No Highway in the Sky (1951) User Reviews

Inspiring, entertaining, and prophetic gem of a film

[Dennis-81 · 8/10 · 31 August 1999]

I first saw "No Highway in the Sky" when I was 11 years old. What has always impressed me about the film is the fact that it shows how the courage of the little known people of the world can accomplish a greater good. Theodore Honey (Jimmy Stewart's character) is a written-off by his peers, superiors and the outside world as a strange sad little man. He is a widower, and a single parent. All he has is his daughter and his work to keep him going.

But he is also single minded in his pursuit of his knowledge and his craft. He gathers his data, forms his postulate and relentlessly pursues his goal regardless of the establishments thinking on the matter. When he realizes that he or people that he has met and starts to care for may be injured or killed if does not act on his theory, he has the moral fortitude to act to save their lives and prevent tragedy. Unorthodox, yes. Odds against him? Yes. Do you admire him? YES!!! Dr. Honey versus British Government and British Airways is prophetic. (e.g. The British Comet disasters of the early 50's happened after this film was made) (Also think about the engineers at Thiokol battling NASA over the Challenger launch) James Stewart, a pilot himself, shows us that this courage of facts versus opinion and profit is the courage that should be encouraged and rewarded.

35+ years later, I am an engineer and I owe a great deal of it to this film.

Good cast in gripping Nevil Shute story.

[mainefred · 7/10 · 13 March 2005]

Too few of Nevil Shute's great stories found their way into film, and this is one of the better ones. The book, however, is more suspenseful, as the reader wonders whether the transatlantic flight carrying the metallurgical engineer will make it across or crash. In the movie, the suspense is missing, because you know that no studio will allow Jimmy Stewart to die midway through the film. Also, in the book the engineer is a bit of a religious fanatic, and this has understandably been purged from the film. Still, it's a good yarn, well played by Stewart, Marlene, and a very fetching Glynis Johns. The special effects are what you might expect of a movie of this vintage, and a remake, in color and with computer graphics, might be worth doing. Really worth doing would be other Shute novels, like Pastoral, The Chequer Board, and, especially, Trustee from the Toolroom.

Nothing Like Becoming Part of Your Own Experiment

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 1 February 2006]

No Highway marks both the reunion film of James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich and Stewart's second film with Henry Koster as director. Stewart never played an intellectual before, but he's quite convincing here as the absent minded aeronautical scientist.

Stewart is a widower who is Rhodes Scholar, an American who decided to stay in Great Britain. He married and had a daughter, but his wife was killed in the blitz and he's raising his daughter in the off-time between his scientific projects.

His interpretation of a man who in his grief has just buried himself in his work is very well handled. We first see the way he lives after his new boss Jack Hawkins gives him a lift home. His daughter Janette Scott is a bright little girl, approaching her puberty though and not real well equipped to handle it.

Stewart is convinced that a new type metal alloy used on a new line of aircraft passenger planes will weaken after so many hours of flight and cause crashes. Hawkins urges him to report his suspicions, but the ivory towered Stewart refuses until his scientific calculations have been thoroughly checked out.

All of a sudden he gets good and personally involved in his own experiment. He's flying to Newfoundland and learns he's on one of those planes he considers defective. He is a respected scientist and people listen to him, like stewardess Glynis Johns and traveling film star Marlene Dietrich.

Of course when the tail section does not fall off in the time he thought, Stewart is made the object of ridicule. He disables the same plane he was on which was making a further stop in Montreal.

I think you can guess where this one is going, but it's a pleasant journey nonetheless. Stewart did in fact another variation of this same character in Dear Brigitte for Henry Koster and with Glynis Johns as his leading lady. Of course that film isn't as good.

Janette Scott said that during the filming of No Highway, Marlene Dietrich was kind and gracious to her and gave her innumerable pointers on how to act and react before the camera. Stood her in very good stead in Scott's later career.

Poor Marlene, two films with James Stewart and she didn't get him in either. Of course during Destry Rides Again they were in the midst of a torrid affair and it was a more important film for both of them.

For the film is about aircraft design without any derring do heroics, No Highway has no pretensions. Stewart since his service in the Army Air Corps in World War II was a well known advocate of air power and this maybe the best of his films concerning that subject.

Obscure and underappreciated

[tonyu-2 · 5 September 2001]

Evidently not many people have heard of this movie. I saw it when I was a kid in the 1950s and was impressed, being an aeronautics buff even as a child (and still so today). The story revolves around a new advanced design commercial airliner called "Reindeer", in service in the UK and an aeronautical engineer (portrayed by Stewart) who suspects that the aircraft might have a design problem that could result in a structural failure of the vertical tailplane from metal fatigue... an at-the-time relatively new field of science in aviation. After one of the airliners is lost in a crash (and the tailplane is not among the wreckage) Stewart's character (Theodore Honey) begins testing of a production tailplane in a large research lab, vibrating it to see if, after a carefully calculated number of hours of vibration, the tailplane will suffer a structural failure. His theories about the proposed failure of the lab test subject tailplane assembly after a select number of hours of vibration are reinforced by a similar number of flight hours on the first airliner that was lost, which confirms his convictions that the crash was indeed the results of a structural failure brought on by metal fatigue.

The problem is that Mr Honey is a bit of a recluse and eccentric, a widower and single parent, and considered a bit of an odd duck by his contemporaries. However, he has credentials and his work is taken seriously enough to allow him to convince his employers to conduct the structural design lab tests, even though they do not really take him seriously on his metal fatigue theories and for the most part seem to be simply patronizing him... ...until Honey finds himself traveling via air and the airplane he gets onto happens to be a Reindeer... with enough acquired flight hours on the airframe to be dangerously close to the failure point according to his calculations. Honey, upon realizing that the airplane has the "required" flight time on the clocks to be in danger, embarks upon a quest to do something about it as only an eccentric genius can, and the story takes off from there (again, no pun).

The combination of a laid-back American actor like James Stewart and a somewhat abrupt British cast tends to accentuate Stewart's Theodore Honey, a normally reserved but very absorbed engineer caught up in his work, surrounded by a pack of hustle and bustle Brits. It's quite a contrast. Good support from Glynis Johns as the stewardess aboard the Reindeer and Marlene Dietrich as movie star Monica Teasdale, also a passenger aboard the airplane, both of whom get caught up in Honey's apprehension and fears of an impending disaster that he is certain is staring them in the face, although nobody else really takes any of it seriously... until Honey takes matters into his own hands after the airplane lands without incident and he learns that it's scheduled to remain in service in spite of his rather uncharacteristically loud and spirited pleas to have it grounded. His solution to keeping the airplane grounded until his lab tests are concluded is certainly an interesting turn of events.

Considering the vintage of this film (1951) it has decent F/X and remains a bit of a period piece, demonstrating how air travel used to be done before mass transport Jumbo Jets and economy class seating. This film is an aviation enthusiasts sort of movie as well as a story of the little guy who believed in his convictions and the few people around him who believed in him as a person... even though they may have doubts about his work and his theories.

Good cast across the board, with some standouts like Jack Hawkins who is always fine, and Marlene Dietrich who at first seems to be there solely as Star Appeal although after a bit of time passes, her presence becomes more and more genuine. There is some good character development in this film, albeit sometimes a bit rushed and the ending is also rather abrupt... but typical of many British films of the period. All and all, it's a film well worth watching for the fine performances and the engrossing story... and as a sidenote, for the look back at the way the fledgling airline industry and how it was coming into its own.

It also inadvertently provides a sobering point to ponder since this film was produced several years before the British De Haviland Comet jet airliner entered service and disastrously became aviation's first great example of the potential for a catastrophic structural failure caused by a design fault, which although corrected quickly, still didn't save the airliner from the stigma it suffered when several crashed after they experienced explosive decompression at high altitude from something as simple as having cabin windows too large and the wrong shape.

The British airline industry must have collectively flashed back to this film during the mid-1950s and the Comet's woes, and how prophetic "No Highway In The Sky" must have seemed at the time.

This film also includes some considerable supporting talent, almost all of which went uncredited, such as Kenneth More and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

Good adaptation of the book

[lyrast · 7/10 · 2 December 2011]

Having recently read "No Highway In the Sky" by Neville Shute, I watched the 1951 film "No Highway |with James Stewart playing Theodore Honey, Marlene Dietrich as the aging film star, Monica Teasdale, and Glynis Johns as the stewardess Marjorie Corder who takes a shine to Mr Honey {as does Monica Teasdale},

Of course, compression is inevitable when transferring a novel of several hundred pages to a film running only 98 minutes, but it is remarkable how true to the source the director Henry Koster remains despite the fact that some plot elements seem rushed through. Stewart manages to get across the eccentric scientist fairly well, though the character in the novel is considerably more complex. The same could be said of the two female leads, though Glynis Johns does have more opportunity than Dietrich to establish her character. This is primarily owing to the fact that the Corder part is far more developed after the Gander incident than that of the actress.

Dennis Scott, the primary narrator in the novel is here played by Jack Hawkins who certainly makes his subordinate film role quite effective. In fact, the simplifying of Scott's place in the plot is actually an improvement on the novel, as Shute has difficulties in transferring points of view between characters who are miles apart and are still being filtered through the perceptions of Dennis Scott. The film abandons the first person perspective and thus completely solves that difficulty.

A major change is made to the character of Honey's daughter Elspeth. She never has the accident, is taken care of by the Scotts, and is more mature and less child-like than in the novel. But Janette Scott makes the most of these changes and creates a very convincing and sympathetic character indeed.

The characters in the novel who are most diminished are Shirley Scott and Captain Samuelson. Shirley Scott {Elizabeth Allan} is quite an important figure in the book but here her important relationship with Elspeth and her rapport with her husband seem nearly completely ignored. The Captain {played well by an uncredited Niall MacGinnis} has for some reason two of his most important functions--his distrust of the Reindeer aircraft and his knowledge of and respect for the the pilot of the crashed plane-- assigned to another character who is dropped from the plot quite early.

It is quite surprising that the expert and effective ensemble acting of so many of the performers is uncredited. This includes the work of Douglas Bradley-Smith, Felix Aylmer, Kenneth More and even an appearance of the silent star, Bessie Love. It's rather a pity because their work helps create the vivid atmosphere and verisimilitude of this excellent film.

Should be better known

[SHAWFAN · 10/10 · 3 January 2011]

I had never heard of this movie when I saw it tonight on TCM. I found it quite rewarding and intriguing as I watched it. The characters growing in their self awareness and in their relationships to one another was a touching aspect of the story. But the high point in the movie to me was Stewart's stand-up defiant and strenuous response to the board of inquiry, so different from his usual retiring character. It brought back those other moments in his previous movies when he stood up to the powers-that-be, such as in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and told them to stuff it. That was quintessential Jimmy Stewart. I'm surprised that none of your other comments took note of this great dramatic moment in the film. I certainly agreed with the majority of your reviewers that this was one fine movie which should be better known.

Grandfather of Air Disaster Films

[DKosty123 · 7/10 · 17 November 2017]

This film is really quite amazing. It is kind of the first type in a genre of films where technology is used as the main stay in a plot. Nevil Shute who later would be involved in the film "On The Beach" wrote this one. The story holds up pretty well though the technology looks dated now.

James Stewart , Marlene Dietrich, and Glynis Johns head up a talented cast about a new technology passenger plane called the "Reindeer" which gets into the air without being properly tested for possible problems. After a crash, Theodore Honey, a math wizard, gets called in to investigate a crash of the plane and why it failed. While flying on another Reindeer, he finds out that they are in danger of a crash.

The chemistry between Dietrich, Johns, & Stewart helps to carry the story. There is also a strong supporting cast including the pilot of the plane who carry the plot. When watching this, I could not help but feel not just the prelude to movies like "Airport" but the humor of Stewart is very much in evidence too. The earnest efforts of the cast and a well written script carry this film well.

While the special effects are still being developed for this type of film in 1951, the script creatively makes the drama feel like there is more action than there is. This film is enjoyable, especially for fans of the cast, and in some ways predicts where future films will go after this film was made.

Watched this movie 10 times

[tbsuta · 10/10 · 10 January 2019]

Jimmy Stewart was one of the most unassuming actors. Why anyone would give this movie low ratings is beyond me. I guess being an engineer I can relate. So well done, the writing. acting, etc... I'd take this movie above any of the garbage coming out of Hollywood these days. Although the ending was a bit obscure, any engineer would take the climate into theoretical calculations. In electrical engineering always take temperature extremes when designing circuits. Heat transfer into heat sinks is a big deal.

An NBC Saturday Night at the Movies staple

[dimplet · 7/10 · 10 July 2013]

Way back in the 1960s NBC pioneered the concept of showing movies in prime time on network television with "Saturday Night at the Movies." However, you got the feeling the Hollywood studios were not enthralled with allowing their best stuff to get overexposed, and NBC wasn't going to spend a lot on the movies, either. So they were a bit old and usually black and white, not that many people had color at the time.

Two films kept getting shown over and over: The Day the Earth Stood Still and No Highway in the Sky. I remember going over to a friend's house and seeing these movies, more than once. I wonder if NBC was trying to tell the public something: aliens in Washington and plane crashes. Of the two, The Day the Earth Stood Still has become a classic, but No Highway has been forgotten, except by me.

I still remember elements of the movie: the odd shaped tail falling off, and the advice to sit on the floor of the men's room if the plane is crashing. However, I assumed there was more of a whistleblower conflict to it, with the plane manufacturer trying to cover up the flaw, as in modern, real-life scenarios, when actually they wanted to figure it out, too, in the movie.

Over the years, when a plane crashed with some defect or whatever, I usually thought of this movie. By the 1960s when it was on TV, it was generally known that there had been real-life incidents similar to those in the movie, specifically, the British Comet in the 1950s. So I suspect No Highway was influential, though, sadly, not enough.

I guess NBC got this cheap because it was a British movie and they were showing it outside its main market, in America. It's a movie that was a bit futuristic at the time, but dated quickly. It was a purely fictional, futuristic plane that no plane could realistically look like inside, especially the absurd kitchen; a little turbulence and the coffee and plates would be broken on the floor. But in the 1950s or even early 1960s few people had flown, and fewer across the Atlantic, so who knew? No the director.

The movie tapped into the fear of the dangerous, new mode of transportation. Who doesn't have some fear of being on a plane that is going to crash? But the science and the aviation technology is rather mixed up; a turboprop with dialogue about a piston engine, and some strange idea of nuclear fission of aluminum alloy caused by vibration producing the fracture. Huh? It would have been more effective to talk about the then new jet engines causing some mysterious vibration to trigger the fracture.

The Theodore Honey character is rather over-baked, at least early on. WTF is a boffin? Is the British director trying to ridicule the American scientist? In the end, Honey is vindicated, so no harm done. The contrast between Honey initially not figuring humans into his equation and later on the plane being intensely concerned, shows that the character is integral to the plot. And the excessive faith in precision is shown to be somewhat mistaken in the final outcome, a point that bothers me, the viewer.

It should be noted that Jimmy Stewart as a pilot based in England flew numerous bombing missions over Germany during WWII. So criticism of his portrayal I think is misplaced, and it was probably a matter he felt strongly about.

Essentially, No Highway is an early disaster flick without the disaster: somewhat shallow characters, some romance, a what's going to happen to them thing. I think it would have been stronger if it had been more realistic and The Establishment had been engaged in a cover up. Remake?

Despite its obvious flaws and sorely dated aviation technology, it is an interesting and important film. Everyone involved in the aviation industry should see it, including the folks at Boeing and Airbus, and all the airlines, especially Asiana.

When there is the probability or even just possibility of something going very wrong, each individual has the responsibility to speak up, regardless of consequences. That is the lasting lesson of No Highway in the Sky, and why it is still worth watching today.

Great drama with a great deal of humor...

[markystav · 9/10 · 25 July 2004]

This is one of the better examples of how to craft a drama with just enough humor to lighten the load at just the right times. Most of the credit has to go to Jimmy Stewart, who infuses his character with hilarious absent-mindedness. We constantly have a chuckle at Theodore Honey, yet all the while we are witness to his personal metamorphosis from disinterested and detached scientist to caring and energetic activist.

The whole movie uses technology as the vehicle within which the protagonist lives, works, and eventually changes, but this movie is not about nuts and bolts; it is ultimately about personal transformation - Nothing is the same for Mr. Honey by the end of the film. The joy is watching the transformation, bit by bit, as events literally overtake him.

Fine drama loses steam in second half

[fwmurnau · 7/10 · 2 July 2005]

A highly original idea and script and a top-notch cast make this worth seeing. James Stewart (the most underrated of American male stars), Marlene Dietrich, and Glynis Johns all shine in their roles. No "star" showboating here, just fine, detailed, thoughtful, intelligent acting all round.

The first half of the film is quite gripping, centering on passengers aboard an airplane that may or may not be doomed to crash. It's so suspenseful that the film's talky second half drags in places and is a bit of a let-down. Two romantic subplots fizzle and the story turns into a fairly dry parable about a "detached" scientist's need to connect more directly with the people in his life. The trouble is, this conflict isn't very original and always seems more theoretical than dramatically compelling.

Not a good idea to switch genres mid-film from gripping suspense to talky domestic drama! Maybe the reverse would have been more effective???

Still, the movie works overall and deserves much credit for its unusual subject matter (standards of proof in science, and safety issues in transportation), its often incisive writing, and its excellent cast.

Recommended for all audiences.

A gem

[Gatorman9 · 8/10 · 13 February 2010]

***SPOILER ALERTS*** I finally caught this little gem last night when it showed up on hulu and am delighted I took a chance on it. It treats the trials and tribulations of a metallurgical scientist employed by the British Royal Aircraft Establishment, who prognosticates that its latest and greatest achievement, a new flagship trans-Atlantic passenger airliner, has a fatal design flaw that has resulted in one catastrophic accident already with more inevitable as time goes by. When faced with what he regards as yet another imminent disaster, he turns what has been to that point purely a laboratory investigation into a defacto personal crusade. While the science in this thing is decidedly weak (the concept of the fatigue failure mechanism, while not unrealistic in and of itself, is grossly oversimplified and peppered with references virtually alchemistic in their arcane irrelevance), the thing that makes the movie special is the crafting of the characters.

While in real life Jimmy Stewart was a life-long aviation enthusiast who was an accomplished civilian and combat pilot and even a brigadier general in the United States Air Force Reserve, here he is cast as just the opposite -- a classic laboratory-bound research type who by modern standards (c. 2010) is apparently afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's is a kind of autistism disorder that often seems to elevate the intellectual potential of certain people in mathematics and other technical fields while impairing their social functioning to a highly visible extent. (It has become popular in some parts of the news media to sometimes attribute Asperger's to the even some of the most successful people in the tech industry.) The fact that during the events that make up the plot Stewart actually becomes emotionally connected enough to his fellow human beings to risk everything he has to save their lives represents a something of a watershed moment in his character's life.

Marlene Dietrich, in turn, comes across as one of those movie actresses you hear about sometimes who is a star not only on but also off the screen, an insightful lady who is very sure of what she knows and what she can do, regardless of what others might think, and who is as absolutely fearless in her own much more sociable way as Stewart can be in his awkward way in taking charge and asserting herself where she sees the need. One can't help but wish one could meet such a figure in real life, someone who manages to achieve great success in their field while exuding tremendous grace in spite of the fact that they evidently do things very much their own way. Interestingly, unlike Stewart, she actually draws back from the opportunity to make a watershed moment in her own life, withdrawing from intervening in his world to abruptly return to her own. It would be fascinating to pick the writers' brains over the real-life inspiration for characters such as these.

The more minor characters are equally intriguing for their believability in certain respects. Jack Hawkins is cast as the diametrical opposite to Stewart: broad-shouldered and granite-jawed, he could brush someone like Stewart's character aside effortlessly if he so chose, yet instead he is the soul of grace and consideration, always striving to be connected with and agreeable to other people, including most notably Stewart, whom he almost instinctively seeks to support from the first moment he meets him. His boss, in turn, treats the viewer to a very nicely nuanced performance of a bureaucrat trying very hard to do the right thing while keeping all the balls he is responsible for in the air.

Moreover, contrary to what other reviewers have written here, one of the noteworthy things about this movie is that every responsible person in the film takes Stewart's misgivings about a defect in the aircraft seriously; it is just that none of them does so with the same sense of conviction and urgency that he does. Especially visible in this regard is the captain of the particular aircraft at the center of the story, who in a striking display of professionalism goes entirely against his own gut reaction and instead implements every logical precaution imaginable in response to Stewart's near-hysterical warnings, short only of the most effective one, canceling the flight altogether. Indeed, even though this means that he must take non-pilot Stewart's advice and shut down two of the engines in flight and cause the plane to arrive an hour and a half late, he not only does so, but does so on his own initiative without clearing it with his superiors on the ground, and then he even further delays his trip by postponing his next take-off until a thorough inspection can be completed. The point is, his clarity of thinking and decision-making in spite of his emotions is admirable, and like everyone else shown in this film in no wise is he characterized as a fool (except to the extent "wiser" heads tend to so paint Stewart, ironically). Rather, as with the rest of the cast, he comes across as the most responsible person imaginable given the slight amount of information available to him, i.e., Jimmy Stewart's generally incomprehensible, even wild-eyed, theorizing.

And finally, perhaps the most believable aspect is the irony of watching Stewart's immediate superiors actually wishing actively for the failure of the test bed aircraft in Stewart's lab so that their organization will save face in light of the extreme nature of his activities, even though it means that the aircraft program overall will prove a very big, expensive, high-profile failure!

The novel is poorly constructed

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 31 October 2013]

No Highway in the Sky (1951) was once held in extremely high esteem by critics and moviegoers, even though its second half is disappointingly dull and irredeemably long-winded. True, it's all very attractively photographed by Georges Périnal (in now old-fashioned black and white), and none too flashily directed by competent, steady-as-she-goes Henry Koster. It's also a fact that the introductory sequences are commendably brisk and that the middle section in the plane brings the proceedings to a nice mid-movie climax. It's a shame that it then peters out. If only the actual climax was a lot more interesting than two off-camera reports and a none too thrilling on-camera test can make it! To add to the movie's problems, Jimmy Stewart over-acts and turns his character into a caricature. True, all the characters are pasteboard figures, but Marlene Dietrich makes a game try to give her Monica Teasdale (silly name!) some depth. And many of the British players like Ronald Squire, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Kenneth More, Dora Bryan, Jack Hawkins, Niall MacGinnis and company, contribute excellent work. Unfortunately, that second half of the movie is irredeemably anti-climactic and solidly disappointing.

Absolute improbable and stupid ending

[Catharina_Sweden · 4/10 · 1 April 2015]

The ending was so stupid here, that it would have destroyed the whole movie for me even if I had liked it up to then (which I mostly did not). It is absolutely impossible that a great scientist should not have thought about the fact, that you have to have the same temperature when you repeat or compare experiments. This is an absolutely basic thing that you learn in science class already in high school!

Despite from this, I did not like James Stewart in this role. I like him a lot in his typical persona, a nice, kind, considerate, honest and decent man. But not timid and nerdy as in this part. It felt entirely wrong.

Also, I did not understand what Marlene Dietrich was doing there? She filled no function at all. The scientist could have had all the talks he had with her with the air stewardess instead. Having TWO women as some kind of love interests for him, only spread it thin.

The basic idea is a little interesting though: how far would you go if you knew, or thought that you knew, that a lot of people were in great danger? And no one wanted to listen to you? At the same time as a lot of other things were at risk if you interfered - and it turned out that you were wrong? I think it is useful for us all to think these moral issues through in a fictional context so to speak, because I think that will make us more ready if we ever find ourselves in a situation like that in reality.

An Underated Inteligent Thriller

[theowinthrop · 28 April 2004]

This movie is one of the few films about airplane disasters that really goes into the fundementals of design and construction problems. For it deals with metal fatigue, and how it causes an apparently marvelous airplane to become a death trap. The film is well written and acted by Jimmy Steward, Glynis Johns, Marlene Dietrich, and Jack Hawkins. There is nothing to say about that. I only feel that it is interesting to think of the author of the screenplay, Nevil Shute.

His real name was Nevil Shute Norway. He is remembered for his writing, in particular the novels A TOWN NAMED ALICE and ON THE BEACH. But he was also an aviation engineer. Working for Vickers, he helped design all types of aircraft. In particular, he helped in the building of the zeppelin R-100 which Vickers designed in a contest between private industry and the government. A Labor government in office was trying to demonstrate the superiority of government sponsored projects over private industry. The R-100 proved a perfectly adequate zeppelin, that did a maiden trip to and from Canada safely. The government sponsored R-101 crashed on its first voyage in France, and killed 44 out of 48 men on board, including the Secretary of State for Air, Lord Thomson (who had pushed the project) and most of the government's aviation experts. Shute wrote a very good account of his career as an engineer, and of the R-101 Tragedy, entitled SLIDE-RULE. I recommend reading it if you ever get a chance. It helps explain the experience he brought to the writing of NO HIGHWAY.

Strange for Hollywood

[newday98074 · 7/10 · 18 April 2007]

Highway plays like the scenes were spliced together at random, far from the way Hollywood would usually build a blockbuster. It is more like a European art film that values characters and relationships more than plot, but it isn't quite that either. Oddity alone makes it interesting and any film with Stewart is going to have a sincere tone. As a tech movie it falls flat. An aeronautical engineer overlooking the fact that temperature affects metal fatigue is on the order of a builder forgetting to put a roof on his house. That said, the performances, surreality and Stewart make it worth a watch. (Johns never made it big but she is perfect for this role, just ditzy enough.)

An Interesting Film

[Maestro-15 · 8/10 · 10 January 1999]

This is one of James Stewart's lesser known films made during the post WWII period when Stewart was unsure what direction his Hollywood career would take him. I recently discovered this film on cable and found it to play somewhat like a long "Twilight Zone" episode where Stewart's character who is a scientist tries to convince the pilot of a transatlantic flight that the airline's structure will collapse and that everyone will be killed unless they turn back. Fine performances by Stewart and the supporting cast make this a watchable film.

Sterling adaptation

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 23 January 2019]

NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY is a sterling adaptation of a popular Nevil Shute novel of the day. In it, a pitch-perfect Jimmy Stewart plays an absent-minded engineer who becomes convinced that a prototype passenger aircraft has a deadly fault. The problem for him is that his calculations are based on mathematics alone; his physical tests will take weeks to conclude and in the meantime the aircraft is in use around the world. What follows is part human drama, part character study, part man-against-the-system journey, and part suspense thriller. The plane set-piece is a real highlight, but the whole film stands out. The casting is also very good, with Marlene Dietrich essentially playing herself, Jack Hawkins as the sole ally, and Glynis Johns as a sympathetic stewardess.

An engineering classic?

[kdm042 · 8/10 · 14 January 2002]

This movie is a great example early stress testing methods, even though the lead character (Mr. Honey, played by James Stewart) is a stereotypical scatterbrained genius. My favorite scenes were of the models and the vibration test chamber at the beginning of the film. The story is pretty compelling to watch, as Honey comes face to face with the horrible reality of his theory. Stewart puts a very human touch on what could have been a two-dimensional B-movie stereotype. He is just eccentric (in modern lingo, nerdy) enough to make you laugh, but when he stands up for something, watch out!

Naturally, engineering stories don't draw large audiences, so the only way I could finally see this movie was to spend $19.95 to buy it online. The money was well spent. My rating is 8 / 10.

Nobody ever had as sane a freak-out as Jimmy Stewart...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 7 April 2006]

Rather unpleasant melodrama, released abroad simply as "No Highway", has fidgety scientist James Stewart flying in a crowded plane that he believes will suffer from metal fatigue; convincing the other passengers they are in great danger becomes quite a problem. Although the film stretches out its central course of action to the breaking point, resulting in some highly annoying theatrics, this is perhaps the ideal showcase for Stewart to exercise his now-perfected brand of nervous shtick. He stutters and stammers trying to make his logistics palatable, only causing consternation. Stewardess Glynis Johns, pilot Niall MacGinnis, and cool-headed actress Marlene Dietrich each attempt to decipher Stewart's post-textbook noodlings, and all performances are exceptional. Otherwise, it's a straightforward "disaster" movie, approached squarely, without much suspense. **1/2 from ****

This picture deserves a Gander.

[cliffjohns36 · 9/10 · 28 March 2011]

Very interesting & entertaining English film. Well directed and acted, too. The slightly autistic and introverted aeronautical engineer, as portrayed by James Stewart, while mostly credible, makes a late discovery that indicates a recently developed plane's structure will fail from metal fatigue after exactly 1440 hours of flying time (and not just approximately 1400 hours, mind you!). That was the single flaw in the film that kept it from rocketing to a full 10 for me. A competent A.E. (which the character is supposed to be) would simply not overlook as common a variable as temperature gradient when projecting structural failure, even in the early days of aviation. But on the positive side, there was continuous suspense, realism, and a good pace exercised throughout this film without any sensationalism or the stretching of credulity. The characters were fully believable, and the basic story itself is a fascinating one. Score another for the British film makers!

Engaging up to a point...

[jt_3d · 7/10 · 15 June 2010]

Jimmy Stewart shows his immense talent playing an unappreciated genius and he does it very well. His acting is top rate in this role. It is a very good story...right up until the end.

I've watched this flick three times over the years and every time I do the end really, really bugs me. It's like they ran out of money and just decided to close it down. When you watch it you're engaged and you're waiting for the next event and then it slams the door in your face.

Mr. Honey gets vindicated but there's no satisfaction. And the whole math is exact and cannot lie is annoying and unrealistic. 'The figures cannot lie but they seem wrong - *CRASH* Oh, here's the reason why our numbers were off. THE END' is a bit ridiculous. Our genius engineer failed to take any varibles into account. Only Jimmy's character makes me not hate engineers for an hour and a half.

Be that as it may, this is a very engaging movie about an airliner that Mr. Honey is convinced is going to crash and he tries to get them grounded. Don't ask why the aircraft manufacturer has a guy who doesn't do anything but sit around trying to figure out how to break their new plane when their own engineers, and presumably he is one, have certified it as safe.

At any rate I have to hand out a 7/10. The movie is very good until the last eight minutes or so.

A fun, touching, unique, and warm film--about an airplane disaster. Yes!

[secondtake · 8/10 · 3 January 2011]

No Highway in the Sky (1951)

Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart team up again, after the crazy and rather terrific "Destry Rides Again," for a very different kind of movie. It has cornball humor, sentimental romance, rosy idealism, and weirdly enough, a criticism of aeronautics that was not far off the mark.

Stewart plays an odd duck scientist--the type made popular earlier by Gary Cooper in "Ball of Fire" (1941) and Cary Grant in "Bringing Up Baby" (1938) and which Grant furthers (much more amazingly) in "Monkey Business" the next year. Stewart, in this movie, makes it fun and then makes it wholly life or death.

Dietrich gets to play herself, basically--a famous movie star, and one who feels weary of the world. Utterly charming is a third lead, of sorts, Glynis Johns, who is a stewardess made of gold. As the plane they are on faces trouble, they each deal with Stewart in their own ways. And then, later, they continue their involvement with him back on earth. It's touching and funny. Yes it's improbable, but in such a charming and well done way, all is well.

I really enjoyed this film, partly because of the cast, and partly because it has so many surprises and twists to it. It has elements of screwball to it, but it's something of its own, as well. Recommended.

Fatigued

[ctomvelu1 · 6/10 · 6 December 2009]

An odd little film about airplane fatigue and failure, NO HIGHWAY depends heavily on its strong acting. There are no action sequences or explosive special effects. A scientist (Stewart) determines a certain brand of airplane is about to lose its tail section due to metal fatigue. Unfortnately, he works this out while flying aboard one of these planes. He tells his story to anyone who will listen. Once on the ground, he damages the plane's landing gear to make sure it cannot take off again. Then comes extensive testing of the plane -- and the scientist, who may be crazy. Even he's not sure. Based on a novel by Neville Shute, a popular writer of the period, it presages real-life events that began happening in the mid-1950s, well after the novel and movie came out. The drama and suspense, as such, come from the dialog and interaction among the cast, which includes Marlene Dietrich and Glynnis Johns. NO HIGHWAY was a no-budget British film, and your tolerance for it will largely depend on your affection for Stewart, who is in his best Elwood Dowd persona.

Complete waste of time

[tiffanie_says_stay_in_your_lane · 3/10 · 26 December 2023]

While most people were watching It's a Wonderful Life, I decided to spend the rest of my Christmas night picking up from where I left off with No Highway in the Sky. I have to be honest - while it did seem promising, once the plot actually started, I found myself thinking this was an absurd and half-baked film. I haven't seen enough of James Stewart's movies (this is only the second one), so I can't make a conclusion, but it seems like he always played flaky characters. Granted, in this particular film, he was convincing as the socially awkward scientist Theodore Honey, an American transplant living in England and working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. The story opens with him doing a fatigue test on a plane. The chief of metallurgy, Mr. Dennis Scott (Jack Hawkins) gives him a ride home. At first, he goes to the wrong house. Once he's able to remember where he lives, he welcomes Scott inside, and he's introduced to his daughter, Elspeth (Janette Scott), who is about 12 or so. When Scott goes upstairs to her bedroom, he seems quite taken aback when she starts showing him her projects and such. She has a deep fascination of math and science, thanks to her father. But, I guess because this was filmed in the early 50s, it was peculiar for a girl to have interests that fell outside of the realm of what was deemed acceptable by society's standards. It's clear that Theodore is isolating her from other children, and she needed the influence of a woman for her personal growth and development, since her mother had gotten killed during the war. It was apparent that Theodore couldn't provide her that, not only because he was a man, but also because he wasn't introducing her to anything else besides science. So the audience gets the basic picture that he's an absent-minded professor type who's extremely devoted to his career, and is just trying to do his best as a single dad. At this point, I was feeling hopeful about the film.

Once he gets on a plane headed to Labrador to survey the wreckage from a plane that had crashed, referred to as the Reindeer airliner, that's when the story goes downhill. When he finds out he's riding on another Reindeer, he starts acting really anxious. First he tells the stewardess, Marjorie (Glynis Johns) that the plane is going to crash just like the previous one, then he tells one of the passengers, a movie star named Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich). They're both uncomfortable by his nervous behavior, and his talk about where to go if the plane was to crash, and how they're all going to die if no one listens to him. So, since he's not taken seriously by anyone, pilots included, guess what he does? He purposely sabotages the plane. Wow, that made a lot of sense! The only reason I watched to the end is because I was curious, but it only became increasingly unrealistic. A few scenes later, the stewardess is pretty much living with him, acting as his wife - ironing his clothes, tidying up the house (didn't see that coming). And Ms. Teasdale is buying his daughter clothes. She walks through the front door with giant ribbons in her hair, and her whole bedroom has gotten a makeover, including frilly window curtains. Towards the end of the movie, she tells her father that kids are starting to talk to her at school, and that she's become popular in a sense. Before they ignored her, because she was "different." We never find out if she adopts her new identity, or if she goes back to being a nerd/tomboy. Obviously, you can't look at an old movie from a 21st century perspective, but I was bothered by how the females were portrayed. There's nothing wrong with a girl having scientific hobbies. It doesn't make her abnormal or less feminine. For instance, I don't see anything unusual about a girl playing with a chemistry set instead of dolls. But then again, I'm the product of having been raised during a time of social progression. Also, Ms. Teasdale saying she didn't understand a word of what Theodore was trying to explain to her in regard to the plane, but she could tell when a man knew what he was talking about. And then Marjorie wanting to marry him, even getting so overcome with emotion that she broke down in tears. Give me a break! This film was dated. The only reason I gave 3 stars was for the acting. Everyone seemed believable in their roles, especially James Stewart. But like I mentioned above, his character was such a nutcase, that it was honestly hard to have any kind of pity for him. I don't think he was a poor actor... Just that he wasn't in the most groundbreaking of movies. I'll have to watch more of his films - I'm thinking about giving Rear Window a try - but I ended up being quite disappointed with No Highway in the Sky. I don't plan on watching this again. Unless you're old-fashioned, an aviation enthusiast, or both, it won't appeal to you.