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![]() Director: Henry Koster Starring: James Stewart, Glynis Johns, Marlene Dietrich, Jack Hawkins, Janette Scott, Ronald Squire, Maurice Denham, Niall MacGinnis, Kenneth More, David Hutcheson Screenplay: R.C. Sheriff, Oscar Millard and Alec Coppel, based upon the novel by Nevil Shute |
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NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY (1951) | |
No Highway In
The Sky represents one of the more
unfortunate examples of life imitating art. Nevil Shute published his
novel, No Highway, in 1948, after more than twenty years of juggling
his writing with a career in engineering; a career that began with the
de Haviland Aircraft Co. Ltd, where he was employed as a calculator, and
also learned to fly. During the 1920s, Shute was involved in the
construction of rigid airships, which were designed by Barnes Wallis,
later the man behind the “bouncing bombs”, a story told in
The Dam
Busters. During the 1930s, Shute founded his own aeroplane
construction company, while during the war years he joined the navy and
was involved in weapons design, before his literary reputation got him
reassigned as a war correspondent. In the post-war era, Shute retired
from his daytime profession and devoted himself to his writing, with
many of his stories drawing upon his years in aeronautics, a subject
that still a passion. The novel
The positive side-effect of this
tragic situation was the rapid development of such skills as underwater
search and recovery, and forensic reconstruction, both of which were
employed in an attempt to determine the cause of the crashes. However,
desperate to protect themselves and their company, the de Haviland
directors did not wait for the scientific investigation to conclude, but
made a public announcement to the effect that their planes had been
modified so as to, “Cover
every possibility that imagination has suggested as a likely cause of
the disaster.” As it happened, their imagination fell somewhat short of
the truth. The Comets resumed service, only for another unexplained
crash to see the fleet grounded once again. This time the investigation
was allowed to proceed to its correct conclusion, and did so with the
discovery that metal fatigue was indeed responsible; not quite as Nevil
Shute has envisaged, via a flaw in the tailplane, or horizontal
stabiliser, but due to the design and insertion of the square-shaped
windows, whose sharp corners created a crack zone that, after sufficient
stress, would give way and initiate explosive decompression. It is for
this reason that all planes today have round or oblong windows.
Although it does somewhat shift the focus of the novel, which, as was
commonly the case in Nevil Shute’s novels, has its story told by an
observer of the action rather than a participant in it,
No Highway In The Sky opens with that observer, Dennis Scott (Jack
Hawkins), taking up his new position as Head of Metallurgy at the Royal
Aircraft Establishment. While being given a tour of the facility, Scott
is puzzled by what he sees in one of the research hangers: the
tail-piece of the RAE’s new jet aircraft, the Reindeer, being subjected
by extreme vibration stress under the supervision of a solitary, rather
unkempt individual who, in response to Scott’s inquiries as to what he
expects to learn from this arrangement, replies brusquely that he
expects the plane’s tail to fall off, before scuttling away to hide in
his office. It is
rather hard to know how to react to the depiction of scientists in
No Highway In The Sky;
whether to be flattered by the film’s insistence that all scientists are
geniuses, or insulted by its concomitant insistence that they are,
equally, all psychotic. (All geniuses are, we learn, not just
scientists; Tschaikovsky and Molière both take a slap in passing.)
Evidently the possibility that a scientist might just be an ordinary
person doing an ordinary job while living an ordinary life never
disturbed the thinking of anyone connected with this story. The
screenplay offers up a litany of criticisms, all of them delivered with
the most breathtaking matter-of-factness. While
showing Scott around, his guide, Major Pearl (Maurice Denham), refers to
the RAE’s research scientists as, “The kind who eat their porridge with
a slide-rule.” The Director of the RAE concurs. “A
boffin has to be a bit barmy to
be a boffin,” comments Sir
John (Ronald Squire), adding, “The line between genius and just plain
crackers is so thin, you never know what side they’re on – nor when
they’ve crossed it.” We hear tales of one particular scientist who
started out, “Taking a bath in a public fountain”, then progressed to,
“Pinching girls in the park” – after which, we gather, he was “pinched”
himself. Of the individual in charge of the metal fatigue tests, Major
Pearl observes, “All
boffins are a bit crackers, but I suppose he’s the worst”, and indeed,
subsequent events reveal him to be abrupt, awkward, completely socially
dysfunctional, and so absent-minded as to be unable to find the way to
his own house – after living in it for eleven years. All this being the
case, we are not particularly surprised to find that Mr Theodore Honey,
the scientist in question, is being played by Jimmy Stewart, here at his
absolute Jimmy Stewart-est.
Probably as a result of this piece of casting, the Theodore Honey of the
novel was significantly toned down for the film version, being shorn of
his more extreme traits (including a belief in the occult, which plays a
part in the story’s climax) and unlikeable aspects (in the novel,
Honey’s neglect of his motherless daughter leads to the child becoming
seriously ill). No Highway In
The Sky’s Theodore Honey is far more cuddly, although no attempt was
made to disguise the behavioural quirks that influence his co-workers’
opinion of his mental state. After a close-up look at Honey stumbling
helplessly around his disastrously ill-run house, Dennis Scott is sorely
tempted to dismiss the scientist’s belief in metal fatigue as nothing
more than a crackpot notion – except that its mathematical basis seems a
little too sound for comfort. Scott then encounters an old friend, a
test pilot, who rages against “pilot error” being blamed for everything
that goes wrong in aeronautics, including the recent crash of a
Reindeer. “Harry wouldn’t have done that!” he exclaims angrily of the
supposed circumstances of that crash.
Increasingly uneasy, Scott looks into the investigation himself,
learning that the tailplane wasn’t recovered – and that the crash
occurred within hours of Honey’s theoretical failure point. Scott takes
his concerns to Sir John, who is uncomfortably caught between the
possible danger to the lives of flight crews and passengers alike, and
the disastrous financial consequences to his company should he order the
Reindeers grounded. Sir John decides to reopen the investigation of the
Reindeer crash in Part
of No Highway In The Sky’s
drama is Theodore Honey’s own journey from sheltered intellectual to
passionate humanitarian; a journey that, it must be said, doesn’t
entirely fit with the character as conceived by the screenwriters, who
seems more likely simply not to have thought about the human lives at
stake, rather than have thought of them and dismissed them. “Science is
in no hurry, Mr Scott; I’m working on a principle,” he replies to
Scott’s demand to know why he hasn’t pushed his theories more forcefully
upon management, adding irritably, “I’m a scientist – and science is
very exacting. It requires the utmost concentration. I can’t be
concerned with people.” But
once upon the Reindeer, Theodore Honey learns that he has been mistaken
in himself. Two lives, at least, come to concern him very much, those of
film star Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), one of whose films he and
his wife saw together the night before Mrs Honey’s death in the Blitz,
and of flight attendant Marjorie Cordner (Glynis Johns), whose kindness
and patience he is touched by. To both of these women he confides his
theory, pointing out what he believes to be the safest spot in the
plane, in the event of misadventure. (Had this film been made in
Confronting the pilot, Samuelson (Niall MacGinnis), Theodore Honey
battles to make himself understood, insisting that the plane undergo an
emergency landing at once. This scene is one of the film’s best,
dramatic and funny all at once, as Samuelson tries to make head or tail
of Honey’s frantic and incoherent story while behind him, the eyes of
the listening flight crew grow wider and wider and wider... It is, we
feel, less Honey’s explanation that finally sways Samuelson than that he
is, clearly, terrified.
Samuelson compromises, radioing back to The
plane, however, lands safely in
Theodore Honey returns to Apart
from its cinematic virtues, which are plentiful,
No Highway In The Sky is a
look back at time long gone; the dawn of commercial aviation, before
flying became a form of mass transit; when passengers were few, and
planes spacious; when they had a lounge and a kitchen; when meals and
drinks were free as a matter of course, and served using real crockery
and glassware. The film itself is a fine piece of work (as well as the
product of another era long
gone), using its central dilemmas, the larger problem of potential air
disasters and the personal battle of Theodore Honey, to build a dramatic
and suspenseful work; although typically, with a leavening of humour
that supports rather than undercuts the drama. And if most of that
humour is at the expense of the scientific profession, well, that’s just
the price that some of us have to pay for our entertainment. The film’s treatment of Elspeth is, shall we say, rather divisive. Character after character reacts to her purely intellectual upbringing with horror; Monica and Marjorie jointly prescribe a course of party dresses, makeup, and “telling her she’s pretty” (and how nice to be in filmdom, where that always is the case); but personally, I’ve never been able to look at Elspeth’s life, running tame in a household with books on all subjects stacked to the ceiling, conducting behavioural experiments on her pet goldfish, and passing her evenings playing bizarre homemade games based upon arcane knowledge, without experiencing a pang of severe envy. At her age, that’s exactly what I would have liked.... |
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---posted 21/04/2009 |