John Wayne made a number of movies with an aviation theme in the 1950's including another-The High and The Mighty -based like this effort on an Ernest K Gann novel.Add his turn as aviation pioneer Spig Weed in The Wings of Eagles and you have the basis for an interesting mini-festival .
Gann co-scripted this movie and it was directed by another aviation buff in William "Wild Bill" Wellman . Wayne plays a civilian pilot whose ATC plane crashes in a remote part of Labrador .The movie cross cuts between the downed plane with Wayne striving to keep up the morale of his crew in bone freezing ,stamina sapping conditions as they cope ,or try to ,with scanty rations ,communication equipment failure and internal dissension, and the rescue attempt .The "rescue" scenes ,in turn, alternate between ground search co-ordination and scenes on board rescue aircraft as the search the vast and unchartered terrain in inhospitable conditions for some sign of the downed plane The movie is in black and white and benefits from two very sharp cameramen .William Clothier handles the airial scenes while Archie Stout endows the ground scenes with a chilly poeticism that greatly aids the movie . Wayne is fine in a role where he eschews the macho posing of so many of his movies and the cast of dependable supporting actors -including Fess Parker ,James Arness,Andy Devine and Lloyd Nolan -all give sterling performances the voice overs are a tad tiresome and sententious but are only a minor defect in a worthwhile movie that owes its title to the notion that pilots are a breed apart from their earthbound compatriots
and the movie would question John Donne's assertion that "no man is an island" clearly endorsing the view that pilots are in some way detached from other men
This well worth watching and deserves to be much better known than it is
