Had heard of this film but didn't bother to see it till now.
It really is worth watching,so catch it if you can.
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MovieChat Forums > No Highway in the Sky (1951) Discussion > Had heard of this film but didn't bother...
respectfully disagree. might have been great back in the day, but has not withstood the test of time -- in effect, its tail has fallen off.
boring boring boring! Not much of a plot, bland characters, no building of suspense, predictable (yet poorly done) ending, and Stewart basically channeling his Mr. Smith character.
What the $%*& is a Chinese Downhill?!?
Clearly, today's audiences are harder to keep stimulated. Overt sex and violence is a given. Tension levels must be kept at a very high pitch. No Highway is a quiet, sweet little movie though not to everyone's taste. Not high art and yes showing it's age but the characters are well thought out and likable. When I first saw it I actually cared what happened to them. To be honest I'd rather come home to Marjorie Korda than Madonna.
Waste anything except TIME time is our shortest material
I saw this movie as a child in the 1950s so for me it is nostalgic. I can see how a modern audience would not find it as appealing. If you think this one is dull and dumb, try watching "The High and the Mighty." That is corny even to me.
shareI was born in the early 50s and have seen this film since the early 60s. Neither then nor since has it ever struck me as either dull or dumb.
I can understand some modern audiences unable to watch anything with a plot, or requiring time and intelligence to enjoy, not liking it. It's a matter of taste and intelligence.
I like The High and the Mighty very much, but truth be told you're right, it is overlong and portions of it are a bit dull. But again, like any film that's not wall-to-wall CGI, sex and half-dimensional characters, it requires some time and understanding to appreciate.
I just saw this film for the first time and thought it was fascinating all the way through, not just because of the issue with the aircraft, but also because of the characters.
The way this film was made reminded me of Call Northside 777 (1948 - 7.4 rating), with James Stewart. Both films have similar ratings (No Highway in the Sky has a 7.3 rating).
Mag, Darling, you're being a bore.
Interesting comparison with Call Northside 777, hka. What is it about No Highway that reminds you of that earlier JS film?
shareBesides obvious similarities (Stewart, black & white, made roughly in the same era), generally speaking, much of the time the investigation and details in the two "cases" were intriguing. We got a somewhat closer look at science/technology which was involved in creating and/or solving both cases.
Mag, Darling, you're being a bore.
That's true, technology helped solve both mysteries...though in NHITS technology also created the problem in the first place!
I've often thought that a nice coda to this film would have been for word of the tail falling off the repaired plane at Gander to have reached the plot and crew -- especially the almost violent co-pilot (he attacked Honey) played by Kenneth More -- and seen what their reactions were. But for Honey's wrecking the plane, they would have been way out over the Bay of Fundy when the tail broke off and sent them all to their deaths. They all owed Honey a big apology and a lifetime of thanks.
The new found tech is an interesting angle but I'm thinking more about the general discourse of scientific truth vs. Vested interest maintaining scepticism. Substitute climate change for metal fatigue..
I love a lot about this film,understand others resistant to dated corny sensibility but I hope this endures as an example of what a good movie is.
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I saw it on television years ago and caught it again recently. Good performances but the movie doesn't hold up that well.
shareI always confused it with John Wayne's No Island in the Sky. BOTH great films really but very different.
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