The Crowded Sky - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[edgar]

The term "dig" is obviously somewhat new for kids to use, and it would become more popular during the 1960's (this was made, like all films, the year before, which was still the 1950's). Two children of two main characters say it. Efrem Zimbalist Jr.'s daughter (Karen Green) says it about her mom, Rhonda Fleming, "We just don't dig each other," and Dana Andrews's son says, "You just don't dig me, dad."

[amber]

Dana Andrews would work two more times with Anne Francis in 1965. Once as her friendly father in The Satan Bug (1965), and then her evil husband in Brainstorm (1965).

[clayton]

Two characters use the term "Crowded Sky" in this movie, and they're both pilots... The big plane's co-pilot, John Kerr, says it to pilot Dana Andrews (the latter calling it a "popular phrase"); and in the jet fighter, lead pilot Efrem Zimbalist Jr. says it to Troy Donahue while lecturing on the dangers of airplane traffic.

[norma]

It's apparent the term "hyperventilate" (breathing too hard under stress) wasn't used then as much as now when Efrem Zimbalist Jr. tells Troy Donahue to wrap his head around that one, referring to the word, hyperventilating.

[ray]

In this film, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. plays a military jet pilot who crashes his plane into the commercial DC-6 piloted by Dana Andrews. About a decade and a half later, Andrews would return the favor as his character's private plane crashed into Zimbalist's commercial jet in Airport 1975 (1974).

[tamara]

Dana Andrews had worked more or less every year since the beginning of his career except in 1959, the year before this movie where he had replaced his 'Daisy Kenyon' and 'The Oxbow Incident' co-star Henry Fonda in the Broadway play "Two for the Seesaw". Throughout the 1960's he'd continue working every year despite being busy as President of the Actors Union. In 1965 he'd do eight movies; two co-starring this movie's ingenue Anne Francis.

[christina]

Rhonda Fleming, who is second billed, has no scenes with any of the cast members in the main location, the commercial jet. Her sporadic role, as the manipulating wife of Efrem Zimbalist Jr., mostly occurs in Zimbalist's flashback sequences as he's flying the jet fighter. Also: her and Zimbalist's swimwear-clad bodies shown in the poster artwork, embraced and kissing liken to the famous scene in From Here to Eternity (1953), also derives from a flashback sequence.