Brent Gair
08-05-2005, 11:13 PM
I picked up a couple of new John Wayne movies that were just released. These are the rarely seen ISLAND IN THE SKY and THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY.
I had never even heard of ISLAND IN THE SKY before and I was kind of "iffy" about buying it until I read the synopsis. A DC-3 goes down somewhere in the Canadian north and Wayne and his crew await rescue. Hey, that's right up my alley...I worked on DC-3's and I'm Canadian :). Unfortunately, the synopsis is a bit more exciting than the movie. I'm not an expert on many things but I know what Canada looks like at 40 below! It'll kill you in 20 minutes if you're aren't bundled-up and if your face is exposed, you'll have ice caked on your eyebrows...I've even had my eyes freeze closed a few times. In the movie, Wayne and the boys look like they are at a weekend Boy Scout camp. You just don't get a sense that they are in any danger. They always look hale and hearty...not even a little growth of beard.
All is not bad, though. The cast is terrific: Andy Devine, James Arness, Lloyd Nolan, even Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as a co-pilot. And Wayne does some darn fine acting. Also, the DVD looks very nice. It's just the absense of foreboding that really keeps this from being a better film.
Recommended for aviation buffs and Wayne fans. Probably won't delight too many people who don't fall into those categories.
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/5492/him7vz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I don't usually get to post my own personal photos on the movie board but that's my introduction to THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY. In this classic, John Wayne and Robert Stack fly a DC-4 from Honolulu to San Francisco and just have some real bad luck. As you see from my photo, that ain't Honolulu (!) but it is a DC-4. That photo was taken at my first job out of high school. See one of our DC-3's in the background? When we got the DC-4 (1977), we thought we were really in the space age :). That was a lot more adventure than other guys my age were getting while working at McDonalds...but McDonalds paid better!
Back to the movie. THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY is considered the prototype of the modern disaster films. The only real synopsis you need is: if you've seen AIRPORT, you sorta' get the idea. In many ways the film is epic. It's color, Cinemascope and also has an outstanding cast (ironically, with Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer playing a co-pilot again...what's the deal with that?). And it runs 148 minutes which is long by the standards of any era. However, it's also an intimate film because the really critical moments take place within the small confines of the aircraft cabin. This movie is the very definition of "period piece". By modern standards, much of the action is almost ludicrous. One passenger threatens another with a revolver...but they all calm down and forget about it!
Also, by modern standards, the film drags for long stretches. Particularly during the first half of this very long film, a lot of time is spent on painfully detailed character development told in flashback.
But this is an elegant movie. It's of that era when theme songs were played by full orchestras and men wore hats (not caps) when they went to the baseball game.
The two DVD set is absolutely loaded with extras, I can't review them because I'm barely into them.
One thing that both these movies have in common is that they are exceptional bargains. They are restored, remastered, loaded with goodies and very inexpensive.
I had never even heard of ISLAND IN THE SKY before and I was kind of "iffy" about buying it until I read the synopsis. A DC-3 goes down somewhere in the Canadian north and Wayne and his crew await rescue. Hey, that's right up my alley...I worked on DC-3's and I'm Canadian :). Unfortunately, the synopsis is a bit more exciting than the movie. I'm not an expert on many things but I know what Canada looks like at 40 below! It'll kill you in 20 minutes if you're aren't bundled-up and if your face is exposed, you'll have ice caked on your eyebrows...I've even had my eyes freeze closed a few times. In the movie, Wayne and the boys look like they are at a weekend Boy Scout camp. You just don't get a sense that they are in any danger. They always look hale and hearty...not even a little growth of beard.
All is not bad, though. The cast is terrific: Andy Devine, James Arness, Lloyd Nolan, even Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer as a co-pilot. And Wayne does some darn fine acting. Also, the DVD looks very nice. It's just the absense of foreboding that really keeps this from being a better film.
Recommended for aviation buffs and Wayne fans. Probably won't delight too many people who don't fall into those categories.
http://img305.imageshack.us/img305/5492/him7vz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I don't usually get to post my own personal photos on the movie board but that's my introduction to THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY. In this classic, John Wayne and Robert Stack fly a DC-4 from Honolulu to San Francisco and just have some real bad luck. As you see from my photo, that ain't Honolulu (!) but it is a DC-4. That photo was taken at my first job out of high school. See one of our DC-3's in the background? When we got the DC-4 (1977), we thought we were really in the space age :). That was a lot more adventure than other guys my age were getting while working at McDonalds...but McDonalds paid better!
Back to the movie. THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY is considered the prototype of the modern disaster films. The only real synopsis you need is: if you've seen AIRPORT, you sorta' get the idea. In many ways the film is epic. It's color, Cinemascope and also has an outstanding cast (ironically, with Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer playing a co-pilot again...what's the deal with that?). And it runs 148 minutes which is long by the standards of any era. However, it's also an intimate film because the really critical moments take place within the small confines of the aircraft cabin. This movie is the very definition of "period piece". By modern standards, much of the action is almost ludicrous. One passenger threatens another with a revolver...but they all calm down and forget about it!
Also, by modern standards, the film drags for long stretches. Particularly during the first half of this very long film, a lot of time is spent on painfully detailed character development told in flashback.
But this is an elegant movie. It's of that era when theme songs were played by full orchestras and men wore hats (not caps) when they went to the baseball game.
The two DVD set is absolutely loaded with extras, I can't review them because I'm barely into them.
One thing that both these movies have in common is that they are exceptional bargains. They are restored, remastered, loaded with goodies and very inexpensive.