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Film historian Leonard Maltin calls this 1954 all-star opus "the granddaddy of all airborne disaster films"; and if it doesn't seem as impressive to today's viewers as it did to theatergoers 50 years ago, that's only because it's been ripped off so many times since. John Wayne, whose Batjac Productions made the movie, heads a sensational cast in the gripping story of a passenger flight that runs into serious trouble while en route from Hawaii to the mainland. Wayne plays the intrepid co-pilot haunted by a past tragedy but duty-bound to bring the plane down safely when the younger pilot, Robert Stack, freezes up under pressure. A plethora of top-flight character actors and former stars -- including Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Paul Kelly, and Phil Harris -- deliver equally effective performances. A super-slick production directed by the legendary William Wellman, The High and the Mighty has been out of circulation for many years, and it makes a triumphant DVD debut in a sparkling transfer with surround-sound presentation. Maltin -- a human encyclopedia of vintage-movie knowledge -- joins Wellman's son and several surviving cast members in a chatty commentary peppered with fascinating facts and anecdotes. Some of these are repeated in the dozen or so featurettes, anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes in length, included on the bonus disc. The featurettes, all introduced by Maltin (who also supplies a 4-minute intro to the film itself), explore various aspects of the production and offer more intriguing facts that we have space to list.

All Movie Guide

For The High and the Mighty, director William Wellman made a point of using Cinemascope to heighten the dramatic content of a confined screen space -- in this instance, the cockpit of a plane in flight. Copilot Dan Roman (John Wayne) seems a lot more in control of things than Captain John Sullivan (Robert Stack) when the plane loses an engine during a flight from Honolulu to San Francisco. Wellman crosscuts from the tension in the cockpit to the various subplots involving the plane's passengers, among them May Holst (Claire Trevor), Lydia Rice (Laraine Day), Howard Rice (John Howard), Sally McKee (Jan Sterling), Ed Joseph (Phil Harris), and Humphrey Agnew (Sidney Blackmer) (as a character named Humphrey Agnew -- a remarkable prescient cognomen given the future of the U.S. vice presidency!). Adapted by Ernest K. Gann from his best-selling novel, The High and the Mighty was one of the first (and most profitable) entries in the "terror in the sky" genre. Its theme music, written by Dimitri Tiomkin and whistled incessantly by John Wayne in the film, would later become a best-selling hit throughout the world. Hal Erickson

Product Details

• UPC: 097368876347
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 2:28:00
• Sales Rank: 3,589

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• The John Wayne Century Collection
• John Wayne Adventure Collection

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