Island in the Sky coming to AMC in April!

[Phil C]

It will be at 7 P.M. on Wednesday April 5 and if you can't watch this great movie then be sure to set your recorders. It is about airline pilots who flew transport planes for the USA During WW2. Due to bad weather one of the plane piloted by John Wayne is forced to land in the far North Candian Country and the men are forced to survive in the desolated cold area with little food and shelter while their fellow pilots try to search them and rescue them. John Wayne stars as Dooley the pilot who must strive to keep his head and keep his men encouraged. He is not like the Duke in nearly all of his movies but here he shows fear and joy to the extreme and in a way it is a shame he couldn't have made a few more movies like this. He is not the hero in this movie that you would expect but he does strive to keep his crew safe. Unknown to everyone including the audience until the end is that he also has a wife and six kids. The movie was based on a similar event that happened in WW2.

Also starring as fellow captains trying to find them are Lloyd Nolan as Stutz, James Arness of Gunsmoke as Mac McMullen, Paul Fix as Miller, Andy Devine as Moon (Andy was a funny sidekick to many westerns including Roy Rogers and very rarely had a dramatic role but this movie is one of them and showed he could indeed act in dramas) and Louis Jean Heydt as Finch.

Others having smaller parts are
Fess Parker (Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and tv's Daniel Boone) as Fitch's co-pilot.
Harry Carey Jr. as Ralph, Moon's co pilot.
Bob Steel as Wilson - Moon's radio man.
Mike Conners (who was Manix) as Gainer
Carl Switzer (who was famous in the 30s as Alfalfa in the Little Rascals) who plays Sonny - Sturt's co pilot.
Ann Doran who plays Moon's wife and later was in the John Wayne movie The High and the Mighty.

This is a great movie and one that proved that John Wayne could act. In most of his movies he was cast as a stereotype Duke and was basically one character but here he shows great emotion. When the planes fly over them and fail to see them one time he shows great emotion as he is obviously scared but trying to encourage the men almost to the point of tears. Anyone that didn't think he had great acting talent needs to watch this scene.
In fact Jim Arness has one great emotional scene also which will surpise most of the Gunsmoke fans.

The suspense builds up to where time is about to run out. Remember in WW2 planes did not have modern technology like today. A great movie indeed.

[Phil C]

One unusual thing is that two men would later play Davy Crockett. Fess Parker in the movie Davy Crockett in 1955 and John Wayne in the 1960 movie The Alamo. James Arness would appear in the 1986 tv version of The Alamo but would play Jim Bowie.

[Eagle6Man]

http://cover6.cduniverse.com/MuzeVideoArt/18/249018.jpg

"Island in the Sky" and "The High and the Mighty" Similarities
Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty are film oddities as they are two of the first all-star disaster films, which paved the way for Airport and its sequels twenty-plus years later. Both films are also two of the early John Wayne co-productions and starred Wayne. This production practice would not become widespread until the 1980s and 90s, when stars from Robert Redford to Sandra Bullock took control of productions. Both films also had many of the same crew members: producers, director, writer, cinematographer, and editor.

"Island in the Sky" and "The High and the Mighty" were out of circulation for about a quarter-century due to legal issues. Finally, they were rebroadcast on television in July 2005, the first broadcasts in twenty years, and also released as special edition DVDs that August.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.







Plot
"Island in the Sky" follows the personal drama of a a pilot and crew of a WWII-era DC-3 trying to survive after crashlanding in Labrador, Canada while waiting for rescue. The plane's pilot, Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while waiting for rescue. Fellow airmen (Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine, Paul Fix) are determined to find them before hunger and the 70-below winter do them in. Wellman provides the narration for the stoic characters that tells us what is going on inside their minds. There is tension and fear-filled war council among the search pilots when no one's quite sure what to do next--the wrong decision could doom the missing crew--and so no one looks anybody else in the face.

Details such as the ice pick kept handily embedded in a barracks wall so that pilots can break the frozen skin on their morning wash water added to the sense of reality provided by the film.

This based on a true story of a flight on February 3, 1943; though the co-pilot did not actually die.

Review
The director, Wellman, was an aviation-movie veteran whose Wings won the first-ever Academy Award (1927–28). This film is atypical of Wayne as he does not display the machoism for which he was often criticized. His portrayal of the downed plane's captain is believeable and realistic. The black-and-white cinematography by Archie Stout (dramatic scenes) and William H. Clothier (flying scenes) are excellent. The restorations done for the DVD version released on August 2, 2005 | are superb.

[edit]
Cast
John Wayne as Captain Dooley
Lloyd Nolan as Captain Stutz
James Arness as Mac McMullan, pilot
Andy Devine as Willie Moon, pilot
Harry Carey Jr. as Ralph Hunt, Moon's co-pilot
Walter Able as Colonel Fuller
Paul Fix as Wally Miller
Louis Jean Heydt as Fitch, pilot
Fess Parker as Fitch's co-pilot (uncredited)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_in_the_Sky_(film)

[Phil C]

Very good Eagle!