Grade: C+
Synopsis: After crash landing in the frozen uncharted wilds of northern Canada, a captain (John Wayne) and his crew fight to survive while other pilots lead a search party.
Island in the Sky begins with a somber, Dragnet-like narration that would seem right at home in a wartime documentary. This sets the tone for the entire film and helps give the film an extra layer of realism.
Told almost exclusively from the point of view of the men involved, Island in the Sky is very much a film about camaraderie among men and pilots, and the unspoken bonds that hold them together. To that end, the movie works very well, unfortunately director William Wellman makes one big blunder.
One scene involves a call from one of the downed crew’s wife. We see her lying on a bed, sobbing into the phone with a newborn baby lying next to her. This whole scene is not only overplayed and drawn out, but it drags the film down to cheap melodrama and undermines the very essence of the movie. Of course the crew’s wives and families are worried, but the movie isn’t about them. It’s about the men themselves, and what it means to them when one of their own goes down. It’s about them and their struggle to survive. One scene shatters this whole perspective and really kills the movie.
Given Wellman’s blunder, and the similarities in themes between Island in the Sky and many of Howard Hawks’ films, I couldn’t help but wonder what this movie would have looked like under his hand. Given that he was, at the time, directing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I can’t help thinking that Island in the Sky would have been more up his alley.
Bottom Line: A potentially very good movie undone by one very bad scene. Worth a look for John Wayne fans, but others should beware.
