MovieChat Forums > The High and the Mighty (1954) Discussion > *SPOILER* Trying to look past things to...

SPOILER Trying to look past things to give credit

posted 19 years ago by cptpepper67
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After much anticipation, I watched this movie on AMC. Although I would say that I generally can see this film's merits, there are just parts of this story which leave me shaking my head. In reading through the discussion board and user comment sections, I can see that others share some of this "let down".
I'm sure some of these questions would be answered if I read the book upon which the movie was based, but some are solely things in the film.

First, what was the cause of the "problem"? The first indication of a problem is recognized by the flight attendant in the aft section of the cockpit. This problem seems to be an unusual vibration which she notices when sees her reflection shake in an aluminum-faced cabinet. At the exact same time she registers this anomaly, the co-pilot, John Wayne's character Dan Roman, also seemingly senses the vibration, but since the rest of the crew doesn't acknowledge it, he doesn't remark about it. Then, later into the flight, a strong shudder occurs in the tail section of the plane and Wayne goes back to investigate, but sees nothing noticeable. As an aside, that was cool to see the pulley system that operates the tail wings. Still later, the pilot, Robert Stack, is resting in the rear of the cockpit and notices that the engines are "out of phase". Again, after the pilots look at the instruments, they dispute there is anything wrong and Stack is muted. Finally, a passenger unbelievably discharges a gun inside the cabin and one of the engines catches on fire. The lost engine then ultimately is the "problem" for the remainder of the film. Based on the outcome of the film, I somewhat suspect that all of these early symptoms, with the exception of the gunfire, are nothing more then red-herrings meant to forebode a problem. As far as the gun discharging, that one has me completely puzzled. Again, the way the film shows it, it seems that the gun's discharge and the fire on Engine #1 are complete coincidence and are not cause-and-effect. However, I just can't believe that a gunshot inside a cabin didn't cause some problem.

Second, what about cabin pressure? This is definitely an aviation question, but it wasn't explained in the film. In all of the later airplane disaster films, the planes have pressurized cabins. I'm assuming that pressurized cabins became essential for jumbo jets to reach altitudes of somewhere around 20,000 ft. Since the plane in this film is not a jumbo jet, I seem to recall that they mention they are at 9,000 ft. So, at 9,000 ft, if you open a plane's exit door or shoot a hole through the hull, you won't get sucked out?

Third, isn't the whole storyline with the gun completely unbelievable? Like someone else stated in their user comments, I can accept someone boarding a plane with a handgun in 1954. In fact, I can still pretty much buy that premise even post-9/11. However, I can't believe, even in 1954, that there are no consequences to shooting a gun in an airplane. I mean, regardless of how innane the shooter's reasons are, he endangered the entire airplane and he's scarcely detained while onboard, he's never reported to the ground, the authorities are never notified, and there is no one waiting at the airport to arrest him (he skips off to make a phone call to his wife). That subplot is so unbelievable that it seems intenionally planned by the filmmakers as a means to draw attention to security concerns at the time. I mean, if I were around at that time, after seeing that film, I would gladly have frisked my fellow passengers. It was like the Wild, Wild, West-era of aviation.

My last question is about the Tiomkin score. When the opening credits rolled, I clearly saw "Lyrics by Ned Washington." Naturally, I expected somewhere along the way to hear the lyrics to the song. However, on the AMC presentation, I only heard the theme whistled. Did I miss something?

Moving past all these questions, I can definitely see the merits of this film. I think the movie was seminal in laying down the formula for getting backstories introduced. That bit of dialogue between the clerk and the flight attendant during the boarding procedure was pretty riveting and essential. I think the first film I recall which attempted to introduce so many characters' stories was maybe "Poseidon Adventure" which is like 20 yrs after this film. Of course, though, one thing this movie did was really shine a spotlight on the genius of parody achieved by Zucker-Zucker-Abrams in "Airplane!". In much the same way that you can appreciate Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" after seeing the original "Frankenstein" with Boris Karloff, "The High and The Mighty", I think, will, for better or worse, be intertwined with "Airplane!".

[–] chipe 19 years ago

Yes, I read recently someplace that the theme was only sung at the end, but in last night's AMC telecast, it was not there, no end credits either.

[–] cimarron-5 19 years ago

The theme was sung only during the first roadshow showing of the movie, and then it was cut. It's my understanding that it was in there only for oscar consideration at that time.

[–] Scrivener3000 19 years ago

As far as a gunshot causing loss of cabin pressure -- that would not happen. Cabin pressure in modern, high-altitude jet airliners is maintained at whatever level is required by a system that constantly pumps air into the cabin. To regulate the pressure, one or more large valves let it out. The openings are regulated continually.

If a person were to empty a large-bore gun through the side of an airliner, the drop in pressure (which would not be very great) would be instantly compensated for by the valve openings shrinking somewhat. And yes, I am a pilot.

In any case, the airliner in the movie, of the DC-4 family, was not pressurized.

[–] marbleann 19 years ago

I remember seeing this movie on tv before Airplane came out and thought it was similer. BUT actually it is the movie Zero Hour which Airplane is a paroday of. Same exact plot, food poisoning and all and the character names are almost the same. But of course it was serious. Dana Andrews was the star. Now that movie is not even out on VHS. I think a lot of people think it is the High and the Mighty that Airplane is imitationg because of Robert Stack. But I believe the writers of Airplane even have Zero Hour in the credits. Zero Hour was written by Arthur Hailey who wrote Airport. I sure would love to see them release Zero Hour.

[–] cptpepper67 19 years ago

Well, I think, as is the case with most parodies, it's the entire genre that is being drawn from and not just one particular movie. So, I think we can all agree that you can see elements of several movies ("Zero Hour", "The High and the Mighty", "Airport" and all of the sequels) being used in the final mix of "Airplane!". IMO, any parody gets its strength from the audience being familiar with ALL or most of the elements of the genre being employed and not just one particular piece of it. That way it is almost like the audience is in on the joke on a very subtle level from scene to scene.

For example, the scene where the nun sings folk songs to the sick girl is completely derivative of "Airport '75" in which Helen Reddy's character sings to Linda Blair's character who is in need of a kidney transplant.

And, again, the scene in which the soldier is boarding the plane and his girlfriend and he are saying a long farewell was admitted by the directors to have been lifted from a 1940s movie.

As far as specific scenes referenced out of "The High and The Mighty" and being parodied in "Airplane!", I'd say the use of flashback scenes, and some of the cockpit, flight control, airport approach, and final landing scenes all pay homage, at least in part, to Wellman's "THATM". For example, using a flashback to tell a character's backstory is a parallel between Stryker's "drinking problem" and Dan Roman's family tragedy. And, the obvious parallel of the landing lights' resemblance to a cross. Just to mention a couple.

And here's just a general point about viewing the source of any parody. It is kind of a disservice to the whole genre, which in and of itself is derivative, to cite just one movie as the source of the parody. Furthermore, it is a disservice to try and weigh one movie against the other. I mean, "Goldfinger" and "Dr. No" are no less of movies after the release of "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me". What's the old saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"?

[–] marbleann 19 years ago

No they actually say the movie is a parody of Zero Hours. THey gave writting credit to Arthur Hailey and the other writers of Zero Hour and also the teleplay the movie Zero Hour was based on. THe movie is the exact same movie . THe characters even have the same name. Look up Airplane.
I do know what you are saying but all disaster movies look similer to me. They all have the same type of characters. The lonely older women, the eccentric man, the suicidal person, the couple who are not getting along. I saw a movie with Robert Merrill who was the sole survivor of a plane crash, he went to see the people families who died. Before the crash we got to learn the characters on the plane. Same type people as in this movie. Then there was this James Stewart movie who invented something on a airplane and he predicited the airplane was going to crash because of some malfunction. Same characters. All of those Airport movies too. Even in movie like Towering Inferno we have the same back story's to get us to care about what happens to the characters. But Zero Hour even had the stewardess and the food poisoning everything was the same. The funny thing most of these disaster movies are so cheesy they are all funny to me. THe funniest are the worst ones like the Airport movies where the plane ended up in the water and the one where George Kennedy who was a mechanic all of a sudden is a pilot and the one with Alain Delon. Earhtquake with Veronica Principal in a Afro wig and Marjoe as a pervert and Loren Greene playing Ava Gardners father and Charlton Heston trying to play a 20 year old. They are hilarious.

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] cjburke-1 19 years ago

I think the Arthur Hailey book was named "No Highway"; the pilot and co-pilot both ate the fish dinner. I remember this because of feeling very proud that a Canadian airline (Maple Leaf Airlines, a parody of then Trans Canada Airlines, now Air Canada) was involved. It was a charter and the Hero talked his way onto the plane.
As for modern airplanes flying above 25,000 feet, yes there is SEVERE depressurization until all is equal with the outside. The D-C 4 at 9,000 feet would have had no problems because pressurization was not a problem. Passengers were quite comfortable at that height.
I was all of 12 when I saw "The High and the Mighty", and remember enjoying the movie very much. I must admit to enjoying "Airplane" even more! It was too funny!
Love the Blogs,
Thank-you,
Streeter

[–] USS_Ranger_Vet 19 years ago

First, the gunshot thing was poorly done, even for 1954. The man would have been restrained in some manner and turned over to authorities. Of course, the premise may be that everyone simply forgot about it as being inconsequential in light of how close they had just come to death.

As Scrivener3000 pointed out, there would be no "explosive decompression" as the movie studios would have us believe. First reason is that the DC-4 couldn't maintain an altitude that would require pressurization. That altitude is generally considered to be 10,000' MSL. Second is as Scrivener3000 explained. In fact, this myth was debunked on the show Mythbusters. They tried to get explosive decompression. With a high powered pistol they simply punched a hole in the window. To get a movie studio's result they had to resort to high explosives and blow out a huge section of skin. Interestingly enough, dummies properly strapped in were not sucked/blown out. Another interesting observation on this is that the DC-6 had come out in 1947. It was pressurized and was able to maintain altitudes in excess of 18,000' and 300 MPH.

As for not doing anything about the vibration, what exactly would they do? Okay, we have a vibration. Turn around and go back. Without good tangible evidence that there was a problem, there was absolutely nothing that could be done. Pilots, and all other professionals, develop 6th senses about their aircraft, car, whatever. But, they are also taught to believe their instruments. I find nothing out of line with Dan Roman's reaction. Unfortuneately, there was insufficient empirical evidence to shut down the #1 engine prior to its letting go.

[–] johnfschultz 19 years ago

Actually the DC-4 (and even DC-2's and DC-3's) were capable of flying above 10,000 feet. This was routine for Panagra (Pan American Grace Airways) as they flew in the Andes. One of the regular airports was La Paz at about 14,000 feet! (The purser would go up and down the cabin with an oxygen bottle, letting each passenger have a few breaths of oxygen on each trip.)

[–] USS_Ranger_Vet 19 years ago

I don't believe I said they couldn't. They couldn't maintain flight levels greater than around 10,000' as a matter of safety. Certainly the DC-3's, the C-47's, flying the hump from Burma to China consistently flew in excess of 10,000'.

I don't remember what the actual danger altitude is for humans, but 10,000' has always been used as the altitude for most people to go on oxygen. People in really good shape could go much higher with out suffering oxygen deprivation.

[–] drpayne 19 years ago

Almost all the hump flying was C-46 Curtis Cammandos.

[–] drpayne 19 years ago

The DC4/C54 had a service ceiling of 24,000MSL and routinely operated above 12,000 required for oxygen. You just put the masks on when you flew that high. Yes the DC6 was in use but many airlines were still flying the Pacicfic routes in DC4's or mostly demilitarized C54. Most of the passenger birds had oxygen maskes for passengers and it was not unusual to have them don them if you get over the weather at 16 or 18 thousand.

[–] cptpepper67 19 years ago

Thanks for that explanation. I've recently caught onto Mythbuster's, too. I saw an episode where they debunked the explosive ending to the shark in "Jaws".

About the vibration issue, I maybe wasn't clear. I wasn't faulting the crews reaction to that at all. The only thing I was trying to get a handle on was the cause-and-effect or the connection between the vibration, the shudder, the gunshot, and the engine fire. I mean, there is a whole series of things going on with that plane. However, the film, IMHO, doesn't explain how or if they interrelate. Drpayne's explanation below helps to sort all that out.

[–] drpayne 19 years ago

Remember this movie was made in 1954. The aircraft in the movie is a Douglas DC4. Many airliners were NOT pressurized in 1954. People did routinely carry handguns on aircraft. The first aircraft hijacking had not occured yet. I do agree that the engine problem is not made clear in the movie. This is probably because of an artistic difference between the director and the technical advisor. Ernest K. Gann was the technical advisor, the author of the novel and the airline captain who experienced the situation in his flying career that inspired the novel. The engine fire was not THE problem - it was A problem. The vibration was caused by a problem in the prop governor - the device that adjusts the the pitch of the propeller blades to keep the propeller turning at a safe speed. The "out of phase" is usually referred to as "out of synch" and is the condition when the propellers are not turning at exactly the same speed. Even in 1954 there were mechanical gadgets to synchronize propellers but one of the hallmarks of a "real" pilot was his ability to keep the 4 engines in perfect synchronization by manually adjusting the propeller pitch controls. Passengers sitting in wing seats would notice out of synch props the quickest. It was usually the sound rather than the vibration that you noticed - kind of a "wumo-a-wump-a-wump" sound. The passenger would complain to the stew about the noise and she would get on the captain's case about synching the props. Talk about a putdown! Most of the airline information packets in this era had an explaination in them about propeller synchronization so that is probably why it was assumed that the movie viewers would understand why Wayne and Stack didn't realize the full extent of the problem at first. What happened next was a run away propeller. When the governor failed completely it caused the propeller to overspeed. This was also a not too unfrequent happening. The overspeeding propeller was a very common event in many WW-II era movies about bombers and was part of the normal vocabulary of people who enjoyed aviation books and movies. If a propeller oversped there was a mechanism installed to "feather" it. The would turn the propeller blades perpendicular to the relative motive of the aircraft and cause the propeller to stand still. It was the feathering device that did not work in the movie. Here is the sequence of events.
1) The govenor started acting up - prop would go out of synch and then come back in synch.
2) The govenor went completely kaput and the prop began to overspeed - SOP was to shutdown engine and feather the prop and continue on 3 engines - no big deal.
3) The feathering mechanism failed and the propeller kept going faster and faster - windmilling.
4) The fire in the movie (in the wrong place-I'll bet Gann lost sleep over that) was because of the heat from the friction of the overspeeding propeller. 5) The heat got so intense that the propeller came off of the engine. The reason for the tail inspection was that propellers usually hit the tail - if they hit anything - when they fly off.
6) The engine fire caused by the frictional heat weakened the engine mount and made the engine droop down out of its streamlined position. This increases aerodynamic drag which means that it takes more fuel to go the same distance.
7) After they get the fire out and everythings settles down they notice the fuel problem. The propeller had struck the wing and punctured a fuel tank.

I hope this helps fill in the blanks for you. Technically this movie is one of the most accurate that I have ever seen. Item 6 is kind of a stretch but it actually happened to Gann so he wrote about it. Item 7 is subtle. If the fuel tank puncture had been discovered at once it would have been no big deal. At this point in the flight (near point of no return) they had burned enough fuel out of the other tanks that they could have used the fuel transfer pumps to pump fuel from the leaking tank into a good tank. The leak shown in the movie was not that severe. But of course then there would have been nothing to make a movie about.

This movie (and book) is a soapbox for Gann's philosophy that he later expounded completely in his best seller "Fate is the Hunter". He strongly believed that aviation disaster never had a single "probable cause". They were always a series of controllable problems that stacked up in such a manner that they became uncontrollable. "Fate is the Hunter" is a great movie also.

I have had a tape of "The High and the Mighty" recored from a TV broadcast that I watch at least once a year. The DC-4 cockpit scenes bring back memories of the finest aircraft I ever shoved the throttles on.

[–] cptpepper67 19 years ago

Wow, thank you so much for that cogent explanation. I assume then that you read Gann's novel on which the movie is based. I had a feeling that either the screenplay dropped out some details or that AMC's "edited for tv" removed key elements (at least key to my understanding of the events).

Regarding the tail inspection, I didn't get at all that the inspection was to check to see if the propeller had struck anything. The shudder that precedes and makes necessary the tail inspection never got explained as far as I could tell.

I know after the plane is on the ground and everyone is milling around it, you can see the wing and the crippled engine. But the scene went by so fast that I didn't pick up anything other then the obvious signs of a fire. The overspeeding, out of synch, and windmilling completely explain what was leading up to the full failure, but, in my lay opinion, I don't see how on earth the film pieces that together for the viewer. Unless, of course, you either read the book beforehand or had some in-depth aviation knowledge.

As for the pressurization questions, yes, I knew that the plane wasn't pressurized. I just didn't know at what altitude the so-called "Goldfinger effect" would take place. I mean, air pressure and altitudes are kind of abstract to the modern day passenger. Like you said, and I assume you talk from experience, the air passengers during the 1950s would have been more informed so as to almost act as another set of ears and eyes for the crew. I've learned a lot more about aviation from this thread and another I was contributing to so I'm glad for that.

As for the gun, I'm just shocked. Sure I can understand that a gun could make it's way onto a plane...even with today's security, I still can see that such a risk exists. Definitely not as great a risk as it would have been in the pre-metal detector days of the 1950s, but nonetheless I still maintain that a lot of security systems are not foolproof. They are only as good as those enforcing them. So, it's not so much that the passenger was able to board the plane with a gun in his pocket, it was the way the film treated the situation once it became known he had a gun. My feeling in watching that, trying to put myself in the shoes of a potential first-time flyer, would have been to write a letter to my Congressman and demand legislation that protected air travelers and to prosecute those who threatened any flight to the full extent of the law. And, the way the scene depicted the guy scurrying off to make his phone call to his wife, I really got the impression that the filmmakers wanted the audience to be alarmed at how lax the system was then. Now, I don't know when the first hijacking was either, but I do know that NATSB, as we know it, wasn't established until the Johnson administration...a full 17 yrs after this film. So, I would guess that some tighter security measures began to be implemented within a couple of years after this film. I mean, in comparison, the boarding crew confiscates the Italian guy's basket of goodies. And, I think the Dept of Agriculture pretty early on recognized the need to prevent the arrival of non-indigenous plants. So, with the Cold War underway and McCarthyism driving home the point of an enemy at large and with conflicts and wars bubbling up in hotspots around the world, Congress had to recognize the need for secure plane travel...didn't they??

I think I'd like to read Gann's novels. I also watched "Islands in the Sky" which was also from a Gann novel, I think. To me, that movie was more cohesive in a lot of ways. And, I really liked Wayne's performance in that especially when he's visibly shaken up after the death of the co-pilot.

The idea that Gann's had a belief or theory about complex system failure is very intriguing. I think he probably made a very significant contribution to modern day air travel. In fact, within a few days of watching "The High and The Mighty", I saw a Dateline program about an Airbus A330 from Montreal to Lisbon that lost all power over the Atlantic and was forced with making an emergency landing in the Azores. On that particular flight, a series of system failures and faulty decisions led to the plane's power loss. As I understand it, mechanics had serviced and replaced an engine just days before the flight. They incorrectly installed something, maybe a valve, backwards. During the flight, the crew recognized a loss of fuel and engaged a transfer of fuel from one engine to the other. But, this decision actually led to more fuel being lost because of the incorrectly installed engine. The result was the plane lost all fuel and consequently all power. The good news was that the crew and pilot made an incredible safe landing.

[–] drpayne 19 years ago

I am sorry that I (and the movie) didn't better clarify the tail cone inspection scene (not a DC-4 tail cone - by the way). In the movie (I watched the DVD version after my post) the tail cone is inspected as a possible source of vibration and BEFORE the propeller flew off. It has been a while since I read the book but I believe the sequence was the other way around.

Now it could also be that Gann was driving home another subtle point to his pilot readers. The DC-4 had some very bad rudder problems. One fatal crash was traced to a piece of fabric tape coming loose and introducing aerodynamic forces in the yaw axis that could not be overcome by the normal control forces and resulted in the aircraft going into an unrecoverable tailspin. With Dan Roman's 20,000 hours logged he would have recognized "tail flutter" at once. The fact that he went back to the tail to inspect it might have been to "humor" the captain who had less experience and was clearly upset about the strange vibrations. Notice in the movie that Dan kept looking back at the engines on his side. He clearly thought the vibration was related to an engine or propeller.

The gunshot/engine failure scene was one of Gann's "coincidences". The propellar failed at the same instant that the gun discharged in the struggle. This coincidence cause the shot to go wild and saved the man's life. According to Gann's philosophy, it was not that man's "time to go" and the prop flying off the airplane was the method of saving him.

I believe the first aircraft hijacking of a US carrier was in 1961 but I am working wholly from memory. Remember who could afford airline tickets in the 1940's and 50's. Mostly business executives and the very wealthy and many of these people were very colorful. On the CVG - HOU run I would often have passengers with 10 gallon hats, aligator boots and revolvers in holsters as passengers. Just like a scene out of a John Wayne western except on an airplane. They never caused any trouble. Many business men also wore shoulder holsters and the stew would notice the bulge under their coat. They usually liked to keep their coat on but I always encouraged them to remove it so everyone on board would would know they were packing heat. My idea always was that a passenger that didn't want anyone to know that he had a gun was not carrying it just for self defense. I always carried a S&W 38 snub nose in my flight bag. Glaucoma forced me to shoot my last ILS approach in 1960 so I missed most of the regs about locked cockpit doors and that kind of stuff. Passengers were always welcome in my cockpit unless we were in bad weather or some kind of emergency.

Again I am calling on my memeory which is not as good as it was 50 years ago. In Gann's book "Hostage to Fortune" he gives a lot of insight about the making of the movie. IIRC one of provisions attached to the movie rights was that he would be employed as technical advisor. I notice the credits list someone else. I believe that is part of the feud between Gann and the producer/director. I believe Gann was promised absolute veto power on technical issues but the movie was in the can before he got a chance to review it.

By all means read all of the Gann you can get your hands on. He was truely one of the greatest story tellers of the 20th century.

[–] drpayne 19 years ago

There was something I forgot to mention in my last post. I never lost a prop so I am not speking from first hand experience. I did have an overspeed on a DC-3 but it was no big deal. Several colleagues did lose props and it is much more violent than simply blowing a jug or some other engine loss. Anyone that has much multiengine time in the 40's and 50's has lost an engine. The ones that are still telling the stories are the ones that didn't lose it on takeoff and over gross weight. So the scene where the plane violently lurches when the prop flies off is totally realistic. What is not realistic is that they didn't show a cockpit scene leading up to the gunshot scene. The crew would have been frantically trying to do something about the overspeed condition before the prop finally flew off. The did show the engine shutdown and fire control scene which was very realistic. A Piedmont Fairchild F27 turboprop twin engine actually lost both props sometime in the early 60's. I was hanging out at CVG airport at the time. One prop had been lost in flight and he was making an emergency landing at CVG. About a half mile from the end of the runway on final approach, the other propellar flew off! With no engines he was just a glider and he made a very smooth landing. Of course they had to tow the airplane to the gate. I imagine the pilot and copilot needed to find a dry cleaner before they could wear their uniforms again.

[–] sailorh285 19 years ago

For those posters who are troubled by depictions of things unlikely today, it speaks to how dramatically times have changed, especially so for airlines and airports.

I flew with my parents many times on commercial airliners in the late 1950's. Flight attendants were called stewardesses, and most of them were very young and very attractive (I vaguely recall that most airlines would not allow stewardesses to continue flying either over a certain age or if they married). The stewardesses would fuss over children, and reward the well-behaved with a metal "wings" pin. I fell in love many, many times with the very friendly and very lovely stewardesses.

On at least one occasion, I was invited to meet the pilots in the cockpit. I clearly recall sitting in the right seat (the copilot's), and having the headphones put on my ears. I also remember that all I could hear was jibberish (years later I would learn it was likely Morse Code, which was the primary method of identifying radio stations that were used for navigation).

Another thing I vividly recall was the engine start procedure. Men with very large fire extinguishers (the kind mounted on big-wheeled carts) would stand by as the engine began to crank and the propeller started to kick. Smoke would often belch out of the engine as it was trying to come to life, and the presence of the men and their large extinguishers impressed on me that sometimes fires started instead of the engine.

The other thing about flying in those days was NO JETWAYS! You always walked out onto the tarmac and climbed stairs to board the plane. I REALLY MISS THIS, except when it's raining. I like looking at the plane that I'm about to ride in. Nowadays, I think the President is the only one who still boards a plane by outdoor stairs.

Even when I was in college (late 60's), airports were still very open. No screening of passengers, and at night, you could sneak onto a parked jet if the jetway door had been left open by the cleaning crew. A wave of hijackings in the late 60's were about to change all of that, but before then, air travel was akin to bus travel. No identification necessary, no screening, and you could pack a corkscrew in your carry-on! Some airlines let you board short flights without a ticket, and collected the fare by walking the aisle, like conductors do on a train.

There even used to be a thing called a "suitcase party." Couples all came to the party with bags packed, and at midnight, a drawing was held for a pair of airline tickets to a surprise destination. The winners left directly from the party and headed to the airport. I'm afraid those days are over, also.

I first saw TH&TM when I was an adolescent. I think I may have seen it one more time since, but certainly not in the last 20 years. It was one of those movies that you vividly recall. I remember the unexplained vibrations and the out-of-synch props foreboding the frenzied scene where the gun goes off at the same time the propeller parts and damages the fuel tanks. And as I recall, all of this happened at about the time the flight passed the ominous "point of no return."

TH&TM was, in my memory at least, a superb film. I don't know how dated it might look today, but the memorable score, the plight of the stricken airliner over a rough & foreboding ocean, and the superb cast did all make for great entertainment.

I later went on to become a pilot myself. There is indeed such a thing as "explosive decompression", but I agree with the other posters that it takes more than a bullet hole to cause it. Windows have been known to blow out, and depending on the pressure differential (cabin pressure vs. outside), people can and have been sucked out of the plane during explosive decompression. That's one of the reasons I always keep my seat belt on while flying (the other is clear air turbulence).

One last little thing. One of the posters here said that the closing credits weren't played when TH&TM appeared recently on cable. There outta be a law against that. When I go to a movie theater, I always stay and watch the closing credits. I'm fascinated by all the people it took to make the film, and often there are clues as to where it was made or the techniques involved. Each and everyone of those people deserve credit, and no showing of a film should ever end before the closing credits have rolled.

Rant over. So, too, another pleasant stroll down Memory Lane.

*SPOILER* Trying to look past things to give credit

SPOILER Trying to look past things to give credit