Trouble in the Sky (1960) User Reviews

Exemplary cast in an original drama

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 3 May 2016]

CONE OF SILENCE is one of those rare films - a technical thriller. The subject of this film is a type of aircraft that has problems taking off and landing when carrying a lot of weight and in warm temperatures. After an accident as a result of this problem, the cause is listed as human error, leading the pilot involved to attempt to clear his name.

The subject matter is quite unusual and I enjoyed the way this film refused to pigeonhole itself to a particular genre. Even the characters are written in shades of grey rather than being merely black and white creations. There are thriller elements, some courtroom drama, but most of all this is about the human element.

What makes CONE OF SILENCE work is the exemplary cast who have been gathered together to bring the material to life. In lesser acting hands this might have felt slightly turgid, but the cast make it work. The underrated Bernard Lee is particularly good as the pilot whose failings make up the backbone of the plot, and Peter Cushing is fine as his foil, a misguided antagonist for the most part. There are also roles for George Sanders, Gordon Jackson, and Michael Craig. Hammer fans will spot the likes of Andre Morell (THE MUMMY'S SHROUD), Charles Lloyd Pack (DRACULA), Marne Maitland (THE REPTILE), Noel Willman (KISS OF THE VAMPIRE), Gerald Sim (DR JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE), and Charles Tingwell (DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS) fleshing out the cast. CONE OF SILENCE is one of the more originally-plotted dramas I've seen from this era, and it doesn't disappointment.

based on the story of the Comet, the worlds first Jet Airliner

[swanjac · 7/10 · 28 May 2003]

I haven't seen this film for years, which is a pity because all i remember are a few powerful scenes thanks to the very impressive cast. Based on true events, but subtly changed to avoid law-suits, its actually a compelling little drama, a shame it hasn't been shown more often. The story on which it is based, the KNOWN Design Flaws in the Comet which were Covered up by the De Havilland company, and the subsequent "sacrifice" of an entire airline and its passengers in Italy, is actually screaming out to be remade! In this case, the truth is far worse than fiction...in the film, decent noble people save the day, in the reality alas...less noble and darker motives won...and people died needlessly. The performances in this little melodrama were so good, i actually remembered this film for at least 25 years...thats when i last saw it i think..well worth catching.

good British Heavy metal

[clmrshll-203-370035 · 7/10 · 7 May 2016]

Unlike lots of other films shown on the recently opened 'Moving Pictures' T.V. channel I had never heard of this film so it was fresh to me. The connection to the Comet Airliner trouble was apparent so this film made so soon after the events must have had some impact.

The cast was typical British 50/60's regulars and Bernard lee played the main character with restraint. I was surprised when Peter Cushing popped up sometime later as a unsympathetic character.

The plot Basically revolved around the stitch up of senior Pilot, Capt. Gort played by Mr Lee for a fatal crash in a new Jet airliner, with the airline and plane makers unwilling to admit a fault with either the aircraft or its correct operation. Despite being found responsible for the crash and calls for only young hotshot pilots to be let loose on the new jet, Gort defies the ageism and passes all flight tests he's asked to perform. These tests are carried out by the much younger Capt. Dallas played by Micheal Craig, who initially is doubtful of Gort's ability but is soon persuaded of Gort's Skill.

Dallas also takes an immediate shine to Gorts young and attractive daughter played by Elizabeth Seal. All goes well until Gort crashes another jet this time killing himself, in similar conditions to the first crash. Miss Gort and Capt. Dallas then team up to exonerate the late Capt. Gort,and reveal other near misses by other crews. Armed this with this they persuade the designer to modify the operating instructions and narrowly prevent another disaster. Having established the real cause Capt. Gort is absolved of blame, albeit too late for him.

It was good to see an almost unknown aircraft the Avro Ashton in some detail. I had only ever seen the 4 engine version on old newsreel, but was unaware it had been used as a test bed for an engine manufacturer having 2 extra Bristol Olympus fitted. Its ironic that the Aircraft in the film plot suffered from lack of power but would actually have had vast amounts of power with 4 RR Nene and 2 Bristol Olympus and should have gone like a rocket!

Forgotten airborne drama

[Al Baker · 9 January 2000]

This is quite a good movie with a cast of familiar faces (Peter Cushing, George Sanders, Gordon Jackson). The screenplay is based on David Beaty's novel which was inspired by actual events. In October 1952 one of BOAC's new Comet jetliners crashed at Rome Airport. The accident was due to a design error that allowed the pilot to raise the nose too high on take off and stall the airplane on the ground. The pilot was blamed for the crash and relegated to flying piston engined freighters. The following year another Comet, on a delivery flight to Canadian Pacific Airlines crashed on taking off from Karachi, Pakistan in identical circumstances. Following this accident, design modifications were made to the Comet to prevent further similar incidents.

The movie follows this scenario quite closely, except that Captain Gort, the pilot blamed for the crash (played by Bernard Lee), continues to fly the fictional "Phoenix" jets and subsequently dies in an identical accident. It is left to the Airline's initially sceptical training Captain (Michael Craig) and Captain Gort's daughter (Elizabeth Seal) to clear her father's name and get the airplane modified in the nick of time to prevent a third crash.

Although made on a smallish budget and with some model shots that look a little shaky today, this is a cut above the typical Hollywood airborne disaster epic. Little seen today, especially in it's original 'scope ratio, this deserves more recognition.

The Flight of the Phoenix

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 31 August 2020]

A screen version of David Beaty's novel that like most films made sixty years ago looks better today than at the time, although the model work is a bit obvious. Made by Michael Balcon's company Bryanston, hence the job of directing it going to his former Ealing employee Charles Frend.

Both composer Gerard Schumann and cameraman Arthur Grant also did distinctive work in horror films (as did many of the cast, which includes Hammer Films' Holmes & Watson from 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'), while Tony award-winning dancer Elizabeth Seal plays her only ever film lead as Bernard Lee's daughter.

Man Versus Machine

[boblipton · 7/10 · 9 August 2020]

Airline pilot Bernard Lee is downgraded for 'pilot error', and eventually reinstated at full rating. His daughter, Elizabeth Seal, knows him for a by-the-book sort of man and puts a bug in the ear of pilot tester Michael Craig. He begins to suspect that the problem lies not in the pilot, but in the new jet plane; the company that manufactures it prefers to blame the man, rather than lose out in a hotly contested, lucrative market.

The movie is suggested by some issues in the De Havilland comet, the first commercial jet liner, in the early 1950s. Jet aviation was a hot topic for the movies, and NO HIGHWAYS IN THE SKY was on the film makers' minds as a likely model. All of the pilots start out being by-the-book, but their individual characters, both as men and pilots, come gradually to the fore, with Gordon Jackson (whose character is called, ineviltably, 'Jock') speaking offhandedly of instinct. In the meantime, we are confronted by everyone except Craif and Miss Seal, being walking avatars of professional probity, from George Sanders, who asks the correct questions at hearings, to Peter Cushing , who demands a retest of Lee .... and who is shocked to learn that he may have been guilty of a near-accident .... missed, like many, it is suggested, by sheer luck.

It's interesting to see in the cast so many actors who spent their careers playing villains. Instead they are tightly repressed. It's an interesting, coolly intellectualized movie that pits man and experience against the sleek, mechanized world we were moving into in the 1950s. The only strike against it is its lack of overt excitement around a now outmoded tecnology. Perhaps the modern audience would find it as relevant as a movie about steam automobiles that keep exploding. On the other hand, recent news about the Boeing 737 may make it telling.

Tale Of The Comet

[writers_reign · 7/10 · 29 May 2017]

Unlike Nevil Shute's No Highway which dealt with metal fatigue in aeroplanes, a natural rather than man-made flaw, Cone Of Silence centres on a failure of design and the attempt by the manufacturers to cover it up by citing pilot error as the cause of a disaster. The plot follows closely the travails of the very real DeHavilland Comet even to the point about the nose and the production company have wheeled out a strong cast of familiar faces with Bernard Lee in a rare leading role as the scapegoat pilot George Gort. Also on hand are Peter Cushing, Gordon Jackson, Michael Craig, George Sanders and an insipid Elizabeth Seal, a vivacious stage actress who enjoyed a huge success as Irma La Douce but was unable to transfer her charisma to the screen. For a film centering on a design flaw - by extension highly technical - it does hold the attention and is well worth ninety minutes of anyones' time.

Never Got Off The Ground.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 17 July 2015]

It's a drama about an airline jet that crashed on takeoff with Bernard Lee, as Capt. Gort -- not that Gort, at the controls. It opens with George Sanders, representing the airline, explaining to the press that it was all pilot error and had nothing to do with the airplane itself.

I suspect such mysterious happenings were still in the minds of many Britons after the high-profile disintegration of three De Havilland Comets in 1954. It was a streamlined and lethal airplane, with its engines not stuck out on pods but faired into the wings, and it caused the death of the noted correspondent and historian Chester Wilmot. The Comet is mentioned in the script and so is "explosive decompression," which caused the accidents. The investigation that followed set the pattern for all subsequent inquiries.

In any case, although the manufacturer would love to blame Lee, they can't prove he's done anything wrong. He passes all the required tests and he's soon back behind the controls.

Lee, by the way, does a fine turn as the suspect but competent pilot. He wrangles the aircraft through a freak hailstorm that demolishes his windscreen and he generally exudes trustworthiness. The characters are convincingly fleshed out, even the ones that look a little dark and villainous. George Sanders, in his brief appearances as a prosecutor, of course is snide and caddish but I love it. I've sometimes wondered if he and the novelist Vladimir Nabokov are one and the same person, what with both born the same year in St. Petersburg and looking alike. Come to think of it, I've never seen the two of them together in the same room at the same time.

A trifling and semi-comic romance between Lee's daughter and the darkly dashing young Captain Hugh Dallas is shoehorned into the plot. Lee's daughter is fiercely untalented. It's one of those things that most movie makers of the period seem to feel is required for one reason or other and, like this one, it's -- well, it's -- it's -- Zzzzzzz.

The audience is rooting for Bernard Lee all through the movie and he's never given any evidence of being inept as a pilot, but our faith in him is shaken when he discombobulates a take off in the same type of aircraft off the same runway under the same weather conditions that landed him in hot water the first time around.

This one costs Lee his life. Sanders has a chance to shred Lee's friend, the darkly dashing Dallas, in court. It can't be a coincidence. The same pilot, the same aircraft, the same conditions, and the same take off technique, by the book. Something is obviously amiss. It's either the pilot, the aircraft, or the book. And the solution to the puzzle is found. I won't give it away, except to hint that it's not the pilot, not the aircraft, and not the conditions.

It's actually a good film. The tension is consistent throughout. It's not as stunning as David Lean's "The Breaking of the Sound Barrier" or as funny and gripping as "No Highway in the Sky", but it's nicely done. Especially compared to the junk that Hollywood was grinding out at the time, with airplanes assailed by dozens of problems at once and the back story of every passenger spelled out in abominable detail.

Bernard Lee and Peter Cushing

[kevinolzak · 8/10 · 23 May 2014]

1960's "Trouble in the Sky" (British title "Cone of Silence") is an excellent airplane drama featuring as fine a cast as could be found in British films that year. At the center of it all is future 'M' in the James Bond series, Bernard Lee as Captain George Gort, who is found guilty of pilot error after a recent crash of the new Phoenix resulted in the death of his co-pilot. Captain Edward Manningham (Andre Morell) leaves Gort's fate in the judgment of examiner Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig), whose subsequent test is passed with flying colors, enabling Gort to continue his career, having logged more miles in the air than all the other pilots combined. One such pilot is Captain Clive Judd (Peter Cushing), who believes in Gort's guilt, conspiring to undermine him and have him reassigned to a ground position. Gort's rock solid convictions are so trustworthy that we too believe him to be innocent of any negligence, so it's quite a shock when similar circumstances result in an identical crash, this time killing the dedicated pilot. By now, Dallas too is convinced that the fault lies elsewhere, with the comeuppance of the arrogant Judd a key factor in finding the truth. Based on the actual 1953 case of the DeHavilland Comet, Britain's first passenger jet airliner, the remainder of the cast comes off like a Who's Who of vintage 60s cinema: Gordon Jackson, Charles Tingwell, Noel Willman, Marne Maitland, Jack Hedley, Charles Lloyd Pack, Anthony Newlands, Gerald Sim, and Geoffrey Bayldon. Of special mention is the supporting presence of George Sanders, coming off the heroic "Village of the Damned" and the villainous "Bluebeards Ten Honeymoons," here in more typical form as smarmy attorney Sir Arnold Hobbes, his damning courtroom highjinks convicting the innocent Gort. As for second-billed Peter Cushing, he makes just one appearance before the film's second half, beginning a string of nine consecutive non genre features in a failed effort to avoid the horror typecasting that Christopher Lee also feared.

The human factor.

[brogmiller · 6/10 · 1 February 2021]

As a former BOAC pilot David Beaty certainly knew his stuff and must surely have been pleased with this adaptation of his novel.

Has the crash of a jetliner flown by Captain Gort in which a co-pilot is killed been caused by a design fault or pilot error? That is the question. Although the captain is hung out to dry by a clever lawyer representing the airline at the tribunal of investigation he is still allowed to fly. As the film progresses it becomes clear that the aircraft designer has not been entirely forthcoming......

Charles Frend is a capable, workmanlike director and has done a good job here with a limited budget and some excellent actors. This was made at a time when there was a wealth of first class English actors upon which to draw. Peter Cushing and Andre Morell were no strangers to each other and had recently played Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. I consider Morell to be a superlative Watson and arguably the best Quatermass. Here Cushing has the showiest part and exhibits his customary style. This film can only work of course if the character of Captain Gort is sympathetic and here the casting of Bernard Lee is inspired. He achieves so much by doing so little. George Sanders is as always immaculate and although he only has two scenes as the lawyer Sir Arnold, undoubtedly pocketed the biggest salary.

It comes as no surprise that the airborne scenes are the most effective and that in which Lee and his crew hit a freak hailstorm is especially gripping.

The culpability of a pilot for an airline disaster was to be depicted in Ralph Nelson's excellent 'Fate is the Hunter' of 1964. Whilst Frend's film has neither the production values nor the starry cast of the later film, it still manages in its own quiet way to pack quite a punch.

Not bad if you are prepared for a lot of chit chat.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 5 May 2021]

In reading the synopsis for this film, I was under the assumption that this would be highly filmed in the sky but unfortunately, most of it is in the ground, in the office, in a courtroom and in men's clubs. You got an all-star cast of well-known British character actors and a few intense scenes involving possible disaster in the sky. But a lot of the conversation is psychological study or legal mumbo jumbo, and not everybody will find that fascinating.

So what I enjoyed in this film was seeing actors like Bernard Lee, Peter Cushing, George Sanders, Andre Morrell and Gordon Jackson, while Michael Craig and Elizabeth Seal provide the romance which is often distracting even if their conversations are plot related. The American title gives the indication that this is going to have a lot more action than it does, so if you view it utilizing the British original title as your guide of what the theme will be, you'll understand the message of its direction. I truly enjoyed the photography though, particularly the shot of a giant plane shot from its underbelly.

Cone of Silence

[henry8-3 · 6/10 · 22 April 2021]

Top pilot Bernard Lee is being investigated after his plane crashed killing his co-pilot. Flight trainer Michael Craig, falling for Lee's daughter, starts to question what really happened.

Very stiff upper lip British fare maybe a little stilted, but is nonetheless quite exciting with plenty of twists and turns and is well played by a strong cast - pretty much every face is familiar. Definitely good afternoon matinee viewing.

Uninspired and a good cast wasted.

[alexanderdavies-99382 · 4/10 · 7 September 2019]

"Cone of Silence" could have been good but thanks to bland dialogue, a poor ending and some childish attempts at trick photography involving airplanes, the whole film outstays its welcome long before the end. If a film is going to have aviation as the main setting, surely it is only common sense to include footage of real planes! Even some archive footage would have been better than nothing. There is practically no build up to the climax, it is merely added as an afterthought. Of the cast, I'd say Bernard Lee and Michael Craig come off ok. Peter Cushing - a favourite of mine - hasn't much to do and comes into the film quite late. Elizabeth Sellars being involved remains a mystery, she is some pointless love interest to Craig. A waste of time. Nothing memorable in the least, you are better off watching episodes of the series "The Plane Makers." I mean that sincerely.

The McGuffin is weak

[bairdmhi · 7/10 · 12 March 2011]

This film had good actors and good direction, and it was worth the few dollars that I spent on the DVD. However I was disappointed by the weak McGuffin.

That is the term invented by Alfred Hitchcock for the key ingredient in the plot that everyone is chasing -- the jewels, the microfilm, the beautiful princess or whatever. In this case the McGuffin was the rather obvious fact that under hot and humid conditions the air is less dense and therefore a higher speed is needed to take off a plane. It seems incredible that all those talented designers and skilled pilots seem to have missed the McGuffin until the final scene.

Bumpy, Uneven Ride - Cone of Silence

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 16 November 2022]

Be rest assured that Peter Cushing sank his teeth into this role as an airline official. The rest of the cast does a decent job with the uneven script and musical background. In one hilarious scene, the orchestra swells up to dramatic levels merely for a few people entering a automobile! Nothing of any note was happening in the scene to require any dramatic music whatsoever. There are a few decent action scenes in the film, but they are very few, and very far in between. Most of the film is about weasels who try and point the blame on a blameless pilot for various "accidents". In reality, going by the book was causing several of the incidents, but the company was very slow in coming to that conclusion. The flight of this film is uneven, at best, and it is a bumpy ride for all.