User Reviews

. . . the Universe directed me to this page to review THE MUSIC AND WORLD OF DMITRI TIOMKIN, who won an Oscar for Best Score as a result of his "Whistling Dan" motif for a John Wayne vehicle titled THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY. This 19-minute documentary short can be found on Disc Two of Warner Bros.' 2005 DVD release of this pioneering aviation disaster flick. It turns out that Tiomkin conducted his own orchestra for 8 or 9 sessions to record this score, and the musical bunch numbered as many as 83 noisemakers. It's also disclosed here that Mr. Wayne was blowing out "Mary," a George M. Cohen tune, during his many on-set whistling scenes, but this sounded so lame in the "dailies" that Tiomkin whipped out the famous notes movie goers heard in their theaters, which was performed by Hollywood's best whistler--Muzzy Marcellino--NOT Mr. Wayne. It also is revealed here that someone wrote words to this tune, and it charted on Billboard's Radio Playlist in 1956, but the notoriously corrupt Academy Awards honchos tried to deny it Oscar eligibility just because these lyrics were not included in the final version of the movie. To get around these stinkers, Warner dubbed the lyrics in on one print of THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, and played that print for one week in December, 1956, in one Los Angeles theater, making it eligible for the Best Song statuette (which Tiomkin had won the year before with HIGH NOON, along with another Best Score Oscar). However, the Academy was highly miffed at this turn of events, and forked over the Oscar for Best Song of 1956 to "Three Coins in a Fountain," depriving Dmitri of what would have become a fifth career Oscar (counting his fourth, which he won later for the score to THE GUNS OF NAVARRONE).

. . . of THE MAKING OF THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY. This is one of a series of documentary shorts seemingly produced by different filmmakers, but offered with no credits of any sort as to the crew involved, or even a copyright to indicate whether it was shot the year of the two-disc DVD release (2005) or earlier. FLYING IN THE FIFTIES is just short of 24 minutes long, and has a brief lead-in from film historian Leonard Maltin (as do the other components rounding out this "MAKING OF"). However, FLYING is the only piece in this collection which is narrated (anonymously) by a male announcer using the over-awed intonations of actual 1950s-style PR flaks. The half dozen geezers interviewed here are identified by name, but NOT by their function in the 1950s (except for ex-stewardess Connie P. White, of course). At most, 20% of the time is devoted to providing useful information. The stock footage included is pretty grainy. Most of the guys here flew for TWA, Connie stewed for United, and one of the men worked as a "Flying Tiger" for Hawaiian Airlines (though the interaction between these two corporate names never is explained).

" . . . 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!

. . . have been a very good contestant for TV's "Wheel of Fortune" game show. (That is, he'd refuse to shell out any cash just to buy letters.) As this part of THE MAKING OF THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY relates, when Wayne needed a new name for his own private film company, he decided to adopt the moniker of his WAKE OF THE RED WITCH employer, Batjack Company. However, the stationary shop spelled it "Batjac," and told Wayne that it would cost $700 to correct their misspelling, to which Wayne supposedly replied, "Let's go with the typo." This anecdote raises several intriguing questions. First off, exactly how BIG was Wayne's original stationary order? I once worked in a stationary store myself, and adjusting for inflation, my former boss estimates that $700 would have covered 12,000 business cards, 40 reams of letterhead, and 10,000 business-sized envelopes in the early 1950s. That much paper in one office would have raised a Red Flag as a fire hazard. Secondly, Wayne's reaction to the print shop's goof seems out of character. Being such a powder puff pushover in Real Life contradicts every aspect of his screen personae, and much of the testimony in his IMDb biography. Finally, can you imagine the Corporate World's reaction to other CEO's who blithely accepted "Sunoc Oil Co.," "Krap Foods," or "Pepi Cola" in order to save $700 on their stationary budget in view of comparable mistakes? My theory as to what most likely ACTUALLY HAPPENED here is that it took the "Batjac" people several years to notice (or be told about) the spelling error, and by then it was too late to correct it for any amount of cash!