dbdumonteil To solve all your problems (or almost all of them) :feeling at peace with yourself (and with your son) ,making a declaration of love when you are shy and not very handsome,learning how to play a part your future career in Hollywood depends on,marrying the air hostess you're in love with,etc ,there is nothing like a good disaster!A crowded sky indeed!So many characters it's a wonder the director can solve all their problems !The disaster movies which became trendy in the seventies were not an improvement on this 1960 work,the only missing character is a young child!It's pleasant to see Patsy Kelly as a manager and there are many more familiar faces on the plane ,although they play cardboard characters.

Michael_Elliott Crowded Sky, The (1960) ** (out of 4)Extremely boring disaster film takes the worst of the genre and just hammers it into the crowd. Dana Andrew plays the Captain of a commercial flight and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. is the Captain of a Navy jet who find themselves on a collision course but they don't know when they're going to hit due to various issues. Before the crash we get to learn about their issues with a cheating wife and a disappointed son as well as the personal issues of various others on the plane. This so-called disaster movie has very little in terms of that type of drama as the screenplay is clearly more interested in talking about the personal lives of the passengers and Captains instead of what might be going on with the planes. One could argue that it would be the viewers problem if they didn't like the fact that the movie was more soap opera than action, which I'd agree with if the screenplay had actually good or any of the stories interesting. One could really argue that AIRPORT '75 was a remake of this as the type of disaster is the same, although that movie at least centered a lot on the actual disaster. This film here instead just wants to do the personal stuff as Andrews has a hard time connecting to his son, Zimbalist, Jr. has a wife who is cheating on him and then we have John Kerr as an ex-friend of Andrews who is having some female trouble of his own. All three stories are so poorly written and executed that you can't help but be bored by them and even worse is that over 90-minutes of the 105 running time is spent on them. Even worse is that ever-so-often we go to visit other people on the plane where we get an incredibly bad zoom shot to the actors face where we then get a voice-over telling us their thoughts. Why any of these extra characters were even included is beyond me but if you are going to bring them into the story why on Earth are you going to do it in such a campy was as zoom shots and voice-overs? As far as the performances go, they aren't too bad as Andrews brings his usual toughness to the role and he also manages to handle the stuff with his son quite well. Zimbalist and Kerr aren't too bad either and we have a supporting cast that includes Rhonda Fleming, Keenan Wynn, Troy Donahue, Joe Mantell and Anne Francis among others. When the disaster finally strikes in the final minutes the movie really picks up and manages to have some nice tension. The special effects are also better than you might expect but in the end there's no question that this was a wasted opportunity because the screenplay handles the other drama so poorly. As a weird bit of trivia, in this film Andrews and Zimbalist planes collide and they're the same ones who would cause the disaster in AIRPORT 1975.

vmwrites One of the first modern day airline disaster movies, this 1961 film contains all the elements of suspense, humor and drama that one would expect of its genre. With the only drawback of a weak supporting cast, the story line is a solid one.In this film, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. plays a navy pilot on a collision course with a commercial jet piloted by Dana Andrews. Years later, in one of the later Airport series, the roles are reversed and Andrews plays the pilot of a small plane on a collision course with a commercial aircraft piloted by Efrem Zimbalist.Troy Donahue does a creditable job as a young sailor hitching a ride with Zimbalist to get home. An interesting device in this film is the close-up thought technique, particularly when used with the character played by Keenan Wynn.If you consider this film only among the other members of its generation, it comes out well.

lblaske This movie had a lot of things that I enjoy: vintage commercial airplanes, old military airplanes, radios, radar, art, drama, romance, special effects, etc. In some respects, it must have served as a template for future airliner disaster movies. I don't know why, but I really enjoyed the heavy handed use of flashbacks and scenes where there's a close-up of a character, the surrounding lights dim, and we hear the character's private thoughts. Crowded Sky might not be your cup of tea, but it certainly was mine.