(3 of 3)
The High and the Mighty (Wayne-Fellows; Warner) is about the worst piece of advertising the airlines have had since the crash that killed Carole Lombard. For that matter it is not much of an ad for the movies either.
The plot is a flight log between Honolulu and San Francisco. On the way, the plane half drops an engine, the navigator blows his calculations, the pilot (Robert Stack) funks out, the copilot (John Wayne) broods about a wife long years dead, the stewardess almost comes down with the meemies, and a known maniac is allowed to roam at large among the passengers.
The real trouble, however, is that a wild man is also on the loose behind the scenes. "Wild Bill" Wellman, the gifted director of such films as Nothing Sacred and The Ox-Bow Incident, went too wild on this one. His plot is a see-'em-squirm ploy that was old when Damocles came to dinner. His actors' sit as awkwardly on their narrow stage as prizewinners at a commencement exercise, and when they come to recite, say the same sort of silly things about "life." Worst of all are the flashbacks that come almost as thick as the ideational air pockets in this Hollywood brainstorm.