Review of The Making of 'the High and the Mighty'

" . . . and cannot be persuaded to say more," says filmmaker, painter, cattle rancher, novelist, charter airline pilot, sailor, and general thrill-seeker ERNEST K. GANN: ADVENTURER, AUTHOR & ARTIST in an archival interview which closes this 19-minute subcomponent of the DVD "extra" THE MAKING OF THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY for its 2005 DVD release. (Amazingly, the first-shown HUAC victim in John Wayne's BIG JIM McLANE from a couple years before MIGHTY shares Gann's sentiment 100%!) Besides a lot of vintage footage of Gann typing (he also did the ISLAND IN THE SKY script for Wayne), viewers get Gann testimonials here from filmmakers and Gann intimates Andrew McLaglen and Laszlo Pal, as well as Ernie's widow, Dorothy, plus Gann's fellow pilots, Roy Franklin and Michael Drury. Though viewers are informed by an anonymous male narrator that nine of Gann's books became films, only eight titles appear on screen when this is said. (A 16-year-old Gann raised $200 in 1926 to make a flick titled SWEET SIXTEEN, which grossed $400 in its first month of release; is THIS his missing movie #9?) After painting an abstract portrait of THE BOUNTY's Captain Bligh, Gann flew in a U-2 spy plane and parachuted into his late 70's. Go, Geezers!