No Highway in the Sky

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.

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.

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.

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.

Frequent fliers will find the portrayal of a TransAtlantic flight in "No Highway in the Sky" to be quaint, if not prehistoric. Security is non-existent, no metal detectors, no pat downs, no baggage search. Passengers have lots of space, smoking is permitted, and tours of the flight deck are offered. The stewardesses work in a spacious kitchen, with a stove, cabinets filled with dishes, and shelves of glassware. Men and women have separate restrooms, and the passengers are all well groomed and appropriately dressed. Flying has certainly evolved, or devolved since 1951.

However, beyond a review of the comforts of flying during the mid-20th century, Henry Koster's "No Highway in the Sky" is a decent little drama, highlighted by an impassioned performance by James Stewart. Set in England, Stewart is Theodore Honey, a scientist in an aircraft design and testing lab, who is studying the propensity of the tail wings on Reindeer aircraft to self destruct after about 1400 hours of flying. As the widowed scientist, Stewart is gangly, clumsy, and socially awkward; absent minded to the point of forgetting where he lives, he is focused completely on science and the problem at hand and largely dismisses other people. In a household cluttered with books, Stewart lives with his intelligent school-age daughter, whom he has isolated from other children. Perhaps overshadowed by his work in "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Harvey" during the same period, Stewart is nevertheless excellent in the part, and his speech to the aircraft committee has elements of his passionate "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" rouser.

Although the personal aspects of the story are unconvincing, the screenplay by R. C. Sheriff, Oscar Millard, and Alex Coppel, which was based on a novel by Nevil Shute, does throw light on the aviation industry in Britain just after World War II. Pushed to prove his hypothesis, Stewart is sent to Labrador to find the missing tail of a recently crashed Reindeer. Unfortunately, he finds himself aboard a similar Reindeer that is nearing the critical point when he projects that the tail will disintegrate. The drama aboard the tense overseas flight involves Marlene Dietrich as Monica Teasdale, a glamorous film star; a touching Glynis Johns as Marjorie, a sympathetic stewardess; and Kenneth Moore as the co-pilot. Dietrich and Stewart, who were previously paired in "Destry Rides Again," work especially well together. Jack Hawkins appears as Scott, a new department manager, and Wilfred Hyde White makes a brief appearance as a researcher.

While uneven and unconvincing at times, "No Highway in the Sky" offers a priceless look at air travel more than half a century ago, a fine James Stewart performance, and the timeless beauty of Marlene Dietrich. Actually, Stewart's often befuddled Theodore Honey alone is reason enough to catch the film.