Majorthebys Charming and brutal

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Tad Pole . . . to transport four tons of fuel over Mount Everest to the Pacific Front during World War Two, narrators detail during FLYING FOR UNCLE SAM, a background piece on the ISLAND IN THE SKY disc. Since the whole world hated Hitler, the Nazis, and their Axis Hench Armies, 21st Century People have to wonder exactly WHY it took almost SIX YEARS to eradicate this hateful bunch. I think a lot of this delay has to do with the inefficient planning of the Air Transport Command (ATC). How many loads of gasoline do cargo planes deliver nowadays? Not very many, because pipelines, ships, and local oil wells all are much more efficient means of delivery. If enemy submarines threaten shipping, you can use escort destroyers and torpedo planes to establish safe corridors for tankers with far greater capacity and efficiency than a fleet of ATC planes. Better yet, just expand the flexible Trans-Oceanic phone cable tubes to pipe petroleum products to one's advance bases. Or send Army Rangers to siphon what you need from the Evil Doers' fuel dumps. If all else fails, let some Navy SEALS protect a platoon of Fighting Seabees as they set up working oil rigs near the front lines (or just drill as you go along "island hopping"). It would seem that Big Oil was running the Allies' WWII Campaigns with an eye toward wasting as much fuel as possible.

pcs3746 This story was one of my favorites. The movie was mediocre at best. But, of course it had some of my favorite actors; John Wayne, Andy Devine...I was very surprised to learn that it was closely based on a real story of even more drama and which turned out to be even more of a miracle.The movie depicts the crashed airplane as a C-47, twin engine cargo aircraft. The true story, it was a C-87, cargo version of the famed twin-tailed B-24 "Liberator" bomber. The C-87 was notoriously difficult to fly and it was said by the pilots who flew them it would not carry enough ice to make a high ball...meaning, it would quit flying when just a little bit of ice would form on the wings, which is what brought the aircraft in the story down after getting lost over the Canadian wilderness.One of the things that make the real story more fantastic than the movie was, no one died in the real story, in spite of the fact the survivors had to spend almost two months on the ice before getting evacuated. Also, there was an attempt by another rescue aircraft pilot to land on the frozen lake to bring the crash victims out and that rescue aircraft mired in the deep snow on the ice. Eventually, it turns out everyone was saved, and all the aircraft were repaired before the spring thaw and flown out, including the original four engine C-87 that crash landed on the frozen lake.Some critics have been saying the story is fake because the area of the crash is covered by numerous bush pilots. That was not so in the days of WWII. The area of the crash was so remote there were not even any maps of the area and most of the mountains were not even named…many of them today are named after the pilots who were part of the search team to find Dooley's aircraft, since they were probably the first persons to see them and locate them on navigation maps.Read Gann's book, Fate is The Hunter for the best details of this story. It is really an excellent read. Gann was an amazing writer with some unusual and delightful ways of gripping the mind of the reader.

charlytully As one of the characters observes during ISLAND IN THE SKY, it's even harder to be "lost" on an island in the frozen sky than bobbing on a raft near a welcoming isle in the balmy waters of the South Pacific. Specifically, he's referring to the Canada of the 1940s--before satellite mapping--when all of the land north of Montreal showed up as "Terra Incognito" on the charts of the day. Experiencing severe icing problems and not being able to pinpoint his geographical position, Captain Dooley (John Wayne), pilot of a five-man crew, manages to set his transport plane down hundreds of miles beyond any known landmark on a frozen lake. Unfortunately, his radio barely works, his crew only has food to last a few days, their hunting rifles are useless with no sign of animal life within walking distance, and a storm is coming on. Meanwhile, a four-plane search team comprised of Dooley's fellow transport pilots takes to the air in a race against time. As setbacks mount, this film seems headed toward a SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC-type ending (see Charles Frend's 1948 directorial effort, with John Mills in the title role of Robert Falcon Scott). Temperatures here are given as MINUS 40 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's not adjusting downwards for the windchill factor. Brrrrrrr, that's cold!

JoeytheBrit This is a typically adequate John Wayne mid-50s, mid-career action film which will probably last in the memory for just two reasons: a haunting death scene in the snowy wastelands of Canada, and the sight of Andy Devine in swimming trunks. Thankfully, Speedos weren't around in 1953, but it's still certainly a sight to see.John Wayne plays Captain Dooley, pilot of a transport plane who is forced to land in the vast snowy tundra. To make matters worse, the plane's battery is quickly fading, and bad weather is closing in… This kind of plot is such a bulk-standard commodity of 50s Hollywood that it's to the film's credit that it manages top hold the viewer's attention without ever becoming dull. Perhaps the film's biggest drawback is its use of studio sets that look unconvincing, especially when contrasted with the location shots. John Wayne broods and rages against the elements and hides his anxiety from the usual united-nations crew. A young James Arness plays one of the team of pilots searching for Wayne's downed plane and he looks like a kind of John Wayne-lite. Director Wellman, who would work on another Ernest K. Gann story, The High and the Mighty, with Wayne in 1954, manages to manufacture a reasonable level of suspense despite the failure to generate any life-in-peril sense of desperation amongst the stranded crew.