This early cinerama film directed by William Wellman and starring John Wayne was one of the earliest airline disaster movies and is highly rated in retrospect by most critics. I stress "in retrospect" since the film has not been available until recently on DVD (and was never on VHS) and according to records that I have been keeping since the early '80s, it has not been shown on terrestrial television either. Therefore when Sky Cinema screened a copy a few days ago, I was delighted to catch up with this missing "treasure".
However sorry to say the film has dated very badly and the back stories of the 22 passengers on the flight from Honolulu to San Francisco (scheduled to take 12 hours and 16 minutes!) and the five crew members was not really involving stuff. Wayne, as always, strides through the procedings as an over the hill pilot who has lost his family in a previous crash, goaded by the younger crew. However, naturally when disaster threatens, it is the old warhorse who saves the day. The cast is a watchable assortment of actors from the 40s and 50s, but of B ranking, who only make Wayne look all the more starry in comparison. The most memorable part of the film is the Dmitri Tiomkin score and theme tune which won Oscars and which became so associated with Wayne that, I understand, the music was played at his funeral. I'm pleased to have seen the film since it always worries me when mainstream productions remain unavailable for one reason or another, but having seen it, I won't be watching it again.
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