User Reviews

It's difficult to believe that it's possible to make a dull movie about an airliner ditching at sea but they manage to pull of such a feat here.

I'm not sure what makes it as pedestrian as it is. I'm actually thankful for the negligible attention paid to the usual diverse group of passengers. There's only one flashback, and that deals with the captain's (Gary Merrill's) taking leave of his wife, Nancy Davis. Merrill is a pilot for Gonococcal International Airways. There's no particular point to the flashback, but then there seems to be little point to most of the incidents we see. The second officer has a romance of about two minutes with the usual supernally beautiful stewardess. There's another one of those annoying children aboard. This one has a dog, worse luck, and it must be saved at the last minute.

The movie seems filled with all sorts of padding. It's as if someone had given the director a script that would take about half an hour to shoot, and instructed him to fill up an hour and a half with it.

Gary Merrill is probably the best-known face in the movie, and what a face it is. It seems made for the camera, with its manifold creases in its cheeks, its wide supple lips, its overall inexpressiveness. He doesn't put much into the part. He has two engines quit on him in the middle of the Atlantic and at his most anxious he looks as if he's having a duel of wits with a claw machine. Others try to act, it seems, but some of them can't really act very well. The captain and men of the destroyer escort look exactly like experienced Hollywood bit players.

Let's see. This was released in 1958. The events as described correspond fairly well to a real crash landing at sea, in the Pacific, midway between Honolulu and San Francisco, in 1956. Gary Merrill even remarks about a "previous ditching" in which the tail broke off, which actually took place. And, in real life as in the film, the airplane had 25 passengers, canaries on board, and the rescue ship radioed that they have bacon and eggs waiting. I remember it vividly because I was a radio operator in the Coast Guard at the time and happened to be the first person in the states to learn of the pending crash. The Coast Guard cutter involved in the rescue was the Pontchartrain. I understand a clip is available on YouTube.

Still, even knowing that this was a fictionalized version of an event I participated in wasn't enough to keep my mind from drifting. Everyone in the film appeared kind of distracted too, so I didn't feel especially guilty. The general impression is that those who greenlighted this project thought the emergency, fresh in the public mind, was enough to carry the picture, so they put little else into it.

I've never seen an aviation movie this bad. There was so much nonsense.

1."Over and out". No pilot ever says this, since "Over" and "Out" are contradictory. "Over" means "message ended, awaiting your reply". "Out" means, "Message ended, no reply expected".

2. When an engine stops, the wing does not dip on that side. Engines pull an airplane forward. It's the wings that create lift.

3. When power is lost because one or two engines are out, a pilot would NEVER call for 30 degrees flaps, they just add more drag.

4. When engines fail, that does not cause the whole airplane to shake.

5. Pilots do not lean to one side or the other in their seats.

6. No pilot would ever consider ditching at night when daylight is a short time away.

7. When all the passengers in a plane rush from one side to the other, the plane does not bank the other way.

8. The co-pilot does not need to repeatedly call out airspeed. The captain can see the airspeed on the panel.

9. Before ditching, all props would be feathered to reduce the risk of nose over or other damage.

All in all, unsatisfactory.

nomad

Airline pilot Captain Steve Williams(Gary Merrill)assures his wife, Helen(Nancy Davis Reagan)everything is just routine and after instruments check OK, he put his plane in the air. It is his regular flight from Portugal to New York City; things get bumpy...disaster strikes. One of the plane's huge engines catches fire; then another just quits. A safe landing is questionable; he must prepare his passengers for a crash landing into the cold Atlantic Ocean.

A tense mere 1 hr. 16 min. drama directed by Fred F. Sears. Other players include: Irene Hervey, Richard Keith, Sheridan Comerate, Jewell Lain, Celia Lovsky and Roger Smith.

The film begins with a plane in flight from Lisbon to New York. While it's over the Atlantic, one engine catches fire and must be extinguished. Only moments later, a second engine dies. Now, with only two working engines, the plane must prepare for a possible crash into the ocean. Then, abruptly, the film switches to just before the crash. Events leading to the crash in the tough-as-nails pilot's life (Gary Merrill) are shown as well as the loading of the passengers on the fated flight. This is an odd style--showing the plane as it seems about to crash and then starting the film over, so to speak. Then, after the movie works its way back to the engine failures, you watch as the plane prepares to make an emergency landing into the ocean--in real life, an almost certain death for everyone.

The film is a good, tense film. Because there are a few other better 1950s air disaster films (such as "The High and the Mighty" and "Zero Hour!", this one looks a bit average in comparison. Not a bad film in the least due to pretty good acting by the mostly no-name cast and decent writing. This is a great contrast to the air disaster films of the 70s, where big-name "guest stars" and sillier plots were the norm. The only negative was the landing itself--the special effects were less than special--the plane looked very much like a toy plane. In addition, it was amazingly easy and trouble-free--something an ocean landing not be like in the least! By the way, this isn't meant to be snarky about another person's review, but the plane in the film isn't a DC-3. Other than they are both propeller-driven planes, the one in the film (it's either a DC-6 or 7) and the two propeller DC-3 are little alike.

**SPOILERS** The movie "Crash Landing" start out with Trans-Atlantic flight 627 from Lisbon to New York experiencing engine trouble half way over the Atlantic with it's Captain Steve William, Garry Merrill, frantically radioing the nearest ship in the area for help. With you getting all pumped up and withing for an exciting near death rescue effort of the plane an it crew and passengers were brought back some time earlier in Capt. Williams life. Suddenly were back at the Libson hotel with Captain Williams and his wife Helen , Nancy David, and their 12 year old son Barrie, Kim Charney!

What all that has to do with the story of flight 627 about to crash in the Atlantic Ocean is about as foreign to it as to what the election results in the Figi Islands have to do with the the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for L.A! We have this big talk between Williams and Barrie, who looks like he's about to wet his pants, over his stolen bicycle that we learn he in fact all made up. The bike wasn't stolen but given away to a friend by Barrie because he was, scarty cat, afraid to ride it?

With that, the boring story of Barrie's bike, now out of the way until later in the movie we get back to business in Captain Williams behind the controls doing his best to get his plane, with it's some 30 passengers and crew, to make a safe crash landing in the unfriendly Atlantic Ocean. As all this is going on we get to see a number of the passengers and what's eating or bothering them in their personal lives. The most interesting is Arthur White, Richard Keith, who's always been jealous of his well bread and well connected business partner the barley sober Calvin Havelick, Hal Torey. White feels that it's Havellick who got all the breaks in life and now is threatening to expose his drinking problems, to the shareholders, he feels he can blackmail him into voting for the sleazy business deal that he's planning for some time to officiate.

There's also little Teddy Burton, Robin Warga, who's as much in love with his cute little mutt of a puppy Wilbor as Barrie whats to get rid of his bike that he fell, and almost broke his head, off. It's Teddy's dad, Dayle Rodney, who's just the opposite a father to his son as Williams is to Barrie in not being so hard on the kid for every little thing, like little white lies, he does!

***SPOILERS***To get to the meat of the story in the end of course Captain Williams saves the day by crash landing his disabled plane with everyone on board surviving with not as much as having a scratch on them. But the Captain goes against his better, which turned out to be his worst, judgment in saving little Wilbor whom he planned to leave to his fate, the bottom of the Atlantic, in feeling he's, in not being human, not worth risking his life for. This ends up making Captain Williams a truly caring and feeling human being not the hard boiled Marine drill sergeant that he was in giving his son Barrie such a hard time over that crummy bike he lied to him about. This also makes for an emotionally packed reunion with both Barrie and his wife Helen when Captain Williams is back home after receiving a hero's welcome in Libson. Barrie who was told to stay in his room, by his dictator like dad, until farther notice is now allowed to go to the party that he was invited to together with an armful of 45's, rock & roll records, that his now humanized father bought for him.

As for the that spiteful and blackmailing swine Arthur White he showed his true color, bright yellow, when he not only freaked out when Captain Williams' plane was about to be ditched but almost caused it to crashed with everyone on board ending up at the bottom of the Atlanic Ocean. Being exposed for the lily liveried coward that he is, and always was, White didn't have the guts to go through with his sneaky and devious plan to get, the now stone cold sober, Calvin Havellck to vote for it! Which was by far the best thing to come out of entire movie!