I can't imagine why this film is not more widely known, or more highly valued. I finally caught up with it a couple of years ago on DVD, and was absolutely blown away. This is not only one of the Duke's best performances, it's a tense, entertaining film of rather eerie beauty.
The basics seem familiar enough. A transport plane has to put down in the snowy wilds of Northern Quebec. We follow both the desperate search efforts, and the hopeless fight for survival of the frostbitten crew. Wayne is anything but his usual sterling self: irrational, angry, frustrated. The other parts are filled very effectively by square-jawed regulars, including James Arness, Lloyd Nolan and Andy Devine.
But the real star is the sense of silent, snowy isolation. The title says it all: this film really makes you feel lost on a frozen island surrounded by empty, barren sky. It makes you feel the sense of hopelessness, knowing just how tiny the odds are of being found. And it does this in a subtle, understated way, almost like a film noir, without the pat melodramatics of the following year's The High and the Mighty. This film shows tough, experienced airmen behaving just about as you'd expect, while keeping the real focus on the detail of the rescue flights. Because, above all, Island in the Sky is a film about flying and fliers.
Director William Wellman probably deserves the lion's share of the credit. He's not exactly a household name any more, but he was one of the most reliable directors in Hollywood. There's no Wellman signature style, as such - but films like Yellow Sky, Across the Wide Missouri, The Ox-Bow Incident, even the silent Wings, all bear a similar feeling of solidity, of efficient storytelling in the best Hollywood manner.
It's amazing to read some of the derogatory reviews that have been posted. As a sometime pilot myself, I find the film more than credible enough. Sure, it rounds off some of the corners, but then it's an early-1950s Hollywood entertainment, not a 21st Century documentary, and works perfectly on its own level. (Far, FAR better than The High and the Mighty, which is resolved by the copilot encouraging the pilot to do something idiotically dangerous, for which in real life they would both surely have been grounded, IF they survived, which they probably wouldn't.)
Equally surprising are some of the complaints about continuity. This film uses real aircraft, and must have been an enormous logistical challenge for Wayne's production company. No, it's not absolutely seamless by the standards of today's $200 million productions. But it is internally consistent and beautifully evocative, which should be more than enough for anyone.
Island in the Sky is gripping, thought-provoking and kind of mystical, in its own unique way. It reminds me of the films of Val Lewton - a Hollywood 'formula' entry that manages to soar unforgettably beyond the limitations its genre.
The basics seem familiar enough. A transport plane has to put down in the snowy wilds of Northern Quebec. We follow both the desperate search efforts, and the hopeless fight for survival of the frostbitten crew. Wayne is anything but his usual sterling self: irrational, angry, frustrated. The other parts are filled very effectively by square-jawed regulars, including James Arness, Lloyd Nolan and Andy Devine.
But the real star is the sense of silent, snowy isolation. The title says it all: this film really makes you feel lost on a frozen island surrounded by empty, barren sky. It makes you feel the sense of hopelessness, knowing just how tiny the odds are of being found. And it does this in a subtle, understated way, almost like a film noir, without the pat melodramatics of the following year's The High and the Mighty. This film shows tough, experienced airmen behaving just about as you'd expect, while keeping the real focus on the detail of the rescue flights. Because, above all, Island in the Sky is a film about flying and fliers.
Director William Wellman probably deserves the lion's share of the credit. He's not exactly a household name any more, but he was one of the most reliable directors in Hollywood. There's no Wellman signature style, as such - but films like Yellow Sky, Across the Wide Missouri, The Ox-Bow Incident, even the silent Wings, all bear a similar feeling of solidity, of efficient storytelling in the best Hollywood manner.
It's amazing to read some of the derogatory reviews that have been posted. As a sometime pilot myself, I find the film more than credible enough. Sure, it rounds off some of the corners, but then it's an early-1950s Hollywood entertainment, not a 21st Century documentary, and works perfectly on its own level. (Far, FAR better than The High and the Mighty, which is resolved by the copilot encouraging the pilot to do something idiotically dangerous, for which in real life they would both surely have been grounded, IF they survived, which they probably wouldn't.)
Equally surprising are some of the complaints about continuity. This film uses real aircraft, and must have been an enormous logistical challenge for Wayne's production company. No, it's not absolutely seamless by the standards of today's $200 million productions. But it is internally consistent and beautifully evocative, which should be more than enough for anyone.
Island in the Sky is gripping, thought-provoking and kind of mystical, in its own unique way. It reminds me of the films of Val Lewton - a Hollywood 'formula' entry that manages to soar unforgettably beyond the limitations its genre.