No Highway In the Sky - James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich 1951

Dedicated airpAn unconvincing cautionary romance takes place back in London between the absent-minded widowed father of the brainy/geeky 12-year-old Elspeth (Janette Scott) and the passenger, the famous international sexy actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), and the sweet young widowed stewardess Marjorie Corder (Glynis Johns), who both stick by their man when his sanity is attacked and the big boss (Hugh Wakefield) is ready to throw the little fish out on the tarmac. The domesticated stewardess' love seems more sincere because she sticks around while Honey's test is completed to find out if he was right or not, while Teasdale splits to Hollywood to make another film.lane engineer for the Royal Airforce Establishment, Theodore Honey (James Stewart), tests for structural weakness in the tail of the new Reindeer airplanes, believing over a certain amount of time, at the 1440 hour mark, vibrations will cause a crash. He explains in detail to his new plant manager boss Dennis Scott (Jack Hawkins) his theory, who believes the scientist is sincere but doesn't understand what he's saying--yet backs him up with his boss Sir John (Ronald Squire). When a Reindeer designed plane with a lot of mileage crashes in Labrador, the scientist is flown there to examine the tail wreckage. When the timid scientist discovers he's flying on a Reindeer designed plane and that the mileage accumulated would indicate the tail will fall off due to metal fatigue, he forces the pilot to make an emergency landing in Gander to check it out. When there appears to be nothing wrong with the plane, it's set to take off without the scientist. But Honey's so sure he's right, that he disables the plane so it can't fly and is brought back to London for psychological tests. An unconvincing cautionary romance takes place back in London between the absent-minded widowed father of the brainy/geeky 12-year-old Elspeth (Janette Scott) and the passenger, the famous international sexy actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), and the sweet young widowed stewardess Marjorie Corder (Glynis Johns), who both stick by their man when his sanity is attacked and the big boss (Hugh Wakefield) is ready to throw the little fish out on the tarmac. The domesticated stewardess' love seems more sincere because she sticks around while Honey's test is completed to find out if he was right or not, while Teasdale splits to Hollywood to make another film.The one-dimensional characters add no emotional depth, especially when the awkward romance is tossed onto the airplane drama; but Stewart plays a likable character that translates into a rather genial pic with much appeal. Interesting enough, the first commercial jet airliners began to crash due to the similar metal fatigue Shute wrote about.

REVIEWED ON 8/14/2011       GRADE: B

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

Directed by	Henry Koster
Produced by	Louis D. Lighton
Written by	Alec Coppel Oscar Millard R. C. Sherriff
Based on	No Highway 1948 novel by Nevil Shute
Starring	James Stewart Marlene Dietrich Glynis Johns Jack Hawkins
Music by	Malcolm Arnold
Cinematography	Georges Périnal
Edited by	Manuel del Campo
Production company	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Release dates	28 June 1951 (UK) 21 September 1951 (U.S.)
Running time	98 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$1,150,000 (US rentals)[1][2]

"American military war hero pilot James Stewart plays the eccentric Yank scientist working for a British airline, and gives one of his better and more pleasing performances as someone kindhearted but a bit daffy."

Bibliography[edit]

• Bloch, Robert. Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography. New York: Tor Books, 1983. ISBN 978-0-312-85373-0.
• Davies, R.E.G. and Philip J. Birtles. Comet: The World's First Jet Airliner. McLean, Virginia: Paladwr Press, 1999. ISBN 1-888962-14-3.
• Jones Ken D., Arthur F. McClure and Alfred E. Twomey. The Films of James Stewart. New York: Castle Books, 1970.
• Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
• Shute, Nevil. Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1954.ISBN 1-84232-291-5.

No Highway in the Sky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No Highway in the Sky (aka No Highway) is a 1951 British black-and-white disaster filmfrom 20th Century Fox, produced by Louis D. Lighton, directed by Henry Koster, and starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich,Glynis Johns, and Jack Hawkins. The film is based on the novel No Highway by Nevil Shute and was one of the first films that depicted a potential aviation disaster involving metal fatigue.

Although the film follows Shute's original 1948 novel closely, No Highway in the Skynotably omits references to the supernatural contained in the original novel, including the use of automatic writing to resolve a key element in the original novel's story.

Plot[edit]

Theodore Honey (James Stewart), an eccentric "boffin" with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, is working on solving a difficult aviation crash problem. A widower with a 12 year old daughter, Elspeth (Janette Scott), Honey is sent from Farnborough to investigate the crash of a Rutland Reindeer airliner in Labrador, Canada. He theorizes the accident happened because of the tailplane's structural failure, caused by sudden metal fatigue after 1440 flight hours. To test the theory in his laboratory, a rear airframe is being vibrated at a very high rate in daily eight-hour cycles.It is not until Honey finds himself on board a Reindeer airliner that he realizes he is flying on an early production aircraft that is close to the number of hours his theory projects for the metal fatique failure. Despite the fact that his theory is not yet proven, he decides to warn the aircrew and Hollywood actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), a fellow passenger. After the Reindeer safely lands at Gander Airport in Newfoundland, an inspection clears the aircraft to continue on its route. Honey then takes drastic action to stop the flight by activating the Reindeer's port undercarriage lever, dropping the airliner on its belly, damaging it. Shocked by the act, some of his colleagues demand that he be declared insane to discredit his unproved theory and save the reputation of British passenger aviation now awash in a sea of bad press.Teasdale and Reindeer flight attendant Marjorie Corder (Glynis Johns) both take a liking to Honey and Elspeth, who they discover is lonely and isolated from her schoolmates. Teasdale speaks to Honey's superiors on his behalf, claiming she believes in him. Corder, meanwhile, has stayed on with Honey and his daughter as a nurse. Having now observed Honey's many qualities beyond his minor eccentricities, and after becoming very close to Elspeth, she decides to make the arrangement permanent by marrying the scientist.During a hearing in which his sanity is questioned, Honey angrily protests, refusing to be railroaded. He resigns and walks out, threatening to collapse other Rutland Reindeers until all the aircraft are grounded. He then goes back to his laboratory to prove his metal fatigue theory is sound, but the time he predicted for the structural failure soon passes without anything happening. The Reindeer airliner he disabled at Gander, however, is repaired, and shortly after it completes a test flight, the tail falls off while taxiing. Shortly thereafter, the same thing happens to the tail frame in the laboratory, and Honey discovers that he failed to include temperature as a variable factor in his fatigue calculations.