Of course this provides the skeleton plot that the parody, "Airplane," is most closely modeled on. The natural inclination is not to expect much from it. Added to its fame as the springboard for parody is the fact that it features three less-than-bankable stars -- Dana Andrews, who was pounding a lot of booze at the time; Linda Darnell, who was past her prime and has virtually nothing to do; and Sterling Hayden, who put far more effort and love into his yacht and his writing than he ever did into his film career, except for "Dr. Strangelove." And the budget is modest, so we don't have splendiferous special effects.
Yet, given all that, it's not nearly as poorly done as it might have been. For one thing -- and here we pause while I roll my eyes gratefully towards heaven -- we don't have the usual roster of conflicted and miserable passengers to deal with. There is hardly any back story. There is no growling businessman, no hooker trying to reform, no singing nun. There is a child, and it's true that he's a nuisance. There's a doctor, too, but the plot requires his presence. Otherwise, it's free of such adventitious encumberments.
It's more focused than most airplane-in-jeopardy movies, and the focus is on Dana Andrews as the ex fighter pilot of years ago, forced by circumstance into trying to master the art and science of flying a four-engined monster and bringing it to a safe landing.
There's a good deal of tension at the control tower on the ground in the scenes in which Hayden barks out his instructions to the perspiring Andrews, military style, about lowering the flaps and landing gear, reducing the power, and learning the feel of a huge, mushy airplane.
The film belongs to a genre that is now fully established, based on the fear that any normal human being must feel, if he or she is at all sane, while sailing along at a couple of hundred miles an hour six miles above the planet he or she was born on.
And who would put his or her life in the hands of two complete strangers? And trust the design of an airplane made of the same frangible aluminum as a can of soda? Drawn, no doubt, according to the whimsy of some engineer, probably drunk at the time and now dead? I don't think the genre will ever simply "go away", the way so many others have. Not while we still have adrenal medullas.
Well, it's no masterpiece but given its limitations, it does the job it was supposed to do.
Yet, given all that, it's not nearly as poorly done as it might have been. For one thing -- and here we pause while I roll my eyes gratefully towards heaven -- we don't have the usual roster of conflicted and miserable passengers to deal with. There is hardly any back story. There is no growling businessman, no hooker trying to reform, no singing nun. There is a child, and it's true that he's a nuisance. There's a doctor, too, but the plot requires his presence. Otherwise, it's free of such adventitious encumberments.
It's more focused than most airplane-in-jeopardy movies, and the focus is on Dana Andrews as the ex fighter pilot of years ago, forced by circumstance into trying to master the art and science of flying a four-engined monster and bringing it to a safe landing.
There's a good deal of tension at the control tower on the ground in the scenes in which Hayden barks out his instructions to the perspiring Andrews, military style, about lowering the flaps and landing gear, reducing the power, and learning the feel of a huge, mushy airplane.
The film belongs to a genre that is now fully established, based on the fear that any normal human being must feel, if he or she is at all sane, while sailing along at a couple of hundred miles an hour six miles above the planet he or she was born on.
And who would put his or her life in the hands of two complete strangers? And trust the design of an airplane made of the same frangible aluminum as a can of soda? Drawn, no doubt, according to the whimsy of some engineer, probably drunk at the time and now dead? I don't think the genre will ever simply "go away", the way so many others have. Not while we still have adrenal medullas.
Well, it's no masterpiece but given its limitations, it does the job it was supposed to do.