Movie Review: ****The High and the Mighty, John Wayne (1954)

This is a John Wayne movie, but not a classic John Wayne where you expect to see him as a cowboy.  In this movie he portrays the co pilot on a Hawaii to San Francisco flight.  He is portrayed as the washed up flyer on his way out.  However sometimes it is up to those washed up people to save the day in the end.  Also starring in this movie are Robert Stack as the Captain and Robert Newton as a passenger and Mormon actress Laraine Day as a wealthy heiress.  The plain is in peril, as one of the propellers malfunctions causing them to lose an engine, and more importantly precious fuel.  This movie is interesting based on the changes in the characters as they are faced with the prospect of death.  We have a boy, a honeymoon couple, a couple on their dream vacation, which didn't turn out, an heiress and her husband, a fleeing nuclear scientist,  Someone going home to his family, and a young lady to her intended, who has never seen her but thinks she is much younger.