The Crowded Sky is a 1960 Technicolor drama movie produced by Michael Garrison, directed by Joseph Pevney, and starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. The Crowded Sky is based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Hank Searls. The movie was distributed by Warner Bros. The movie's story follows the back stories of the crew and passengers of a U.S. Navy jet and a commercial airliner carrying a full load of passengers during a bout of severe weather. Other issues such as a malfunctioning radio make it nearly impossible to communicate with air traffic control and set the two aircraft on a collision course.
Plot
A U.S. Navy Lockheed TV-2 jet piloted by Captain Dale Heath, with an enlisted man as a rear passenger, runs into trouble as soon as the aircraft gets airborne. Both Heath's radio and his navigation system become disabled, with no way to correctly determine their altitude. At the same time, a Douglas DC-7 airliner, piloted by veteran Dick Barnett, is carrying a full passenger complement, each with their own worries and problems with which they must deal. Both Barnett and Heath have their personal crises, including Heath's unhappy marriage to an unfaithful wife and Barnett's long-time conflict with his co-pilot, Mike Rule. Rule has his own personal demons, including no meaningful relationship with his catatonic father, and an affair with head stewardess Kitty Foster. Both aircraft, through various errors with their flight paths, are now on a direct collision course that air traffic controllers are unable to avert. When the crash inevitably occurs, Heath sacrifices himself and his passenger, making amends for a past air tragedy that he had caused. The airliner is badly damaged, and Louis Capelli, the flight engineer, is blown out of the aircraft, falling to his death, while the rest of the passengers and crew fight for their lives. Even with one engine destroyed and a wing on fire, Barnett brings the airliner down safely, but accepts responsibility for the collision during the accident investigation. In the aftermath of the crash, Mike and Kitty are not only survivors but are now planning a future life together.
Film rights to the novel The Crowded Sky, written by a former U.S. Navy flyer, were sold before it was published. The screenplay extensively employs the device of characters thinking aloud. Screenwriter Charles Schnee felt that audiences at the time required more subtlety in characterization. Additional dialogue helped provide that, he concluded. The Crowded Sky was the first movie role in more than a year for Dana Andrews, who had been appearing on Broadway in the playTwo for the Seesaw. Andrews described the movie "as a kind of Bridge of San Luis Rey of the air". In order to prepare for his role, Zimbalist trained for 20 hours in a jet flight simulator to familiarize himself with the controls that his character would use. For Troy Donahue, his role was a departure from the usual "teen heartthrob" films that he had made for Warner Bros. The main theme music from A Summer Place, Donahue's preceding movie, appears in the soundtrack. Principal photography began in mid-October and concluded in mid-November 1959. Even though the Dana Andrews character mentions he knows how to fly DC-7s, the actual plane used in the movie appears to be a Douglas DC-6. The DC-7 has four-blade propellers. The DC-6 has three blades.
Reception
The Crowded Sky was received with mixed reviews by audience and critics alike. As a progenitor of the disaster films of the 1970s, it had some of the elements of the genre, but relied heavily on dialogue to the detriment of the impact of an aerial disaster. The Los Angeles Times called it "interesting but uneven".Variety] gave a mixed review upon the movie's release, criticizing Pevney's directing, but praising the aerial scenes. In a more critical review in The New York Times, Eugene Archer called The Crowded Sky "reprehensible" because it exploited human tragedy. His review noted "Possibly a meaningful film could be developed from this theme, but as directed with an emphasis on sensationalism by Joseph Pevney, the effect is as meretricious as it is harrowing". Modern reviews were more favorable. Glenn Erickson in DVD Talk gave a mostly positive review, but commented that The Crowded Sky came off more as an "unintentional comedy" than a serious drama movie. Reviewer Leonard Maltin called it a "slick film focusing on emotional problems aboard jet liner and Navy plane bound for fateful collision; superficial but diverting".
