This one is kind of "Airport" meets "Airplane", combining a mid-air emergency, (not the one in the actual "Airplane" which is based on another film from this period called "Zero Hour"), with goofy scenes involving the mostly silly passengers and their personal stories that would have looked appropriate in an "Airplane" film with no comic embellishments. The director chooses to introduce us to the passengers by zooming in on their faces, graying out the rest of the picture and having them speak their thoughts. There's also major flashbacks about the personal problems of the main characters. As mentioned in other reviews a couple of characters seem to be shouting their lines as if we- or they- were hearing impaired. And stewardess Ann Francis smiles sweetly and issues a wise-crack as the plane is going down. These elements of the film make it major candidate for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or one of the Medved brother's books on the worst movies of all time. But that isn't what I remembered from this film many years after I first saw it. Ephraim Zimbalest Jr., the s tar of 77 Sunset Strip, and Troy Donahue, of "Surfside 6" and "A Summer Place" are in an Air Force jet flying west. As they were popular stars, one assumes they will make it though the picture. We are introduced to their back stories: a failed marriage and a pregnant girlfriend, (the same problem Troy had in "A Summer Place", the theme of which is played in a restaurant scene). These issues will go unresolved. Then suddenly the passenger plane flying east from the west coast shows up and the planes are coming right at each other. The smaller plane bounces off the bottom of the larger one, taking out an engine from the larger one, then tumbles away and explodes- an explosion that makes it clear that the Zimbalest and Donahue characters were killed instantly. This had the same impact on me that the realization that Janet Leigh's character in "Psycho" is really dead had on me. I just didn't expect it and so that stayed with me all these years. because of that, I just had to watch the film again and came to realize how silly the rest of it is. I wonder what I'll remember years from now?

I'm a film professor, and this is one that had me in knots because I appreciate it as an artifact but also cringe at its awkward elements. I'll say this much: after good old Ben Mankiewicz on TCM told us at the start that the two planes in the film are flying on a collision course toward each other, I could not turn it off without seeing where all its hokey characters ended up.Yes, the film uses that recurring interior dialogue device (move in to close up, then voice-over, along the lines of, "That's funny, Jim usually likes my coffee..."), but there are more gems of discomfort throughout, like characters way too self-conscious about their looks and some smarmy sexual jokes. And you'll be tickled to see that coach accommodations in 1960 were far better than first class today.Just stick around for the collision, which pays off not only for its cheap special effects (which appear to have been shot with a little boy's toys in his basement), but far more so for its astonishing portrait of passengers laughing as they plummet to almost certain death. Warner Bros. apparently knew the audience would not only accept the fake effects and delusional behavior, but that the crowd would not care at all that the two military pilots-- one of whom is choosing between marriage and the Naval Academy-- perish in a fireball, which is summarily ignored for the rest of the film! With all the advances in aviation since 1960, there's still no way an airliner could take a hit from a fighter jet and land with only a few casualties. But like most any disaster, you are just too morbidly curious to look away from this one...

"The Crowded Sky" joins "Zero Hour," "The High and the Mighty," and others as pre-"Airport" films. Like weddings and road trips, commercial flights make for stories that involve different subplots and characters, so this type of film is done fairly often."The Crowded Sky" has high production values and a decent cast - Dana Andrews, Efren Zimbalist Jr., Rhonda Fleming, Troy Donahue, John Kerr, and Anne Francis. It's an episodic tale about two planes, one a navy jet with a broken radio system, and the other a passenger plane with an arrogant pilot. The two planes are in danger of colliding.The backstory of the characters is told in flashback: Zimbalist, who had a previous air disaster and now is in the midst of a bad marriage; Kerr, an aspiring artist who doesn't want to get married but has an attraction to flight attendant Francis; and some smaller stories that include Keenan Wynn, Jean Willes, Patsy Kelly, Donald May, all passengers.Formulaic and not terribly interesting. Ken Currie as Dick Barnett Jr. is a horror; Patsy Kelly as usual talks like she's projecting from the stage of the Majestic Theater; Troy Donahue is....Troy Donahue. Rhonda Fleming was made for color. But the leads are likable and professional as always.Very soapy with some over the top dialogue. the director, Joe Pevney, was a very experienced TV director.

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.