Airport 54'

Movie: The High and the Mighty (1954)

Setting: (TWA?) flight from Honolulu to San Francisco, with a few scenes at both locations; contemporary, 1950's.

Prototypical airplane/disaster flick, featuring John Wayne as a co-pilot who doesn't lose his cool, and a bunch of lesser-known actors in subplots aplenty. Claire Trevor does her shtick, William Schallert and Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez have bit parts. Enjoyable but kind of lengthy, with an exposition heavy first twenty minutes.

Factoid: Robert Stack, who players the nervous pilot, also had a part in the later genera send-up movie Airplane!