Hollywood responded to the boom in post-war commercial aviation rider-ship with disaster pics. Emergency Landings; Sabotage; Engine Failure; Overworked Pilots; Metal Fatigue; Crazed Passengers; Mid-Air Collision. An endless parade of catastrophe bringing a Golden Age of Terror at 10,000 Feet (at least in quantity) using the same formula of human-interest dramas with every reclining cabin seat. This Economy Class example of the form touches all the bases, but trimmed to bare essentials. Gary Merrill, hard-nosed pilot with a lamed plane to ditch in the ocean, learns how to ease up on the job and at home where little wife Nancy Davis Reagan gets second-billing but little screen time & little to do. (No wonder it's her last feature.) Up in the sky, the cabin holds the usual suspects: lonely singles looking for love; business partners at loggerheads; romance among the crew; Mother & child; boy & dog. Not a trick or trope missed. The real suspense is wondering how they’ll manage the show with all the cost-cutting. Start with the plane: tinker-toy miniature; a tighter-than-tight pilots’ cabin; an overused static shot of the sole audio speaker; and the big rescue, managed without benefit of either sinking plane or navy destroyer to pick them up. All we see are inflatable life-rafts and a navy dinghy to ferry survivors. Brought to you by prolific lowball producer Sam Katzman & the late Fred F. Sears, a director so quick & efficient, he had five films released after his early death (at 44) in 1957.
DOUBLE-BILL: The big budget HIGH AND THE MIGHTY/’54 (John Wayne/William Wellman dir.) is much plusher air-disaster porn, but just as idiotic. While the bargain basement CROWDED SKY/’60 (Dana Andrews/Joseph Pevney dir.) scores with inadvertent hilarity.
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