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John Eldridge

John Eldridge

Directing

Known For

The Man in the Sky
7.5

The efforts of test pilot John Mitchell to make a better life for his wife Mary and their two children seem doomed to failure and he blames himself. At the Conway Aero-Manufacturing Company of Wolverhampton, Mitchell is to take the company's new rocket-propulsion transport plane up for tests, fully loaded and carrying two important passengers - Ministry official Crabtree and buyer's representative Ashmore. Mitchell learns from his boss, Reg Conway, that if Ashmore does not recommend the plane, the company will be out of business and Mitchell out of a job, since the plane is not even insured as the firm's entire capital is tied up in the plane. Aloft, an engine catches fire and the passengers and other crew bail out, but Mitchell refuses to obey orders to jettison the plane in the Irish Sea.

The Man in the Sky

1957Movie
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An impressionistic survey, scripted by Dylan Thomas, of Wales at war. Continuity is provided by film of the Welsh countryside, which underlines the imagery of 'mountains' in which the whole film is couched: the balance of the film, which exists principally to illustrate the soundtrack, shows the castles left by the old war (against England), as an introduction to the new war - steelworkers - dockers - pithead scenes from the Rhondda mines - agriculture - sheep farming - agricultural research at Aberystwyth - quarrying - Welsh chapels - children - women (sewing, and at the whist drive) - Druids. Film concludes with a reminder of recent Welsh history - the social and economic changes that industry brought to the valleys, and the hardships of the depression, from which only the arrival of new industry with the war brought relief - "Remember the march of the old young men/It shall not happen again."

Wales: Green Mountain, Black Mountain

1942Movie