The Man in the Sky

Test pilot John Mitchell is married, has two young sons, and lives in a rented semi-detached house in the suburbs of Wolverhampton. He disappoints his wife Mary by refusing to increase their bid to buy a house from £3,500 to the asking price of £4,000, which he says they cannot afford. What she does not know is that the aircraft manufacturing company he works for is in desperate financial straits. Owner Reginald Conway needs to convince potential buyer Ashmore to place an order soon or the firm will go bankrupt. Mitchell takes the only prototype of a new freight aeroplane for a flight, with Ashmore and several of Conway's employees aboard. It has the maximum cargo on board: three heavy vehicles including a Rolls-Royce. Ashmore explains he is close to accepting a deal. During testing, one engine catches fire.

Ashmore and the others parachute to safety over the airfield. Mitchell is able to extinguish the fire by diving the aeroplane, but loses half of his aileron control in the process. It is suggested to fly on for two hours to reduce the fuel. Then, despite Conway's order and the urgings of others, he decides to try to land the aeroplane rather than crashing it into the sea. However, he has to fly back and forth for half an hour to use up fuel, shifting the centre of gravity in the aircraft away from the dead engine to make the landing more feasible. Ashmore is convinced of the aircraft's value by its performance in the dive and expresses confidence in Mitchell's ability to land it.

A freelance journalist comes to the airfield to collect information for a story. As he waits for the plane to use up enough fuel to try a landing, the journalist tries to sell the story to a newspaper and is told that they will pay him £50 for the story if the plane crashes, but if the pilot lands the plane safely the newspaper does not want the story.

During the tense wait, after all the others have rejected the idea as serving no purpose, office worker Mrs Snowden takes it upon herself to notify Mitchell's wife by phone, anyway. Mary goes to the airfield and watches as her husband undertakes the tricky landing. She gets a friend to drive her home so Mitch is unaware that she saw the whole thing. Later, at home, she demands to know why he risked his life when everyone told him to bail out. He explains that while he felt it was his duty with the company's fate hanging in the balance, he took the risk out of love and concern for the welfare of his family. Then he phones the estate agent and agrees to the seller's price of the house mentioned earlier.

Much of the filming of The Man in the Sky was done at Pendeford airfield near Wolverhampton, now a housing estate. The aircraft portraying the "Wolverhampton Freighter" was Bristol 170 Wayfarer Mk.IIA G-AIFV of Silver City Airways, a type that had actually been flying since 1946. During filming, the aircraft overshot the runway, damaging the nose and wing. After filming, the aircraft returned to service with Silver City Airways until May 1962, when it was scrapped.[4][N 1]

The Man in the Sky premiered in London at the Empire, Leicester Square on 24 January 1957,[1] and the reviewer for The Times called it "an Ealing film with a difference".[5] According to MGM records, The Man in the Sky earned $150,000 in the US and Canada and $350,000 elsewhere.[3]

Charles Crichton felt the film "didn't do particuarly well" because "the climax was an emotional climax rather than a physical one."[6]

Aviation film historian Stephen Pendo in Aviation in the Cinema (1985) considered The Man in the Sky as part of the lineage of the "test pilot-hero" films of the 1950s.[7] Aviation film historian Michael Paris in From the Wright Brothers to Top Gun: Aviation, Nationalism, and Popular Cinema (1995) shared a similar perspective on the film.[8]

• List of British films of 1957

• The Man in the Sky at the British Film Institute
• The Man in the Sky at the British Board of Film Classification
• The Man in the Sky at IMDb
• The Man in the Sky at AllMovie
• The Man in the Sky at the TCM Movie Database