why not color film
must have been a good reason for doing this in black and white or perhaps not
shareBudget is usually the most likely reason. "Psycho" was shot by many of Hitchcock's TV crew, who shot that series in black and white.
shareNot a very good interpretation of a GREAT story. The studio was just capitalizing on the best selling novel with no intention of putting a lot of money into it. This movie plays like the Readers Digest condensed version of the book. In the original novel, while investigating the crash, the Glenn Ford character reminisces not just on the WWII era but goes way back to WWI and the changing, developing airline industry. Of course this would have tripled the production costs and added another hour or two to the story. Also the plane had to be heavily disguised so as not to signal any actual airline out and open them up to liability litigation. Perhaps this disguise would not have been as persuasive and effective under color film.
I still like this movie immensely however.