The High and the Mighty

A passenger plane experiences trouble en route from Hawaii to San Francisco.

The High and the Mighty set the blueprint for modern disaster movies. Whhen the genre exploded in the 70s and enjoyed a modest revival in the late 90s, it was The High and the Mighty’s model they followed.

As a movie unto itself, The High and the Mighty is a mixed bag. It works best when it deals with the pilots and the flight itself. When dealing with the passengers however, it’s much more uneven. The best—Phil Harris and his disastrous vacation story—manage to inject some comic relief, while the worst—Joy Kim’s entire character—are entirely superfluous.

Thankfully, director William Wellman seems to realize this and devotes most of his time to the men in the cockpit. Despite being an ensemble film, John Wayne still manages to steal the show as the co-pilot who keeps a cool head in the face of danger while Robert Stack avoids overplaying a role that could have easily descended into caricature.

That said, any movie where the Duke gets to man-slap someone is an automatic recommendation.