The High and the Mighty (1954)
Summary Information
B-17s Used PB-1G CG 82855 (ex 44-83857)
The Movie...
The 1950s aviation classic tells the story of trans-Pacific DC-4 airliner that, enroute from Hawaii to San Francisco, has engine problems that threaten to put the airplane in the ocean. John Wayne plays a veteran, experienced, weathered, seasoned copilot and Robert Stack the stiff, marginally competent captain. John Wayne gets to slap Robert Stack, to try and put some backbone into the boy. Lots of passenger angst, anguish, conflict, crying, hand-wringing, gnashing of teeth, emotions, and finally (of course), resolution, all surely done better a quarter century later in Airplane (Don't call me Shirley.) And that damn tune, whistled by John Wayne. Of particular interest here, though, is the plot line where a USCG PB-1G (air-sea rescue version of the B-17) gets launched out of San Francisco westbound to meet the strickened eastbound airliner, something that occurred on a regular basis with the old piston engined airliners of the day. Also, some pretty spectacular air-to-air shots of the DC-4 soaring along, those having all the marks of some work by Paul Mantz but he is not credited as such.
Anecdotal
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Acknowledgements
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Nice 1952 shot of PB-1G CG 82855 taken at San Francisco. (Click for a larger view.) At this point the A-1 boat is still mounted under the bomb bay. When the film was shot, the boat was not mounted. At about this time, the Coast Guard elimintaed the wooden boat in favor of inflatable life rafts carried in the bomb bay that could be dropped to downed aircraft. They automatically inflated. (Photo by Mr. Olson via Peter Bowers)
Ramp view from the film of PB-1G 82855.
Screen capture showing the aft fuselage and the typical markings of the PB-1Gs in the early 1950s.
A starting-engine view with the CG serial visible on the nose.
Cockpit view of the PB-1G with, as yet, unidentified actors (whoops, see "Anecdotes"). Presumably, this was one of the several B-17 cockpit mockups that moved around Hollywood in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Oh, the angst of the passengers, doomed to die. No, wait, that's not right. Happy to live, thanks to John Wayne.
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