Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

HotToastyRag The High and the Mighty was the grandpa of the plentiful disaster movies from the 1970s, so if you like that genre and haven't yet seen this original version, rent it this weekend. It has all the elements: a large, star-studded cast, backstories for each character to make you care, a reason why each character should survive even when it doesn't look like they will, and of course, a disaster. It's intense and exciting, and while I find the subject matter frightening, it's very good!John Wayne and Robert Stack-who would later spoof this role in Airplane!-are airline pilots on a flight from Hawaii to San Francisco. Keep in mind, back in the day, that route was a twelve-hour flight, not a five-hour flight like it is now. Among the passengers are Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Newton, Phil Harris, Jan Sterling, and Joy Kim. During the flight, the audience is treated to everyone's backstory as the tension builds; we finally learn there's a problem with the plane and it might not make it all the way to Frisco!As a sidenote, Dimitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his memorable theme. If you listen to it, you might recognize it, but while it is a pretty theme, it sounds much more like a romance than a thriller. If it was the theme to Peyton Place, it would have been lovely. For a disaster movie about a plane crash? It just doesn't fit, and it almost ruins the movie.Besides the music, a couple of technical flaws, and a healthy bit of Americana racism, the rest of the movie is very good, especially when you consider it was the first of its kind. John Wayne and Robert Stack, the two with the vastly larger amounts of screen time, are very good. I've never thought John Wayne was the greatest actor in the world, but he puts his whole heart into this movie.

Hot 888 Mama . . . my rating of "8" out of 10 actually is for a supplemental piece titled ON DIRECTOR WILLIAM A. WELLMAN, which is one of the many diverse and unconnected musings thrown together into something called THE MAKING OF THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY for this film's 2005 restoration and DVD release. Wellman, of course, directed that John Wayne vehicle, as well as the first-ever Best Picture Oscar winner, WINGS. Wellman's biographer, Kevin Brownlow, emphasizes here that MIGHTY was NOT Wellman's preferred bag of popcorn, but that the director was a sucker for any story involving flight, since he was a decorated WWI war hero himself as a military aviator. Though it's mentioned in passing that Wellman's masterpieces were such movies as HEROES FOR SALE, this DVD extra clocks in at less than 10 minutes, so there apparently wasn't time for anyone to explain how an authentic American Hero politically to the left of Bernie Sanders could have co-existed during the shoot with Wayne, America's self-appointed "Snitch-in-Chief" at this time, who during the 1950s ruined the lives of Oscar winners such as Dalton Trumbo (please see TRUMBO) and Paul Revere's several-times great grand-daughter Anne, and fingered many Hollywood greats for Black Ops assassination by the CIA, including John Garfield and Errol Flynn.

PWNYCNY This is a great movie. A passenger plane embarks on a routine flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, and then suddenly one of the engines blows up and the plane is leaking fuel. Soon it becomes apparent to the crew that they may not have enough fuel to reach land and that they may have to ditch the plane in the ocean which would mean certain death for all aboard because they are flying at night and the ocean waters are rough. Soon the passengers are frankly informed of the situation and of the possibility that the plane may have to ditch in the ocean, and now realizing that they all may die, they begin to openly discuss their own mortality. As a result, the passengers learn about their co-passengers and more about themselves. The ones who at first seem the strongest are soon shown to be the most fragile. The pilot loses his nerve and starts panicking and it is only because of the co-pilot, who is able to control his fear, that the plane continues flying and is not ditched in the ocean. Finally, the plane lands safely in San Francisco where the crew is met by the owner of the airline who tells the pilot and co-pilot that later they'll talk. End of movie. The movie contains an all-star cast including John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Robert Stack, Lorraine Day, Jan Sterling, Sidney Blackmer, John Howard and Carl Switzer (that's right, the same actor who played Alfalfa in the Our Gang series). Jan Sterling's performance was particularly powerful. This movie is wonderful.

nomoons11 This is by no means a bad film. It's just not terribly original. The area of film-making where the plane gets into trouble and everyone's story on-board the plane gets told and why they're there was started with "Phonecall from a Stranger". A very fine film with Bette Davis in a minor role.This was a good watch but right off you already know the ending so what your in for is the stories from each passenger. What put them there and they tell their story and what not. All good actors in here but as I mention, not original.If you wanna get an idea of a good film with an airplane scenario...try a better film before this was made..."Island in the Sky". It's miles above this one in terms of enjoyment and edge of your seat thrills. You won't waste your time with this one and it has a lot of good points but go and find "Phonecall from a Stranger" and see what I mean.