The Man in the Sky

The test pilot John Mitchell is trying to build a better life for his wife Mary and their two children and failing, and he blames himself for it. The firm he works for has developed a new transport aircraft and Mitchell is to take it up on a test flight. Two important passengers are aboard: a ministry official and the buyer’s representative. His boss tells him this: if the buyer does not report favourably the company will close and he will be out of work. The aircraft is not even insured, and the firm’s entire capital is tied up in it. In the air, an engine catches fire. The passengers and the rest of the crew bail out, but Mitchell will not obey the order to ditch the plane. The film compresses its tension into a single flight and a single decision. Charles Crichton’s eighty seven minute British film was completed in 1957.