No Highway in the Sky (1951)

Directed by

Henry Koster

Genre

drama film, disaster film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 29m

Rated

U

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 64 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A scientist discovers metal fatigue in a passenger plane's tail and believes the aircraft will crash after a certain number of flights. He tries to convince the crew and a skeptical aviation official before the plane takes off again.

tension-buildingsuspensefulanxiousmethodicalbrainyseriousvintageairborne

What happens

No Highway in the Sky (also known as No Highway) is a 1951 black-and-white aviation drama film directed by Henry Koster from a screenplay by R. C. Sherriff, Oscar Millard, and Alec Coppel, based on the 1948 novel No Highway by Nevil Shute. The film stars James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Janette Scott, Elizabeth Allan, Ronald Squire, and Jill Clifford. It was one of the first films that depicted a potential aviation disaster involving metal fatigue. Although the film follows the plot of Shute's novel in general, No Highway in the Sky notably 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. Also, the role of Scott, the recently appointed administrator who narrates the novel, is curtailed in the film version; which means that the featured scientist, Mr Honey, comes across as more eccentric than in the novel, changing the relationship between them. The film also introduces the term "boffin" for the under-appreciated and seemingly self-centred and eccentric scientist, as distinct from earlier usage to describe a scientist who is making vital (and appreciated) contributions. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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