The Crowded Sky - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Crowded Sky or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Crowded Sky

[tom]

Whenever Joe Mantell talks badly about his wife, especially during the "punchlines" on how much she drives him nuts, his voice mimics (deliberately or otherwise) that of legendary comic actor Jimmy Durante.

[ethel]

Dana Andrews compared this movie to The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) (one version of many), in which the audience learns about the lives of people after a tragedy. This is that movie (or book) in reverse.

[albert]

The scene where Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Rhonda Fleming are kissing, lying on top of each other in swimming clothes, is shown (in an artistic rendering) on the bottom of the main poster. This is one of two images shown, and is below the plane crash-landing with people running away from it. The scene itself lasts a few seconds, and is part of a flashback montage. As shown on the poster, it's an obvious attempt to imitate the famous love-on-the-beach scene in From Here to Eternity (1953).

[sandra]

When the pilot of the jet is about to hit the airliner, he says to himself he won't, more or less, kill the passengers of the airliner but his decision ends up killing his innocent passenger.

[tamara]

The plot-line of Dana Andrews' wanting his son to be a pilot, despite his son basically not wanting to be one, is similar to the movie Giant (1956), where Rock Hudson desperately wants his son to be a cowboy. Especially familiar is where Dana has his reluctant (and frightened) son on an airplane ride at a carnival, barking orders at him like Rock Hudson forced his frightened son to ride a horse.

[tom]

The plane Dale and McVey fly in is a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, the training version of America's first jet fighter, the Lockheed P-80/F-80 Shooting Star. Used by both the Navy and Air Force, 6,557 trainers were made from 1948 to 1959.

[scarlett]

Actress Jean Willes, who plays Gloria Panawek, bares a passing resemblance to Ava Gardner. The director brought her hair color back to black in the same style as Gardner to capitalize on this point. Even the two women's voices sound similar. Some may consider this movie worth watching for those reasons alone.

[caroline]

When Dale Heath picks up his daughter at school, he's driving a 1959 Edsel Ranger sedan, which was considered a loser at that point. The character is regarded as somewhat of a loser as he was involved in a mid air collision.

[darrell]

Dana Andrews had starred in the airline disaster cult classic Zero Hour! (1957) which was remade into Airplane! (1980). Airplane was also a parody of the Airport films, especially Airport 1975 (1974), which also featured Andrews. And although this movie isn't regarded as having also influenced Airplane, much of that film is also made up of the passengers having flashbacks of their lives.

[janice]

Dale buys Cheryl a 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible. Even though 11,860 were made, in excellent condition this car would be worth around $40,000 in 2019.

[nina]

Based on a novel by Hank Searls, who also wrote Countdown (1967). Both became films in the 1960's and center on man-made aerial troubles: This movie about pilots and passengers in the sky, and that movie about astronauts in space.

[chad]

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. spent twenty hours in a flight simulator to prepare for his role in this film.

[wesley]

When Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Troy Donahue are in the El Paso airport coffee shop, the theme to A Summer Place (1959) can be heard in the background. Troy Donahue starred in this movie one year earlier.

[nina]

Though it's most likely only coincidence, the story-line about the woman who eventually (and intentionally) reveals herself to the playboy... who doesn't recognize her as one of his former conquests as they partake in long conversations... would be the entire plot of the indie film The Tao of Steve (2000) decades later.

[jesus]

Dana Andrews, as the pilot, and Paul Genge, as the mysterious passenger who recognizes the pilot, would work together again as distressed car owner and highway cop in Hot Rods to Hell (1967). Both films have Andrews either piloting or driving people in the face of some sort of inevitable disaster.

[veronica]

This film was mentioned in the TV movie Feud: Bette and Joan (2017) where Jack Warner writes this commercial failure off because of the "bad title."

[jessie]

Body count is 4... 2 for each plane.

[liam]

The poster artwork, showing the actors faces and names stacked to the right side, has "and Troy Donahue" deliberately last. While every actor has the character's short description below their name, Donahue also has an added box that reads "The Sensation from Summer Place!" And as already mentioned, the theme to that movie plays from a speaker in a scene involving Donahue and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

[marc]

A National Airlines DC-6 was repainted with fictional "Trans States" titles and insignia for a majority of the ground and aerial scenes, with the exception of a few scenes where models were used instead of the real aircraft.