Broken Journey

Plot

In postwar Europe, while flying over the Swiss Alps, a Fox Airways Douglas DC-3 airliner experiences engine trouble and sends out a distress call. Pilot Captain Fox (Guy Rolfe) and co-pilot Bill Haverton (James Donald) set the aircraft down on a glacier with a minimum of damage, but know that they will not be able to radio for help with run-down batteries and a storm setting in.

Taking stock of their situation, Haverton knows he can rely on stewardess Mary Johnstone (Phyllis Calvert), who is in love with him, but the rest of the survivors present problems. Film star Joanna Dane (Margot Grahame), opera tenor Perami (Francis L. Sullivan) and iron lung patient John Barber (Grey Blake) are all, in different ways, difficult and demanding passengers. The wrecked aircraft provides them with shelter, as the 13 passengers and crew wait for rescue.

Rescue missions have already been mounted, but when a rescue aircraft misjudges its approach, it crashes and all aboard are killed in a fiery explosion. With limited food supplies, the survivors realise that a rescue in the desolate location is unlikely. A decision to stay and wait for help or leave the shelter of the wrecked airliner to set out in bad weather to try to reach safety, paralyses the survivors. In the end, some people make sacrifices to allow others to live.

Cast

Real Life Inspiration

The plot of Broken Journey closely approximated the 1946 C-53 Skytrooper crash on the Gauli Glacier, Switzerland in November 1946. The improvised operation that eventually resulted in the successful rescue of eight passengers and four crew members, considered the "birth of air-rescue in Switzerland", garnered worldwide publicity and led to the fictionalised account of Broken Journey.

Development

Sydney Box became head of production of Gainsborough Studios in 1946. He commissioned Robert Westerby, who had a reputation for writing contemporary thrillers, to do a script. Michael Balcon was also developing a film based on the same story, and registered an idea with the British Producers Association, but once he heard Box was doing a film as well he withdrew his project.

Westerby did a treatment in six days, then proceeded to a full draft. He wrote a role specifically for Phyllis Calvert, the one of the studio's biggest stars. Calvert was reluctant to make the film but Box managed to persuade her. It would be the last film Calvert made under her contract with Gainsborough.

Shooting

The film was shot over 14 weeks. Calvert was only available for half that time. There was location filming in Switzerland with studio work at Sherpherd's Bush. Gainsborough had just finished making a film in the Alps called Snowbound (1947) so Annakin could draw on their expertise for the best locations.

Principal photography for the film took place in 1947. At the same time, Annakin was completing work on his second feature film, Miranda (1948).

Box Office

The film was a commercial disappointment recording a loss of £63,900. This was attributed in part to the fact that the film came out 18 months after the accident which inspired it and was no longer topical.

Critical

Broken Journey was critically received as a disaster film. Reviewer A.W. Weiler of The New York Times observed that the film was effective; "... (an) intelligent script and a uniformly excellent cast serve to make the import a diverting entertainment. And, the rugged, spectacular mountain backgrounds are an added note of authenticity to the yarn which accents character study rather than melodramatics." The reviewer, however, had a caution that "..'Broken Journey', which might have been a top-flight, thoroughly exciting excursion, is simply a meticulously-planned trip in which the travelers are more interesting than the itinerary."

Steven H. Scheuer in Movies on TV, 1986-87 noted that the film was "tense, well acted melodrama."