To repeat what an earlier reviewer has said "It's better if you aren't a pilot". That sums up the matter quite succinctly. It also has nothing whatever to do with Gann's masterpiece auto-biographical novel of the same name.
FITH fairly quickly made it's way to TV in the mid-sixty's, panned and scanned to death. Still, as a kid in love with all things airplanes, I watched it many times and it became a favorite along with such great and small films dealing with aviation, pilots and airlines. Since then the kid read the book, learned to fly, served in the Air Force and then spent years in the Airlines.
Got to see this again and the first time in it's widescreen "glory" on TCM after 40 years, and while it is laughable in some ways technically ( I won't bore you...i try to be mindful that flyers are good at that), I still enjoyed it's somber tone and character study of the Captain of the doomed airliner. It's flashback based structure is no less distracting than "The Crowded Sky" of four years earlier, and the cast of mostly second string players does a workmanlike job of it. Kudos go to Mark Stevens as a dipso ex-pilot in a very nice turn, one I think may be his best performance. Thumbs down to Nancy Kwann, miscast, and only here because it was made during her 15 minutes. Dorothy Malone has a nice cameo.
Do I still like it? Well, yeah...I do. If you get the chance, see it.
FITH fairly quickly made it's way to TV in the mid-sixty's, panned and scanned to death. Still, as a kid in love with all things airplanes, I watched it many times and it became a favorite along with such great and small films dealing with aviation, pilots and airlines. Since then the kid read the book, learned to fly, served in the Air Force and then spent years in the Airlines.
Got to see this again and the first time in it's widescreen "glory" on TCM after 40 years, and while it is laughable in some ways technically ( I won't bore you...i try to be mindful that flyers are good at that), I still enjoyed it's somber tone and character study of the Captain of the doomed airliner. It's flashback based structure is no less distracting than "The Crowded Sky" of four years earlier, and the cast of mostly second string players does a workmanlike job of it. Kudos go to Mark Stevens as a dipso ex-pilot in a very nice turn, one I think may be his best performance. Thumbs down to Nancy Kwann, miscast, and only here because it was made during her 15 minutes. Dorothy Malone has a nice cameo.
Do I still like it? Well, yeah...I do. If you get the chance, see it.