. Its fun to watch. Airplane CEOs should be made to watch this movie; imagine all the seats are first class...booze is poured from a quart bottle, the stewardess asks, asks, you if your ready to eat...and how you want your stake cooked...men are dressed in suits and women in dresses...everybody used suit cases for luggage...and people were polite; the rich sat with the working class. I remember flying in the late 50s...no jets, prop planes, but a lovely flight...the companies made us feel like we were guests, and we were treated like important guests; not so today...we are treated like prisoners/scum by the airlines and airports. I miss flying, but its not worth it today...I'll drive.

SeamusMacDuff I watched it because it purported to be a John Wayne action film about piloting a crippled plane across the Pacific. It had 3.5 stars out of 4. Man, what a disappointment.For starters, it's not a John Wayne movie. He's the co-pilot, so Robert Stack the pilot has more lines than the Duke. It's an ensemble cast of stereotypes: the faded beauty, the young couple, the Asian immigrant, the bloviated Englishman, the unflappable stewardess, the shrewish wife, etc. To fill time (I guess), we get waaaay to many details into all their private lives. Phil Harris reliving his ruined Hawaiian vacation of a lifetime is particularly worthless. Others have rightly pointed out how one passenger fires his pistol at another - and nothing is done about it! (Another passenger takes the gun, then later gives it back??) But this flying soap opera is only part of the problem. Potemkin hammers overly dramatic melodies at every opportunity. The angle of a sailor on a ship relaying message is totally unnecessary. It seems like the whole West Coast scrambles when the plane issues a mayday - accompanied by more dramatic tunes.Perhaps the worst part is the handling of the emergency itself. The passengers remain totally calm and cooperative. There's little actual drama to it. Endless shots of the plane flying through stormy skies - and yet none while flying over San Francisco?? 1950s aviation may have been different, but I cannot believe it was solely the pilot's discretion to keep flying right over a major city with a crippled aircraft that by their own calculation was already out of fuel! There's hardly any communication with the tower on this. But they'll make it because, well, because John Wayne knows they will. His "If we can just make it for 30 more seconds." utterance tells you how poorly the sense of suspense was handled.The epilogue sums it up how bad this film was. The plane taxis right up to the terminal like nothing happened. Each passenger dramatically exits one-by-one as the score blares away, breezing through the press and marching off to a better and brighter future. Even the little boy who slept through it all. (How about waking him up to handle the expected crash landing?) The one (?!) airline official stoically puffs his stogie. The crew finally exits, spiffed up like it'd been a normal flight. No reports? No debrief? No nothing? Nope, just an "I'll call you." The best that can be said about this film is that it was the original airplane disaster film. Fans of "Airplane!" should definitely watch, as it borrowed heavily from this particularly the overly-dramatic utterances of Stack (aka Rex Kramer).I want these 2.5 hours of my life back.

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.