The High and the Mighty (film)

The High and the Mighty is a 1954 American aviation disaster film, directed by William A. Wellman, and written by Ernest K. Gann, who also wrote the 1953 novel on which his screenplay was based.

Plot

In Honolulu, Hawaii, a DC-4 airliner prepares to take off for San Francisco, California with 17 passengers and a crew of 5. Former captain Dan Roman, the flight's veteran first officer, known for his habit of whistling, is haunted by an air crash that killed his wife and son and left him with a permanent limp. The captain, John Sullivan, suffers from a secret fear of responsibility after logging thousands of hours looking after the lives of passengers and aircrew. Young second officer Hobie Wheeler and veteran navigator Lenny Wilby are contrasts in age and experience.

Meanwhile, flight attendant Spalding attends to her passengers, each with varying personal problems, including jaded former actress May Holst, unhappily married heiress Lydia Rice, aging beauty queen Sally McKee, and cheerful vacationer Ed Joseph. Spalding befriends the terminally ill Frank Briscoe, after being charmed by his pocket watch. A last-minute arrival, Humphrey Agnew, causes the aircrew concern with his odd behavior.

After a routine departure, the airliner experiences sporadic, sudden vibrations. Although the aircrew senses that something may be wrong with the propellers, they cannot locate a problem. When a vibration causes Spalding to burn her hand, Dan inspects the tail compartment but still finds nothing wrong.

After nightfall, as the airliner passes the point of no return, Agnew confronts fellow passenger Ken Childs, accusing him of having an affair with his wife. The men struggle and Agnew pulls out a pistol, intending to shoot Childs, but before he can do so, the airliner swerves violently when it loses a propeller and its engine catches fire. The crew quickly extinguishes the fire, but the engine has twisted off its mounting. In mid-ocean, the aircrew radios for help and sets in motion a rescue operation. Dan discovers that the airliner is now losing fuel from additional damage to a wing tank. That, combined with adverse winds and the increased drag of the damaged engine, means that the airliner will eventually run out of fuel and be forced to ditch.

Unassuming José Locota disarms Agnew and confiscates the pistol, compelling him to sit quietly. Gustave Pardee, who up until now has made no secret of his fear of flying, inspires calm in his terrified fellow passengers. Dan calmly explains the situation, trying to lessen their anxiety, but warns that their chances of making the coast are "one in a thousand". The passengers rally around each other and find changed perspectives about their existing problems. They toss luggage from the airliner to lighten its weight, with May Holst literally kissing her mink coat goodbye.

In San Francisco, Manager Tim Garfield comes to the airline's operations center but has little hopes for the airliner's chances. A favorable change in the winds raises the crew's hopes that they have just enough fuel to reach San Francisco, but Wilby discovers that he made an elementary error in navigation and their actual remaining time in the air remains inadequate.

thumb|right|Captain John Sullivan panics and prepares to immediately ditch and Officer Dan Roman slaps him back to his senses

Dan's experience tells him that their luck would be better trying to make land than ditching in rough seas at night. Sullivan panics and prepares to ditch immediately, but Dan slaps him back to his senses. Thinking clearly again, Sullivan decides against ditching. As the airliner approaches rain-swept, night time San Francisco at a perilously low altitude, the airport prepares for an emergency instrument landing. The airliner narrowly surmounts the city's hills and breaks out of the clouds with the runway lights dead ahead, guiding them to a safe landing. As the passengers disembark, Garfield watches their reactions as they are harried by reporters. After the tumult dies down, he joins the aircrew inspecting their damaged engine and informs Dan that only 30 gallons of fuel remained in their tanks. Dan acknowledges the gamble they took and walks away, limping and whistling into the night. "So long ... you ancient pelican", Garfield mutters to himself.

Cast

Credited cast members (in order of on-screen credits) and roles:

John Wayne as Dan Roman (First Officer)
Claire Trevor as May Holst
Laraine Day as Lydia Rice
Robert Stack as John Sullivan (Captain)
Jan Sterling as Sally McKee
Phil Harris as Ed Joseph
Ann Doran as Mrs. Joseph
Robert Newton as Gustave Pardee
David Brian as Ken Childs
Paul Kelly as Donald Flaherty
Sidney Blackmer as Humphrey Agnew
Julie Bishop as Lillian Pardee
Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez as Gonzales (ship's assistant Radio Officer, SS Cristobal Trader)
John Howard as Howard Rice
Wally Brown as Lenny Wilby (Navigator)
William Campbell as Hobie Wheeler (Second Officer)
John Qualen as José Locota
Paul Fix as Frank Briscoe
George Chandler as Ben Sneed (Far East Crew Chief, Honolulu)
Joy Kim as Dorothy Chen
Michael Wellman as Toby Field
Douglas Fowley as Alsop (TOPAC Agent, Honolulu)
Regis Toomey as Tim Garfield (TOPAC Operations Manager, San Francisco)
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as Ens. Keim, USCG (ASR Pilot, Alameda)
Robert Keys as Lt. Mowbray, USCG (ASR Pilot, Alameda)
William Hopper as Roy (Sally McKee's fiancé)
William Schallert as TOPAC Dispatcher (San Francisco)
Julie Mitchum as Susie Wilby (Mrs. Lenny Wilby)
Doe Avedon as Miss Spalding (Flight Attendant)
Karen Sharpe as Nell Buck
John Smith as Milo Buck
Walter Reed as Mr. Field (uncredited)
Douglas Kennedy as Boyd, Public Relations (uncredited)

Production

Script

thumb|right|John Wayne pushed for the use of [[CinemaScope, although Wellman later considered it "bulky and unwieldy" during filming]]

After Wayne and Robert Fellows had formed Wayne-Fellows Productions in 1952, the duo worked on several films including Big Jim McLain, Plunder of the Sun, and Island in the Sky. It was a widescreen projection process that involved using an anamorphic lens to widen the image produced by regular 35 mm film. Wellman's experience was that the CinemaScope camera was "bulky and unwieldy", and the director preferred to station the camera in one place. Since The High and Mighty was set on an airliner with cramped quarters, Wellman did not need to worry about flexibility in composing shots. He hired William H. Clothier, with whom he had worked on many films, as cinematographer (assigned to the second unit sequences, only; Archie Stout, with whom Wayne had a long association, had already been assigned as primary cinematographer). Ernest K. Gann wrote the original novels on which both films were based, along with both screenplays, of which both films, including dialogue, were closely adapted.

The High and the Mighty depicts a dramatic situation in a civil transport aviation context. Jack L. Warner initially was opposed to the film, believing that audiences would not stay interested in a plot stretching more than 100 minutes involving the passengers in an airliner. William Wellman had reservations about the "intimate" storylines, which dominate the production, preferring to focus more on the airliner and pilots. Yet, after script deliberations set out the final screenplay, he endorsed the novel approach that harkened back to earlier films such as Grand Hotel.

The airliner

The Douglas DC-4 (N4665V) used to film the daylight flying sequences and the Honolulu "gate" sequence was a former C-54A-10-DC built as a military transport in 1942 at Long Beach, California, by Douglas Aircraft Company. When the exterior and flying sequences were filmed in November 1953, the airliner was being operated by Oakland, California-based non-scheduled carrier Transocean Airlines(1946–1962), the largest civil aviation operator of converted C-54s in the 1950s, and named "The African Queen".