Jim,
I read with interest your views on the showing of the film,
and how the live audience reacted to some of funny things
that happened, the same way as I did.
However disappointing to see that they did not recognize
Duke amongst their ranks!
Well, San Francisco is not known for having a high percentage of Duke fans per thousand, so I wasn't too surprised. 
Chester 
I had never seen it until I got a John Wayne box set it was in and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm amazed it's been overlooked for so long as there are plenty of other Duke films which are well known that aren't as good as this!
Unfortunately it wasn't available for almost fifty years until Batjac released it a few years ago.
An interesting fate of the actual plane used in the movie, I've re-posted from Keith's original post from IMDB, as follows;
"The actual DC-4 aircraft used to film the passenger boarding and flying sequences was a former military surplus Douglas C-54A-10-DC built in 1944. When filmed, the aircraft (then registered as N4726V) was being operated by Transocean Airlines for whom the film's author, Ernest K. Gann, had flown these planes over the Hawaii-California routes. Known as the "The Argentine Queen," before being acquired by Transocean in 1953 it had been the personal aircraft of Argentine dictator Juan Domingo Perón. Ironically, a little more than a decade after appearing in the film this aircraft and the nine persons on board were lost on March 28, 1964, when the plane was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean about 700 miles west of San Francisco. The plane was about eight hours into a charter flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles when the pilot reported a serious fire in engine #2. The Coast Guard searched for the aircraft for five days but no trace of it was ever found."
Chester
Well, we did make it to the above-referenced showing of THatM. There were about 80 available seats, and about 60 people in attendance. It would seem most folks were there in support of the San Francisco Aeronautical Society rather than because they were John Wayne fans, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the opportunity to see the film on a big(ger) screen than at home.
We hadn't watched the movie since its release to DVD six years ago, and back then, we were watching it for the first time ever, so it was almost like watching it anew again.
We especially appreciated Keith's most recent observations about the film, particularly about the quaintness of it! We could hear members of the audience remarking on some of the things (especially the smoking!!). There were many guffaws when the Sidney Blackmer character pulled the revolver out of his pocket as casually as if it were a stick of gum, and even the other passenger's responses to it.
It certainly was a precursor of future disaster movies, where they give you all the information you could ever want about the different individuals' lives and personalities and fears and weaknesses and hopes and dreams.
It was pretty amazing how Duke's character sits down with the passengers and calmly explains what's happening, what to expect, and how they will handle things. Nowadays, there would be a voice booming over the speaker, with the passengers possibly never having seen the pilot, and on this plane, both the pilot and co-pilots were walking through the plane several times.
Probably not in our 'top ten' of John Wayne movies, but certainly enjoyable nonetheless. We did come home and pop in the DVD and watch the special features (the Mrs. is a real "special features" junkie). A lot of interesting things about the film and the director William Wellman.
As a side note, I wore one of my western shirts and my vest (left the hat, the horse and the holster at home ), and not one person at the film picked up at all on it, but when we were taking the Air-train back to the parking garage, one of the passengers on the train was quick to point out my resemblance to John Wayne. Go figure!
Anyway . . . a "good time had by all!"
OK, let's see if I can get this right this time . . .
Too bad all you folks don't live closer, as The High and the Mighty is going to be shown where I work, the San Francisco International Airport, in their museum, two weeks from tonight.
Here is their flyer. . . .
Another memorable theme by Dmitri Tiomkin!
[extendedmedia]
[/extendedmedia]This is a film I think we need to watch again!
Here is a picture of the theater poster -
