Voyage Brisé

A plane crashes in the arctic and the film follows the efforts of the survivors to get rescued with a few casualties on the way. There is even a passenger in an iron lung!

The cast aren't worth mentioning because they are all interchangeable and it is impossible to identify with any of them. As regards the story, nothing really happens to hold the viewer's interest. You have to wait about 45 minutes before the first bit of action after the plane crashes. And this is what happens - some bloke slips off a ledge and doesn't fall very far. Then a bit of snow lands on his face. It's hilarious.

There is also a fault with the whole psychology of the film - most characters seem to be quite horrid to each other, when in reality they would all be pulling together.

It's a slow moving film, devoid of any tension or drama and it is just not quite interesting enough. "Five Came Back" from 1939 is a much better film about a plane crash and a group of survivors.

A mismatched group of people (the singer, the movie star and her boyfriend, the man in the iron lung and his nurse, a refugee, etc) are passengers on a plane which makes an emergency landing on a glacier. Miles from anywhere and with the radio out, theirs is a bitter tale of survival which does not necessarily end happily ever after.

Wonderful movie, beautifully shot and with some wonderful acting by Phyllis Calvert and Sonia Holm, as well as David Tomlinson who hits on every girl he can find! An easy 10/10.

Broken Journey (1948)

** (out of 4)

Forgettable "disaster" film has a plane crashing in the Alps and the variety of people on board must try to figure out a way to rescue themselves as well as not fight each other. The entire disaster genre has always been popular whether it was in the silent era, those films of the 30s like SAN FRANSISCO or IN OLD CHICAGO and going all the way up to the craze in the 1970s. With that said, most of these films are still well remembered by film buffs but I guess it's easy to see why BROKEN JOURNEY has pretty much been forgotten. This really does seem like a drawn out, boring version of FIVE CAME BACK and this here doesn't feature a single character to care for. I thought the entire group of survivors were either annoying, boring or they just weren't anyone to root or care for. This is certainly a death nail in a disaster picture like this because the fun thing is seeing the wide range of people trying to cope with the situation and each other but there's just no one here to care about. Another problem is that the entire situation is just way too pretty. I mean, just take a look at the crash sequence, which seems like a simple landing on the side of a mountain because of how easy and pretty it all looked. The situation that the people are in is never dramatic because no matter what happens something good will take place so you never once feel as if these people are in danger. The performances range from good to decent and the cinematography is without question the best thing going for the film. The non-stop dialogue has the characters saying one boring thing after another and in the end there's just no reason to watch this.

Very enjoyable and hilarious in places, although I'm not sure if that was always intentional!

This film seems to be somewhat based on the John Farrow-directed film, "Five Came Back," though I suppose this 1948 film uses a fairly derivative plot and could have been based on a lot of things.

A plane crashes into the Alps, but the passengers and crew survive. However, the radio is out. On board: an opera singer, Perami (Francis L. Sullivan), a movie star (Joanna Dane), a man in an iron long (John Barber), his nurse (Sonia Holm), the pilot, James Donald (Bill Halverton), the flight attendant (Phyllis Calvert), and other assorted characters.

The film revolves around the ideas of courage, selfishness, and self-sacrifice as the passengers fight to survive as their food runs out and the cold settles into their bones, and they all start to get on one another's nerves.

The Alps scenes are spectacular, and their vastness and desolate appearance brought "Lost Horizon" to mind.

All in all, pretty good, with some decent performances. You'll see better versions of this plot, but you'll also see worse.