The High and the Mighty [2 Discs]

Director: William A. Wellman William A. Wellman

Overview

"William Wellman's The High and the Mighty has arrived on DVD with the kind of treatment that fans of the filmmaker and the movie, and its star, John Wayne, had always hoped it might receive. The two-disc special edition not only offers a stunningly beautiful transfer of the movie, letterboxed to around 2.35:1, and a loud, rich soundtrack, but enough extras to keep fans busy for the best part of a month. The most obvious special feature is the commentary track by Leonard Maltin in tandem with William Wellman Jr., aviation enthusiast Vincent Longo, and cast members Karen Sharpe and Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez -- they range across every subject under the sun that's even remotely relevant to the movie, over 145 minutes of screen time. Accessing the commentary track, incidentally, is a little tricky as there is no ""special feature"" button on the menu for the first disc -- it's accessible through the ""set up"" command for audio and subtitles. The movie has been given 22 chapters, which is just about adequate for the 147-minute running time. The second disc is nothing but special features and documentary material, on the history of Wayne's production company, the cast members, composer Dimitri Tiomkin (how can one argue with a DVD of a 50-year-old movie that goes into the actual recording of the score?), and just about every other aspect of the history surrounding this film, including its restoration. It's all so well done, that the new information that pours out freely and easily is dense enough to require multiple viewings. There's not a stone left unturned -- they even discuss the career of minor supporting player John Howard, virtually everyone else we see on the screen, as well as the key crew members, down to their foibles. (For instance, Wellman apparently regarded character actor George Chandler as something of a good-luck charm, and used him as often as he could in his movies.) The menus are easy to use and the whole disc is almost perfect -- the one flaw comes from Maltin's tendency to hyperbole; he refers to The High and the Mighty as a movie that has retained its reputation despite being out of circulation for ""50 years,"" but the movie was available on television, albeit in full-screen, cropped presentations, until the early '80s, and that explains its continued high reputation."

Product Details

Release Date:	08/02/2005
UPC:	0097368876347
Original Release:	1954
Rating:	NR
Source:	Paramount
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	2:28:00
Sales rank:	4,679

Special Features

Closed Caption;Introductions by Leonard Maltin; Commentary by Leonard Maltin, William Wellman Jr., Karen Sharpe, Pedro Gonzales-Gonzales, and Vincent Longo; "The Batjac Story"; "Stories From the Set"; "On Director William A. Wellman"; "The Music and World of Dimitri Tiomkin"; "Restoring a Classic"; "A Place in Film History"; "Ernest K. Gann -- Adventurer, Author & Artist"; "Flying in the Fifties"; Theatrical trailer, TV trailer, Batjac montage; The High and the Mighty premiere footage; Photo gallery

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

John Wayne	Dan Roman
Robert Stack	Sullivan
Claire Trevor	May Holst
Laraine Day	Lydia Rice
Jan Sterling	Sally McKee
Phil Harris	Ed Joseph
Robert Newton	Gustave Pardee
David Brian	Ken Childs
Paul Kelly	Flaherty
Sidney Blackmer	Humphrey Agnew
Doe Avedon	Miss Spaulding
Karen Sharpe	Nell Buck
John Smith	Milo Buck
Julie Bishop	Lillian Pardee
Wally Brown	Wilby
William Campbell	Hobie Wheeler
Ann Doran	Mrs. Joseph
John Qualen	Jose Locota
Paul Fix	Frank Briscoe
George Chandler	Ben Sneed
Joy Kim	Dorothy Chen
Michael Wellman	Toby Field
Douglas Fowley	Alsop
Regis Toomey	Garfield
Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer	Ensign Keim
Robert Keys	Lt. Mowbray
William Hopper	Roy
William Schallert	Dispatcher
Julie Mitchum	Susie
Robert Easton	Actor
Philip Van Zandt	Actor
Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez	Gonzalez
John Howard	Howard Rice
Dimitri Tiomkin	Composer

Technical Credits

Ernest Gann

Robert Fellows	Producer
John Wayne	Producer
William A. Wellman	Director
Ernest Gann	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

The High and the Mighty has aged well -- seeing it anew in 2005, twenty-some years after it was last shown publicly, it's possible to pick out scenes and shots that might be cut or shortened, but ultimately it's not much more than a few minutes longer than it might ideally have been, even based on modern sensibilities; and, yes, parts of the Dimitri Tiomkin score are much more romantic than audiences are accustomed to in movies today. But otherwise, there's not much glaringly out-of-date in the style of the movie. On the other hand, to fully and properly appreciate it, one must remember that in 1954, when it was made, and in 1953, when it was in pre-production, all of what is depicted in the movie, in the way of trans-Pacific and trans-global commercial flight, was new. The idea that ordinary people, middle-class (or, really, mostly somewhat upper-middle-class) Americans would routinely cross the Pacific on scheduled airlines was something new, so there was an intrinsic sense of adventure in watching the movie in 1954. One of the virtues of the film today is that it still has that sense of adventure, which continues to radiate off the screen, from the tone of the acting and the performances, and the script. The interlocking and interwoven personal stories may seem hackneyed today, but in fact, with the exceptions of Casablanca -- which is a different kettle of fish -- and Hotel Berlin in 1945 (itself based on a book by Grand Hotel author Vicki Baum), no Hollywood movie since Grand Hotel, in 1932, had tried to weave together characters like this on this level -- and doing it in this airborne setting was startlingly new and dramatic. It's one of the great achievements of Wellman's career that he was able to pull this off as well as he did. Apart from a few slow moments in the pacing, and some shots and scenes that could have been shortened, it still works, although anyone watching it in the 21st century should be aware that The High and the Mighty has to be seen letterboxed -- this is an early Cinemascope movie, with a very wide aspect ratio and with most of the screen used most of the time; cropping it to fit an ordinary television screen is equivalent to not showing it at all.