An entertaining movie when flying an airplane was serious business. Planes had to rely on contact with local ships when in trouble. An emergency military crew on wait to intercept. It was one of the few movies where John Wayne was not the star. In fact, over a dozen stars shared their various stories. William Campbell plays a co pilot long before the famous Star Trek role. John Wayne is a co-pilot who is on his first flight since a tragic plane crash years ago. I liked the ending a lot. The President of the airline was not there to hug them. He was a businessman stoically checking everything out. I had never heard of this movie until I checked it out at the local library. I always thought Airplane was mostly a spoof of the Airport movies of the 70s. Now, I see that the other half of the spoof was from this movie. I could not help laughing every time I saw a scene that was spoofed in the movie Airplane 26 years later. Of course, Robert Stack was in both films as the pilot. Stack was a great actor. He could go so believably from a serious role to spoofing his own character years later. It was not a great movie, but it was at least enjoyable compared to all the violent and cynical movies of today.
Review of The High and the Mighty
