THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY (1954)
Well, here it is, folks: the first honest-to-God modern disaster movie, brought to you by the Duke himself.
Halfway between Hawaii and San Francisco, a commercial airliner loses a propeller, suffering engine damage and the loss of critical fuel in the process. Over time, it becomes increasingly clear that the incapacitated plane may not be able to reach its intended destination. As the passengers reflect upon their lives, their fate is in the hands of two men: an older pilot whose stoic demeanour masks a tragic past, and a younger one suffering from a crippling case of nerves.
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(I’ll leave it to the rest of you to look at that screenshot and figure out which is which.)
#1 by Thomas on June 21, 2009 - 9:36 am
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“Ah, physical violence! Is there nothing it can’t do?”
I remember once, when I was young and desperate, attempting to apply the tricks I had learned from cinema to volatile real-life scenarios. It turns-out that neither a brisk slap nor a cup of water in the face are particularly effective means of calming an hysteric.
A very good review, as per usual, but I think the link is going to a page that doesn’t exist. Oh, also your comment about the snide woman rising to the occasion made me wonder about your earlier question regarding just what exactly constitutes a disaster film. Do you think Lifeboat would qualify?
I suppose it’s not really about the disaster so much as the coping with it, though, so probably not.
#2 by DaveCausey on June 21, 2009 - 12:50 pm
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Lyz doing a John Wayne movie? I’m in Heaven! 😀 How about “The Hellfighters” ?
Great review. This movie had me giggling at quite a few spots. I agree that this *must* be the prototypical Modern Disaster Movie.
And I just about fell out of my chair at the reminder of “Flying High”! 😀 Thanks,Lyz.
#3 by lyzard on June 21, 2009 - 4:32 pm
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Thomas: link fixed, thanks. Between this review and the discussion that followed my review of Deluge, I don’t think I should try people’s patience with still another debate about What constitutes a disaster movie, but [Justice Potter Stewart] no, I wouldn’t count Lifeboat [/Justice Potter Stewart] 🙂
Dave: I’ve done at least one John Wayne serial over in Et Al., but the Duke’s films don’t usual fall under my jurisdiction. I didn’t know this one did until recently. I’m glad I found out!
#4 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 21, 2009 - 7:39 pm
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A treat as usual, Lyz. Now, apologies in advance….I think this comment might be a bit long, even by my standards…..
Since I’m as obsessed with taxonomy at least as much as you are (and I don’t even have the excuse of being a biologist….), I got right stuck into the defining characteristics of a big-D Disaster movie, and I think you have to trace the roots back to what I’ll call Social Drama theatre plays; you know the kind of thing: you round up a bunch of stereotypes in a confined situation from which there is no escape (Banana Boat, Alpine Chalet, isolated Railway Station, Pacific Island, Submarine) and let them go to work on each others’ morals and class. Occasionally you could throw a murderer or a German destroyer into the mix to provide an outside threat, thus ramping up the tension and inevitably exposing the cowardice / bravery / self-sacrificing nature / self-loathing / heroic motivational skills of the social classes or whatever you wished to Boldly Skewer. (and the weak, indecisive Officer, who naturally contrasted with the gritty, self-reliant NCO was pretty much a staple…..hello, JW!).
Where you get the emergence of the real disaster movie is when the External Threat evolves into a character itself, whilst being no more of a character than the archetypes it’s threatening; the last thing you want is actual characters (which is why a murderer or Destroyer captain won’t do any more. Those things need motivations.) You need Forces Of Nature; John Wayne Versus Metal Fatigue, Paul Newman Versus Structural Instability, erm…. Sean Connery versus a big-ass chunk of rock.
One of things that always frustrates me about aeroplane-based d-movies is the fact that we always get endless Character scenes whist never spending any time with the Actually Really Fascinating parts about, you know, actual airframe design and engine operation and how aeroplanes work and what pilots do. That’s what’s so maddening about this Informed Attribute Characterisation where I’m supposed to take on face value the fact that just because some pilot served in “A B-29 Squadron in Okinawa” he’s a god amongst aviators. I’d really like to see the correct way to – for instance – rev an engine low to save fuel, but counteract frame resonance; or the correct way to cut the fuel to an engine to stop a fire, but avoid carburettor icing (big problem in internal-combustion engines). I don’t know whether producers think that Civillians are either too dumb to understand stuff like that, or just not interested.
Not done with this one yet. More later.
Anyways, lovely review as always.
#5 by lyzard on June 21, 2009 - 8:46 pm
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Or to put it simply: disaster movies JUST DON’T CARE. Bless ’em. 🙂 I mean, if you look at two other aviation films I put into Et Al. because they are *not* disaster movies, that is, Decision Against Time and Cone Of Silence, sure they’re about the human drama, the impact of these situations, but they are equally about what went wrong with these planes and how can we fix it? Whereas The High And The Mighty JUST DOESN’T CARE.
Of course, occasionally you get the Disaster Movie Explanation, like greedy Richard Chamberlain; and they solve the problem by tossing him off the building.
I love these movies. Heaven help me, I do love them so…
#6 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 21, 2009 - 10:31 pm
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Well, I guess in DM world, the answer to the question ” what went wrong with these planes and how can we fix it? “, the answer is “it’s those scientists!! They dared to tamper with things that Man was not meant to know, and were chastized for their Hubris! Bits of Comet at the bottom of the Indian Ocean….Ozymandias’ disembodied feet in the desert…..giant ants rampaging around New Mexico…..it’s all the same thing!”
#7 by lyzard on June 21, 2009 - 11:15 pm
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“It’s all good!”
#8 by MatthewF on June 22, 2009 - 7:18 am
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So Airplane is called Flying High in Australia, I did not know that.
I don’t know why, but I have a fantasy British version of this movie in my head with people like Trevor Howard and John Mills sitting around going “I say, I do believe the engines’s cut out,” and “my word, we’re going to crash, what a blasted nuisance.”
#9 by Read MacGuirtose on June 22, 2009 - 9:11 am
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you round up a bunch of stereotypes in a confined situation from which there is no escape… and let them go to work on each others’ morals and class.
I read this comment, and immediately thought of Gilligan’s Island.
Okay, the “going to work on each others’ morals and class” part is iffy, but, um, there are the Howells trying to tempt the others into a life of decadence, and… well, anyway.
All right, so obviously Gilligan’s Island doesn’t really qualify as a disaster movie (even aside from the fact that, well, it’s not a movie–okay, yes, there were TV movies made based on it, and given the current spate of movies made based on TV shows there will unfortunately probably be a horrible new Gilligan’s Island movie soon, if it’s not in the planning stages already, but anyway), but it was briefly amusing to think of it as one. (Then again, are there any TV series that are closer to the disaster movie genre than Gilligan’s Island? That’s a serious question; I’m not enough of an expert on old television series (or current television series, for that matter) to answer it myself. Oh, of course, maybe Lost, I guess, though I’ve never seen Lost and don’t know enough about it to know how close it is…)
#10 by Read MacGuirtose on June 22, 2009 - 9:15 am
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Okay, immediately after posting the above comment it belatedly occurred to me that I perhaps should have added that, as much as the beginning of Professor Kettlewell’s comment may have reminded me of Gilligan’s Island, what really disqualifies Gilligan’s Island (and presumably Lost) from being that close to a disaster movie is, of course, the lack of any external threat. “Being Stuck on an Island” is certainly a major inconvenience to the characters, but it’s not an active Force of Nature to which they must immediately respond. So… my previous comment was entirely irrelevant, and I probably shouldn’t have posted it. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.
#11 by El Santo on June 22, 2009 - 10:44 am
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While we’re on the subject of “Gilligan’s Island” and what genres it might fit into, there’s actually a specific term for stories about people stuck indefinitely in hostile (or at least inconvenient) pockets of wilderness, although that term doesn’t see much use anymore. Such stories are called “Robinsonades,” after Robinson Crusoe, and they were one of the most popular genres of fiction in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries, althouth only a handful (most notably Swiss Family Robinson) ever circulated in English-language versions.
#12 by lyzard on June 22, 2009 - 5:49 pm
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Matthew: yes, but whether because we don’t call them “airplanes” or whether others objected to the word “high” in the title (I’ve heard both), I couldn’t tell you. As for your terribly British disaster movie, Decision Against Time has Jack Hawkins doing pretty much exactly that.
Dave: concidentally, I’ve just found out that The Hellfighters is on cable here next month. I’ll take a look and let you know!
#13 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 22, 2009 - 8:13 pm
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“So… my previous comment was entirely irrelevant, and I probably shouldn’t have posted it. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.”
No it wasn’t irrelevant, and you certainly should have posted it 😉 Comparative literature is all about ‘ignoring the details’ (even moreso if you’ve pretensions to structuralism like I have), or, if you like, trying to spot the tropes or ‘rules’ that underlie genres or types. Nathan over at ColdFusion writes insanely good articles on this kinda-subject.
I wrote my OP because I was once involved in a University Drama Society production of Alan Aykbourne’s “Way Upstream”, which struck me at the time a cross between “Apocalypse Now” (Yeah, I know, “Heart of Darkness”. I was younger and even more ignorant than I am now.) and “Airport”. I guess I sometimes take the ‘ignore the details’ part a bit too far 😉
#14 by supersonic on June 22, 2009 - 8:54 pm
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We do not recognize any such concept as “too far” here.
#15 by DaveCausey on June 25, 2009 - 3:37 pm
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Lyz-thats awesome about “Hellfighters”! 😀
I think you’ll enjoy the viewing,and just may-be it’ll qualify for your treatment!