Very well executed

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

. . . and his child co-stars positioned in a YMCA swimming pool next to him for a scene from ISLAND IN THE SKY feared for their lives, according to Bill Wellman, Jr., son of ISLAND's director (and brother to these two kid actors), in a rogue (as in, not acknowledged on IMDb) DVD extra, DOOLEY'S DOWN: THE MAKING OF ISLAND IN THE SKY. In fact, wee Mikey Wellman was so fearful that Pops Wellman had to rewrite this swim pool scene on the fly. Before joining the air search for John Wayne, who's stranded near the North Pole, Devine's character was supposed to race "his" (that it, director Wellman's) two young sons across the short side of the small "Y" pool. Mikey was so hesitant to flop into the same puddle with a walrus-sized critter that his Daddy-the-Director wrote in a "head start" to get his youngster a little bit out of harm's way. This anecdote is just a small part of DOOLEY'S DOWN. (The Wayne Family's Batjac Company churns out many such efforts, and uses them as pieces of multi-part "Making Ofs" for who knows how many flicks, such as the short about screenwriter Ernie Gann, which is an independent chapter of the "Making Of" for BOTH 1953's ISLAND IN THE SKY, and 1954's THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY.)

This a little different than most John Wayne movie plots. I like the veering away from stereotypical Wayne characters. Although his is still the macho, don't mess with me roles he embraced. The difference in this movie could probably be because it is based on a true life story. So the characters seen on screen actually lived and died as depicted, (more or less). When the plane goes down the drama starts. Freezing weather, limited food, hardly any warmth, oh yeah someone is going to die. The fact that it did happen in real life makes the deaths all the more poignant and heart rendering. There is a big difference between an on screen death and an on screen death that really happened. All in all though I liked this movie.

This story was one of my favorites. The movie was mediocre at best. But, of course it had some of my favorite actors; John Wayne, Andy Devine...I was very surprised to learn that it was closely based on a real story of even more drama and which turned out to be even more of a miracle.The movie depicts the crashed airplane as a C-47, twin engine cargo aircraft. The true story, it was a C-87, cargo version of the famed twin-tailed B-24 "Liberator" bomber. The C-87 was notoriously difficult to fly and it was said by the pilots who flew them it would not carry enough ice to make a high ball...meaning, it would quit flying when just a little bit of ice would form on the wings, which is what brought the aircraft in the story down after getting lost over the Canadian wilderness.One of the things that make the real story more fantastic than the movie was, no one died in the real story, in spite of the fact the survivors had to spend almost two months on the ice before getting evacuated. Also, there was an attempt by another rescue aircraft pilot to land on the frozen lake to bring the crash victims out and that rescue aircraft mired in the deep snow on the ice. Eventually, it turns out everyone was saved, and all the aircraft were repaired before the spring thaw and flown out, including the original four engine C-87 that crash landed on the frozen lake.Some critics have been saying the story is fake because the area of the crash is covered by numerous bush pilots. That was not so in the days of WWII. The area of the crash was so remote there were not even any maps of the area and most of the mountains were not even named…many of them today are named after the pilots who were part of the search team to find Dooley's aircraft, since they were probably the first persons to see them and locate them on navigation maps.Read Gann's book, Fate is The Hunter for the best details of this story. It is really an excellent read. Gann was an amazing writer with some unusual and delightful ways of gripping the mind of the reader.

Island in the Sky (1953) *** (out of 4) William A. Wellman directed this suspenseful disaster film about a pilot (John Wayne) who must keep his crews spirits up after their plane crash lands in the Canadian arctic. This is certainly one of the better disaster films out there due to the director bringing a lot of suspense and a screenplay, which is a lot smarter than what we normally see in this type of film. The film's one big flaw is some humor, which really isn't needed but other than that this film is near the top of the genre. The performances are all terrific and a lot of fun due to the terrific supporting cast, which includes Lloyd Nolan, James Arnest, Harry Carey, Jr., Sean McClory, Wally Cassell and Robert Keys. Andy Devine nearly steals the film as the big guy in the search group. Then there's John Wayne who people will debate on how good of an actor he really was. I think he's always great playing that John Wayne persona but there are a few cases where he breaks out of that and really brings a truly great performance and I think that's the case here. It was great seeing Wayne play emotions like desperation, fear and his crying scene was highly moving. I think this is one of his better performances as he showed several emotions, which were a real stretch from what we normally see. Even the simple scenes of him saying a prayer pack a real punch due to the heart and feeling in his voice. The most impressive thing Wellman brings as a director is how realistic everything seems. The opening scene with the plane falling apart as ice builds up was brilliantly done and the way the director makes you feel the cold that the characters are going through really nails the coffin down.