No Highway in the Sky (a.k.a. No Highway) is a 1951 British black-and-white aviation film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Louis D. Lighton, directed by Henry Koster, that stars James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Niall MacGinnis, Janette Scott, and Jack Hawkins. The screenplay was written by Oscar Millard, with additional material provided by Alec Coppel.
The film is based on the novel No Highway by Nevil Shute and was one of the first films that depicted a potential aviation disaster involving metal fatigue. Although the film follows the plot of Shute’s original 1948 novel in general, No Highway in the Sky notably omits references to the supernatural contained in the original novel, including the use of automatic writing to resolve a key element in the original novel’s story. The role of Scott, the recently appointed administrator who narrates the novel, is curtailed in the film version, which means that one of the several touching features of the book, Scott’s blind faith in his scientist, is also missing.
Plot
Theodore Honey (James Stewart), an eccentric “boffin” with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, is working on solving a difficult aviation crash problem. A widower with a 12-year-old daughter, Elspeth (Janette Scott), Honey is sent from Farnborough to investigate the crash of a Rutland Reindeer airliner in Labrador, Canada. He theorizes the accident happened because of the tailplane’s structural failure, caused by metal fatigue after 1440 flight hours. To test the theory in his laboratory, a rear airframe (empennage) is being vibrated at a very high rate in daily eight-hour cycles.
It is not until Honey finds himself on board a Reindeer airliner that he realizes he is flying on an early production aircraft that is close to the number of hours his theory projects for the metal fatigue failure. Despite the fact that his theory is not yet proven, he decides to warn the aircrew and Hollywood actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich), a fellow passenger. After the Reindeer safely lands at Gander Airport in Newfoundland, an inspection clears the aircraft to continue on its route. Honey then takes drastic action to stop the flight by activating the Reindeer’s undercarriage lever, dropping the airliner on its belly and seriously damaging it. Shocked by the act, some of his colleagues demand that he be declared insane to discredit his unproved theory, and to save the reputation of British passenger aviation now awash in a sea of bad press.
Teasdale and an airline stewardess Marjorie Corder (Glynis Johns) both take a liking to Mr Honey and Elspeth, who they discover is lonely and isolated from her schoolmates. Teasdale speaks to Honey’s superiors on his behalf, claiming she believes in him. Corder, meanwhile, has stayed on with Honey and his daughter as a nurse. Having now observed Honey’s many qualities beyond his minor eccentricities, and after becoming very close to Elspeth, she decides to make the arrangement permanent by marrying the engineer.
During a hearing in which his sanity is questioned, Honey angrily protests, refusing to be railroaded. He resigns and walks out, threatening to collapse other Rutland Reindeers until all the aircraft are grounded. He then goes back to his laboratory to prove his metal fatigue theory is sound, but the time he predicted for the structural failure soon passes without anything happening. Meanwhile the Reindeer airliner he disabled at Gander is repaired, and soon after it completes a test flight, the tail falls off while taxiing. Shortly thereafter, the same thing happens to the tail frame in the laboratory, and Honey discovers that he failed to include temperature as a variable factor in his fatigue calculations.
Cast
James Stewart as Theodore Honey
Marlene Dietrich as Monica Teasdale
Glynis Johns as Marjorie Corder
Jack Hawkins as Dennis Scott
Janette Scott as Elspeth Honey
Elizabeth Allan as Shirley Scott
Ronald Squire as Sir John, Director
Jill Clifford as Peggy, Stewardess
Niall MacGinnis as Captain Samuelson, Pilot (uncredited)
Kenneth More as Dobson, Co-Pilot (uncredited)
Dora Bryan as Rosie, Barmaid (uncredited)
Felix Aylmer as Sir Philip (uncredited)
Maurice Denham as Major Pearl (Tour guide) (uncredited)
Wilfrid Hyde-White as Fisher, Inspector of Accidents (uncredited)
John Lennox as Farnborough Director (uncredited)
Bessie Love as Aircraft passenger (uncredited)
Arthur Lucas as Farnborough Director (uncredited)
Pete Murray the Radio Operator (uncredited)
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