Island in the Sky

Island in the Sky Information

Island in the Sky is a 1953 American aviation adventure drama film written by Ernest K. Gann based on his 1944 novel of the same name, directed by William A. Wellman, and starring and co-produced by John Wayne. It was released by Warner Bros. Due to its realism depicting the events surrounding an actual aircraft crash, it is considered one of the "classic" aviation films.

Plot

The film follows a pilot and crew of a World War II-era Douglas C-47 Skytrain (the military version of the DC-3) who try to survive after a forced emergency landing in the uncharted wildlands near the Quebec-Labrador border. The pilot, Dooley (John Wayne), is a former airline pilot, who, like many others, was pressed into duty hauling war supplies across the northern route to England. Icy conditions force the aircraft to land, and with the difficulties of navigating far from settled country, they can provide only an approximate position to rescuers.

After finding a frozen lake for a landing field, while waiting for rescue, Dooley must keep his men alive in the extreme winter cold with temperatures plummeting to -70 degrees F. Back at Air Transport Headquarters, Col. Fuller (Walter Abel) gathers fellow airmen (played by Lloyd Nolan, James Arness, Andy Devine and Paul Fix) who are determined to find the downed crew before hunger and the winter do them in. Wellman provides internal narrative for the stoic characters. There is tension and a fear-filled meeting among the search pilots when no one is quite sure about what to do, since a wrong decision could doom the missing crew.

Main cast

John Wayne as Captain Dooley
Lloyd Nolan as Captain Stutz
Walter Abel as Colonel Fuller
James Arness as Mac McMullan, pilot
Andy Devine as Willie Moon, pilot
Allyn Joslyn as J. H. Handy
Jimmy Lydon as Murray
Harry Carey, Jr. as Ralph Hunt, Moon's co-pilot
Hal Baylor as Stankowski
Sean McClory as Frank Lovatt, Dooley's co-pilot
Wally Cassell as D'Annunzia
Gordon Jones as Walrus
Frank Fenton as Captain Turner
Robert Keys as Major Ditson
Sumner Getchell as Lieutenant Cord
Regis Toomey as Sergeant Harper
Paul Fix as Wally Miller
Jim Dugan as Gidley
George Chandler as Rene
Louis Jean Heydt as Fitch, pilot
Bob Steele as Wilson
Darryl Hickman as Swanson, McMullen's radioman
Mike Connors (as Touch Connors) as Gainer
Carl Switzer as Sonny Harper, Stutz's co-pilot
Cass Gidley as Stannish
Herbert Anderson (as Guy Anderson) as Breezy
Tony De Mario as Ogden
Fess Parker as Fitch's co-pilot (uncredited)
William Wellman as voiceover narrator (uncredited)

Production

The script was based on a true story about a flight on 3 February 1943, although, unlike the story of the film, the co-pilot did not die. In his autobiography Fate Is the Hunter " on which the movie of the same name is very loosely based " Gann related the true story and his role as one of the search pilots while serving with Air Transport Command at Presque Isle Airfield, Maine.

The rights to the story were originally bought in January 1950 by Robert Stillman Productions, and Gann planned to write the screenplay with Seton I. Miller. Frank Rosenberg was scheduled to produce the film, which would star Richard Widmark. When Stillman dropped the film, the rights were picked up in December 1952 by Wayne-Fellows Productions, the partnership of John Wayne and Robert Fellows, as their third of seven eventual productions " including another Gann story The High and the Mighty a year later, which Wayne also co-starred in. The two movies shared many of the same production staff and crew members, including director William Wellman.

Wellman had been a pilot with the Lafayette Flying Corps during World War I, where he earned the nickname "Wild Bill", and with the United States Army Air Service after the war. He was a veteran aviation movie director whose Wings won the first-ever Academy Award (1927"28). Wellman did the voiceover narration that begins the film, and his two sons, Tim and Mike, who were eleven and five at the time, played the parts of Andy Devine's sons. It is notable that the women in the film, Ann Doran, Dawn Bender and Phyllis Winger, appear only in brief flashbacks or, in Doran's case, in a telephone conversation. The lack of a romantic interest was noted by critics who considered the film a more authentic and gritty drama compared to the usual Hollywood war movie. Wellman, who generally was not well liked by actors and actresses (a feeling that he reciprocated), was known to prefer to work with men, and many of his films are set in all-male (or nearly all-male) worlds.

The role played by John Wayne in Island in the Sky goes against type, since he does not display the machismo for which he was often criticized. Instead, his portrayal of the downed aircraft's captain had been noted as believable and realistic. A strong ensemble cast of mainly studio B-actors actually contained a number of future stars, including Fess Parker, James Arness, Darryl Hickman and Mike Connors, who all went on to television fame. The film involves many realistic details, such as an ice pick kept handily embedded in a barracks wall so pilots can break the ice sheet on their morning wash water. The black-and-white cinematography by Archie Stout (dramatic scenes) and William H. Clothier (flying scenes) have been praised by critics.

Production began in late January 1953 and was completed on 2 March. Filming took place partly at Donner Lake, near Truckee, California in the Sierra Mountain range. The California Forestry Service cut down trees in that area to make aircraft runways in the four ft deep snow. Some background shooting also took place in San Francisco. Besides writing the screenplay, Gann, who was a commercial pilot for Transocean Airlines, served as the film's technical director and also piloted a C-47 for the second unit.

The hand-cranked emergency radio transmitter used by crew members to try to contact the rescuers they assume are looking for them was an actual piece of equipment, a BC-778/SCR-578/AN-CRT3 emergency transmitter affectionately called "Gibson Girl" after the 1890s drawings of Charles Dana Gibson. The narrow-waisted shape of the device allowed the user to hold it between the legs while cranking it – a necessity because it required 80 rpm to produce enough power to be usable, and was hard to crank.

Similarities to The High and the Mighty

Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty are unique as they are two of the earliest all-star disaster films, which paved the way for Airport and its sequels 20 plus years later, as well as the Airplane! parodies. Both films are also two of the early John Wayne co-productions that starred Wayne. This production practice would not become widespread until the 1980s and 1990s, when stars from Robert Redford to Sandra Bullock took control of productions. Both films were aviation dramas and shared many of the same crew members and production staff.

Along with Wayne, six actors appeared in both films: Regis Toomey, Paul Fix, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Ann Doran, George Chandler and Michael Wellman (the director's son). Ernest K. Gann, the author of the books on which both films were based, also wrote the two screenplays.

Release and re-release

Island in the Sky premiered in Los Angeles on 3 September 1953, and went into general release two days later. The premiere apparently featured the use of stereophonic sound, as an intermission had to be inserted because of problems with it.

Both Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty were out of circulation for about 20 years because of legal issues. They were restored, returned to television in July 2005 and released as special edition DVDs that August.