Synopsis
Reviews (83)
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R
Actors don’t have mothers. They’re the only people on Earth who give birth to themselves.
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G
The Oblivion style zooms in this were absolutely KILLING me. I can’t lie at all, this is a pure OG call for me it being 5 stars, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Troy Donahue having panic attacks the entire time and then getting mercilessly blown to bits, that one guy getting sucked out of the hole that the plane sawed through, the little romance and the guy being happy as the plane might be crashing because he’s holding the guy’s hand, the one actor dude who my friend says looked like Barron Trump if he was being played by Robert Pattinson, i mean it’s just perfection. It scratches the A Summer Place / Susan Slade itch perfectly.…
3 -
T
I love me some Dana Andrews, but letting him near airplanes always leads to disaster. What a messy movie. Patsy Kelly was fun.
3 -
L
Joseph Pevney’s action disaster drama about a Navy jet and a commercial airplane travelling for a mid-air accident. Starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Hank Searls, which was published in this year, the story concerns Dale (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), a pilot, who understands that his flight is on the brink of striking a commercial airline. The two pilots and the passengers think about their individual difficulties in their last moments. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. gives an okay performance in his role as one of the pilots involved, while Dana Andrews is alright as Dick Bennett, the pilot of the other aircraft, with both characters at times not showing a…
6 -
L
Never before have I waited so long to eventually see a plane crash. There’s a delicate balance in disaster films whereby, over the course of the film, you get to see a range of characters interact with one another or reassess themselves as they’re pushed through a crisis. Of course, that requires the crisis. The Crowded Sky gets so busy in trying to build up so many characters, however, that it feels like they forget they’re supposed to have a plane crash, and so the ending is rushed. There’s no sense of growth, they just simply all jump to the conclusions after so many setups without doing the work to get there. This really needed about half as many characters so that the setup could be done faster, and then it could put more time on the crisis part of this. With all prologue and epilogue, there was no time for a movie in between.
6 2 -
Q
I spent most this film’s runtime wondering if a theater producer had staged a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude a year or two earlier. Occasionally, director Joseph Pevney has cinematographer Harry Stradling dolly the camera into a close-up of one of the actors, and we hear that actor’s voice on the soundtrack reveal to us his or her thoughts and/or memories — just like O’Neill reintroduced soliloquies into the theater by having his characters speak their thoughts directly to the audience. It turns out that the Actors Studio did stage a revival of that play (José Quintero directing and Geraldine Page, Jane Fonda, and Ben Gazzara starring). But that happened 3 years after this film was released. A recording of that 1963…
18 7 -
B
Troy Donahue goes 💥! I wish even more of this movie would have just been the camera zooming in on actors with their inner monologues while they stare off blankly into the distance. It kept happening so often that it felt like a Kids in the Hall skit. It’s both horrible and weird and, if you’re in the right mood, kind of fun. Once the planes FINALLY crash into each other, it’s a real banger.
7 -
T
“No one calls him Captain. He’s Dick to everyone.” My mind shorts out when I try to summarize the many ways in which the disaster movie The Crowded Sky fails. Joseph Pevney, who directed several of my favorite Star Trek episodes – “The Devil in the Dark,” “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “Journey to Babel” and “The Trouble with Tribbles” among them – lends no special touch whatsoever to this just plain weird drama about two aircrafts headed on a collision course toward each other. It’s like Disaster on the Coastliner mixed with Strange Interlude and The Bridge of San Luis Rey (which means also reminiscent of Flight from Ashiya), utilizing extensive voiceovers and flashbacks to the private…
31 -
M
(Man finds his dad who’s a suicidal painter whom he’s always been estranged from in an asylum) “Would you say goodbye to him now please and say something striking, make an impression” “Noah, I guess you’re a great man. Great men are hard to love. I never knew I loved you until I thought you were dead. I’ll be back I missed you.” “Oh my that was a fine goodbye” “You think he understood?” “Well I’m not supposed to tell you but if he looks back while I’m wheeling him away, you’ll know the old man knows you” This thing is super duper turgid and kinda plays like a parody of itself the longer it goes on. This inspired Airplane…
11 -
J
‘The Crowded Sky’ is a painfully tedious film supposedly about two planes on a collision course but it’s instead more focused on long meandering flashbacks and personal melodrama all of which does little to help its characters. I did wonder how they’d make a full film about the risk of a collision which would presumably be resolved pretty quickly one way or another, and the answer is by filling it with any nonsense it can think of. After all that it remembered it promised a collision risk, and to its credit it did bring out some fun model work and effects for that part. Despite the effects it couldn’t find any sense of suspense or danger and it instead treated it like a distraction from getting back to the melodrama.
3 -
P
This movie is so boring. I laughed every time the film zoomed in on someone’s face so we could get voiceover of the character’s thoughts.
6 -
M
If you plan on taking a flight somewhere just make sure Dana Andrews is nowhere around as not only was he in this airline disaster movie but also in the cult classic Zero Hour, which was the film that the comedy Airplane was parodying, and he was also the pilot who crashed into the jumbo jet in Airport 75. Only George Kennedy has had less luck with aircraft. As for The Crowded Sky as a drama it is way way too much of a soap opera for my liking – we get constant camera zoom-ins that lead to melodramatic inner-monologues that then led to interminable flashbacks – and even though the all-star cast give solid performances the film is way too talky to properly call itself a disaster film. Note: Anne Francis plays an incredibly interesting character and her role as an “ex-tramp stewardess” deserved a better movie.
7 -
V
AF和JK烂人真心GB好评。但期待中的JK和DA男同性恨并不咋恨。ACI爱好者找乐子可看这部空难“喜剧”。从未见过flags如此密集的空难故事：1️⃣开军用机的pilot之前已撞机死过仨人-按米国人当时的逻辑这是要在剧情里同等（以死）赎罪的。繁忙空域刚起飞没多久radio就坏了。2️⃣开民航DC-7客机仨人：正副机长有私人恩怨；工程师是个松弛感话唠；起飞前推出直到飞行期间这几个都在cockpit里嬉皮笑脸（感觉笑场镜头进正片）或聊天。3️⃣空管忙个半死52小时没睡老婆在医院要生了。而且他们要飞过天气不好的区域，不撞都不礼貌了……改的小说，灵感大概来自56-57年的DC-7撞机事件，给的HE和实际事故比起来过于轻描淡写。本片还有大量很电视感的角色内心OS时刻（剧本明显年代感厌女alert）
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T
More of a soap opera than a disaster film . A plane will collide with a a jet but first we get the back stories of nearly every passenger and staff person . Some of the situations are quite racy for the time and include lying about a pregnancy and giving up a child at birth that was burn out of wedlock . The cast puts in some good work but m favorite part were the voiceovers of character’s thoughts which were lampooned in “Airplane.”
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B
Some nice looks at vintage air travel but really the only relief for viewers of this film is the FF button
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R
Tepid drama about two airplanes, one a fighter jet, the other a commercial airliner, which are bound to collide in the sky. There’s a strong cast, but a tacky script that bogs down midway through the film. Good work from Dana Andrews, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Rhonda Fleming, John Kerr, Anne Francis, Keenyn Wynn and Patsy Kelly. Directed by Joseph Pevney.
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J
I really wanted to like this airplane disaster movie because it stars Dana Andrews. Couldhave been a good story: commercial passenger plane and a Navy jet are unwittingly headed into a crash. We learn some tantalizing things about the main characters but things are left undone. A few interesting facts and we never get back to it. Better disaster movies out there so I’d skip this one
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J
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A
A Technicolor dream! (I was asleep.)
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S
Silly Eisenhower-era melodramas fucking rule! I mean ffs they give you Troy AND the summer place tune. Airplane stuff Internal monologue Washington DC Based on a book Floozy problems 1960 Where were everyone’s cigarettes? Should they not all be smoking in 1958-60?
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A
Corny Movie and You can see how “Airplane “ The Comedy came from
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R
I’m still stuck on… so before you met him, if you kissed a motherfucker, you would cum, yeah? “Blast off,” as you said? Yknow, to use the parlance of our times. But also like, like, EVERY TIME? Every kiss from some dude and you’re at Cape Canaveral FR? Right. First off, I’d kill for that talent. But more importantly: this guy, this uh… gentleman? Right? You say you “LOVE” him, yes? But you’re able to kiss him and… well you…
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3
Forget the tag line – everyone’s personal business in this film was so out of pocket. Also what WAS the 3rd “pilot” doing other than waiting to fly without a parachute
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P
An extremely languorous film that is best watched now as a peek into the culture of airline travel in the late ’50s/early ’60s. Best for its totally square moments of v/o dialogue for its lame passengers as they contemplate sharing cigarettes as a romantic maneuver or the best method for revenge on exes.
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S
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D
The kind of stuff you throw on in the background when you’re doing other stuff. Like fighting with your fiancee. Which is what I did while this movie was on.
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M
Way too much going on in this movie. I was on board (get it) with the setup, thinking it could be a tense thriller at 30,000 feet or maybe an Airport-style disaster flick. But instead of leaning into that, it gets completely bogged down by the need to flesh out every single character’s backstory, or worse, have them tell it themselves through an endless rotation of inner monologues and narration. And none of it is compelling. Just melodramatic yet mundane life stories that suck all the tension out of the film. Instead of a thriller, it plays more like a soap opera at 30,000 feet.
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D
Wild crazy flick full of suspense and teenage love drama. Big totally enjoyable and done well.
1 -
I
Definitely the movie Airplane took a few ideas from this classic. Either you are going to laugh at this movie and enjoy it or hate it. I understand both ways!
1 -
M
Unfortunately, this is as bad as everyone says it is. Sometimes I like old disaster movies, but this was just a disaster.
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A
Bueno. Una de tantas cintas de producción en estudio. Sincera, algo estandarizada, nada innovadora, pero eficiente.Un poco larga, le sobran 15 minutos, y en algunos momentos carente de interés. En otros, sin embargo, es interesante, sobre todo cuando las voces en off de cada personaje cuentan lo que creen los demás que piensan de él o reflexionan sobre sus miedos, ilusiones y su labor en el mundo. Un recurso que para este tipo de historias es útil, pues hace que…
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D
W. Hale
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K
Better than I remembered! I don’t know why I thought this had not much John Kerr in it. Boy was all over the movie anyway, a decent little drama in the sky. couldn’t help but think of Airplane! every time someone had a narrated monologue
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L
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S
This was a great but horribly underutilized cast. I had so many other more minute issues too, not limited to: – Dale’s fixation on his daughter is creepy as hell. He even compares “the wife she’ll make one day” to his current wife and I just had no words for that. – Rhonda Fleming had different colored top and bottom lips the entire film. – Anne Francis deserved a raise and a much better love interest.
1 -
L
Joseph Pevney’s action disaster drama about a Navy jet and a commercial airplane travelling for a mid-air accident. Starring Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Hank Searls, which was published in this year, the story concerns Dale (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), a pilot, who understands that his flight is on the brink of striking a commercial airline. The two pilots and the passengers think about their individual difficulties in their…
6 -
J
‘The Crowded Sky’ is a painfully tedious film supposedly about two planes on a collision course but it’s instead more focused on long meandering flashbacks and personal melodrama all of which does little to help its characters. I did wonder how they’d make a full film about the risk of a collision which would presumably be resolved pretty quickly one way or another, and the answer is by filling it with any nonsense it can think of. After all that…
3 -
K
One of two films that inspired “Airplane!” and I can see it. This is such a hilarious mess. Zoom in to hear character’s thoughts. So much tragic backstory for everyone. Characters die with nothing more than a “poof.” Anne Francis plays an “ex-tramp” who had to forcibly give her child up for adoption and her boyfriend’s like “that sucks.” I can’t say I didn’t have fun with it.
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SSteve Hill 3 月 2, 2023
One jet flies in one direction, one airplane flies in another. Can disaster be averted? For much of its runtime, this film follows a well-trodden path of many an airplane disaster feature – the juggling of the many characters and their own triumphs and tragedies. And then about 20 minutes before the end you realise that ‘The Crowded Sky’ may be the greatest movie ever made. OK, so that might be an exaggeration. Still, ‘The Crowded Sky’ is so damn…
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M
This is gloriously terrible and hysterically funny and Rhonda Fleming is in it. I was tempted to give it five stars.
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J
Weird, tonally erratic drama with an airline-disaster overlay. Navy flyer Dale Heath (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) is flying east with a sailor (Troy Donahue) trying to get home to Washington D.C. In D.C., a transcontinental flight captained by Dick Barnett (Dana Andrews) heads west toward Los Angeles with 62 passengers aboard. See where this is going? About four-fifths of this movie’s 105-minute running time is spent filling in the angst and backgrounds of both the flyers in the Navy fighter jet…
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Q
I spent most this film’s runtime wondering if a theater producer had staged a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude a year or two earlier. Occasionally, director Joseph Pevney has cinematographer Harry Stradling dolly the camera into a close-up of one of the actors, and we hear that actor’s voice on the soundtrack reveal to us his or her thoughts and/or memories — just like O’Neill reintroduced soliloquies into the theater by having his characters speak their thoughts directly to the…
18 7 -
R
Entertaining melodrama about a midair collissionm drawn form real events. The cast features a lot of B-list actors betteer known for their TV roles, plus the ridiculously beautiful Troy Donahue. Dude couldn’t act, but he was extremely telegenic, at least until his alcoholism wrecked his looks.
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L
this was playing on tcm at the same time as the afternoon/early evening block of several back-to-back episodes of air disasters reruns, and i got to say, i wish i’d gone with air disasters! that said, the frequent Dramatic Zooms sent me to the fucking stratosphere more than once
1 -
J
Hilariously awful “disaster” movie that is almost all wretched interpersonal drama, with little to no actual disaster. The movie is a laughable gathering of hammy actors tripping over each other to deliver the most cringe-worthy performance. Almost as funny as “Airplane!” but with none of the laugh-out-loud moments being intentional.
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B
Thanks to “Airplane!” this soap opera disaster film plays more like a comedy than a hard-hitting drama. Before the destined midair collision between a Westbound commercial flight and an Eastbound military flight, every passenger and member of the crew have a flashback. Worse every one of these flashbacks are cued by the camera zooming into their face as the audio drops out, and the audience can now hear the characters’ thoughts To make it even more silly on some shots…
3 -
M
I love disaster movies more than most, but unfortunately I did not love this one. Although John Kerr’s voice and acting style reminds me a lot of Peter Riegert, and I quite enjoyed that.
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M
(Man finds his dad who’s a suicidal painter whom he’s always been estranged from in an asylum) “Would you say goodbye to him now please and say something striking, make an impression” “Noah, I guess you’re a great man. Great men are hard to love. I never knew I loved you until I thought you were dead. I’ll be back I missed you.” “Oh my that was a fine goodbye” “You think he understood?” “Well I’m not supposed to tell…
11 -
G
Soap opera but great models as usual by Warner Brothers’ special effects department.
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S
Seeing this film reveals one source of the inner dialog moments in “Airplane.” And “The Crowded Sky” borrows the use of flashback sequences from “The High and the Mighty” to fill in needed exposition and backstories. One almost needs to keep notes in order to remember which set of personal problems belongs with which character, be they pilots, cabin crew, passengers, or those who stay on the ground. Consequently, we don’t get to know enough about most of the characters to care much about the plot resolves each one’s situations.
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C
“I just love banana splits. Is it all the wonderful mixed-up flavors, or is it something Freudian?”— Rhonda Fleming as Cheryl . I enjoyed this one. Maybe a little—naw very much corny with the flashbacks and the darkened zoom up on the passengers faces, but it’s entertaining for the HUNGRY jokes the screenwriter hides in the dialogue, establishing the freedom of filmmaking in 1960, and of course the all star cast is a treat; personally I was attracted to the…
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L
Never before have I waited so long to eventually see a plane crash. There’s a delicate balance in disaster films whereby, over the course of the film, you get to see a range of characters interact with one another or reassess themselves as they’re pushed through a crisis. Of course, that requires the crisis. The Crowded Sky gets so busy in trying to build up so many characters, however, that it feels like they forget they’re supposed to have a…
6 2 -
L
First 90 minutes – soap opera backstories Last 10 minutes – EPIC DISASTER!
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E
“Your mother!? Actors don’t have mothers, they are the only people on earth who give birth to themselves.” I watched this movie after seeing the publicity stills of Rhonda and I honestly should have left it at that. It was nice to see Patsy Kelly in one of her later films, albeit a small role, but she still brings so much personality.
2 -
V
Interesting story with interesting and quirky characters. I initially watched this for Dana Andrews, and was quite underwhelmed by his character, Dick Barnett, and his story in the film. Hated the lack of follow-up after Heath and McVey’s crash. What happened with Heath’s daughter, Ann? Did she end up going to boarding school still? And what about his soon-to-be ex-wife? Sucks that there was no mention of them post-crash. I enjoyed the mini plot lines of the “geese” and the romance between Mike Rule and Kitty Foster.
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B
A lot of good actors are wasted in this Grand Hotel in the sky melodrama.
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B
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T
“No one calls him Captain. He’s Dick to everyone.” My mind shorts out when I try to summarize the many ways in which the disaster movie The Crowded Sky fails. Joseph Pevney, who directed several of my favorite Star Trek episodes – “The Devil in the Dark,” “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “Journey to Babel” and “The Trouble with Tribbles” among them – lends no special touch whatsoever to this just plain weird drama about two aircrafts headed…
31 -
F
Airplane! must’ve had this film in its sights but damn it if it isn’t thrilling and fun.
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T
I thought this would be like a ‘70s disaster movie just ten years earlier, but it’s actually a lot more interesting. It invests in the emotional lives of the people who are eventually going to get caught in the disaster. It’s almost a sort of riff on Thornton Wilder’s Bridge of San Luis Rey. Sure, the drama is thinly drawn and handled roughly, but I enjoyed the approach.
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C
Hokey in the extreme… And because of that it’s great fun to watch.
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B
This movie is a beautiful disaster, one of those cases where the three stars don’t mean unremarkable but a tug of war between great and absolutely terrible. The John Kerr/Anne Francis storyline involving a reformed slut, generational insanity and the most demonic painting I have ever seen on film (and yes that includes the picture of Dorian Gray) is certainly the most compelling, but honourable mention to the moralizing family drama where Dana Andrews’ son starts throwing raucous teenage orgies…
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R
Airplane April II You can’t beat the unintentional comedy of earnest 60s melodrama. This movie is mostly flashback scenes but every time a character has a flashback the camera zooms in on their staring face and we hear their inner monologue and every time it happens I thought it was funny. If someone could edit this movie to replace the monologues with new comedic dialogue that’d be great.
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B
“The Crowded Sky” joins “Zero Hour,” “The High and the Mighty,” and others as pre-“Airport” films. Like weddings and road trips, commercial flights make for stories that involve different subplots and characters, so this type of film is done fairly often. “The Crowded Sky” has high production values and a decent cast – Dana Andrews, Efren Zimbalist Jr., Rhonda Fleming, Troy Donahue, John Kerr, and Anne Francis. It’s an episodic tale about two planes, one a navy jet with a…
3 -
T
Stryker? Is that you? Dana Andrews is back in the cockpit for another mid air disaster made three years after Zero Hour. This film builds up to the big moment by showing the lives of the pilots and passengers through flash back and a little film noir-like narration. Along for the ride in the cast are some notables to round out the ensemble. Rhonda Fleming Efram Zimbalist, Jr of Maverick & The FBI John Kerr from South Pacific Anne Francis from forbidden Planet.
1 -
M
If you plan on taking a flight somewhere just make sure Dana Andrews is nowhere around as not only was he in this airline disaster movie but also in the cult classic Zero Hour, which was the film that the comedy Airplane was parodying, and he was also the pilot who crashed into the jumbo jet in Airport 75. Only George Kennedy has had less luck with aircraft. As for The Crowded Sky as a drama it is way way…
7 -
C
Although the real suspense that classifies this movie as a thriller doesn’t occur until the last half hour, the majority of the film focuses on the troubled and complicated lives of the pilots of an airliner prop plane and a navy Air Force jet; very much in the story format is of a good novel. The Blue sky background littered with air traffic and Rhonda Fleming’s glowing red hair is intensified in technicolor. However, I felt that the ending was…
1 -
J
The constant dives into the minds of the characters is charming at first, but wavy flashbacks got to be a bit much for me. I’m familiar with the techniques, but have always seen them used in parity, never in a film seeming to be a serious drama.
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D
The Strange Interludes among the passengers and crew are head-shakingly absurd.
1 -
J
every possible cliché is trotted out, possibly for the first time. there had be gay man behind film. just look at all the really attractive masculine men, and way the women keep calling themselves tramps.
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T
Fair
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P
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G
another airplane disaster movie great cast they r the fuel that makes this go.
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J
Ridiculous disaster airplane film. One of the worst films I’ve seen starring Dana Andrews. Tons of flashbacks and inner-monologue drive this into the 1-star end of the pool. For serious Dana Andrews or Anne Francis fans *only*.
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M
Not to be missed.
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B
I remember life before I saw this movie… *flashes back to life before this movie*
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DDFvideodiary 10 月 1, 2018
“How does she handle?” “Sluggish…, Like a wet sponge…” Awesome dullard ‘disaster’ epic with pilot Dana Andrews on a collision course with a fighter jet. AIRPLANE! (1980) ripped this off a lot, so it’s a must see for fans of that. Check out Dana Andrews repeating his plank-tastic acting in HOTRODS TO HELL (1967).
1 -
M
Extremely boring disaster film takes the worst of the genre and just hammers it into the crowd. Dana Andrew plays the Captain of a commercial flight and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is the Captain of a Navy jet who find themselves on a collision course but they don’t know when they’re going to hit due to various issues. Before the crash we get to learn about their issues with a cheating wife and a disappointed son as well as the personal…
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G
Più che un prototipo di Airport è un Peyton Place in aria e in aeroporto, visto che la suspence dura quattro minuti finali, ma per arrivarci c’è un campionario abbastanza banale di mélo coevi. Dana Andrews non rilassa mai la mascella e Rhonda Fleming bada solo all’acconciatura. Quasi sessant’anni dopo, all’inizio di Feud, Aldrich (Alfred Molina) ne rinfaccerà il sonoro fiasco a Jack Warner (Stanley Tucci).
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M
Talk, talk and more talk. They talk, and then they talk. Flashback: talk, talk, talk. Brief scene inside the plane: talk. Voice-over: what people are thinking (talk). Is something terrible about to happen? Is anything about to happen in this movie? With less than 20 minutes to go, it’s not too likely, but something does happen eventually. Was it worth the wait? Not really. Some good acting from Anne Francis, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Keenan Wynn.
2 -
D
It’s an odd little film, and I wonder if there isn’t some sort of propagandizing at the back of it: “See what can happen without a strong air traffic control network? Write your congressman and let him know YOU want ATC to get plenty of federal funds.” I watched it out of idle curiosity, wondering whether it would ever get interesting rather than wondering what would happen (I won’t give anything away, but even if you don’t read the synopsis…
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J
A passenger jet and a Navy fighter are on a collision course in the sky over the southwest of the United States. FINISH LATTER
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T
- Synopsis
- When Navy pilot Dale Heath takes off, he doesn't expect his navigational equipment to fail and must adapt when it goes out along with his radio. Heading straight for a commercial jet piloted by Dick Barnett, whose plane is full of passengers, Heath can't tell which way to turn in order to avoid a catastrophe.
- Director
- Joseph Pevney
- Writer
- Charles Schnee
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Pictures
- Country
- USA
- Language
- English, Italian
- Year
- 1960
- Runtime
- 105 mins
- USA02 Sep 1960
- UK04 Dec 1960
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