Just watched The High and the Mighty... John Wayne movie from an Ernest K Gann novel. Started thinking about doing a Trans-Orient Pacific DC-4 in 1/144 (Minicraft kit). The livery is pretty... flat red over silver with a yellow tail. TOPAC on the fuselage and/or tail; I'll have to double check that.
Anyway, before I ask someone to make me the decals, is there already a decal for it in 1/144?
--- Tontoni
Hey is that movie available now? Maybe I was smoking crizzy, but I thought there had been some issues with the Wayne estate or something or other and couldn't find it.
I will have to look and can do the happy dance!
Rich
Actually, it makes a great "double feature" with the Wayne/Gann film
*before* it: "Island In The Sky"; which has also just been released on DVD. Outstanding C-47 footage, in glorious black and white photography. A very rare movie, as at the time it was overshadowed by "High and the Mighty"; and like that movie, was "stashed away" by the Wayne family.
I also picked up Island In the Sky. That's a great book, one I'd read several times. The movie is quite a bit better than the High and the Mighty.
My dad was involved in the search for the aircraft lost that was the basis for Island In the Sky. As memory serves me, it should have been a C-54, but it's just as good a story otherwise!
--- Tontoni
Just finished reading "Hostage to Fortune," Gann's autobiography. It's one I highly recommend.
Picked up the two pack of The High and the Mighty with Island in the Sky at Costco for $19.99 a couple of weeks ago.
Tom
"As memory serves me, it should have been a C-54, but it's just as good a story otherwise!"
I too am relying on fading memory and my books are not yet unpacked. IIRC, the aircraft which was the subject of the search in the book was a transport version of the B-24. In the film all aircraft were C-47s.
I think that one quote in the book was something like " the C-8? does not fly. It relies upon a crude form of levitation."
Both are great books as is Gann's "Fate is the Hunter". As far as the film versions of all three go, I agree that "Island in the Sky" was by far the best.
Cheers,
Doc
It was a C-87 and now I remember reading that book long ago. Back in the early '60s my dad got those Readers' Digest Condensed Books and that novel was in one. Boy does that bring back memories of reading books just before bedtime! I never went a week without something to read. Now I get most of my reading done in the 'reading room'. It's the only room in the house that's quiet enough.
Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.
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