I absolutely thought that my reply to the OP would be, “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang didn’t REALLY fly.”
Oh, yeah. Once I was on a flight with Delta so – of course – had to change planes in Atlanta. We’d landed and were taxiing to the gate in the dark when there was this sudden, extremely loud roar outside. I looked out the window and momentarily silhouetted in front of the moon caught a Connie taking off with six-foot blue flames shooting out of the exhaust.
“Man,” I thought to myself, “I had forgotten how hard prop-jobs had to work getting off of the ground.”
The airliner above the clouds is a United DC-8; dunno if it’s a DC-8-12 or DC-8-21. As it happens United did schedule a DC-8 from Idlewild to Baltimore in 1961 – jet airliners didn’t get closer to Washington than that until Dulles opened in 1962. The interior scenes look to be on a DC-8 too, judging by the windows. DC-8s weren’t any wider than today’s airliners, so the four-across first class seats presumably weren’t any wider than today’s. The wouldn’t build a set for the interior scene, would they? They’d use an actual airliner, with a row of seats removed?
Airline travel then was more expensive than Greyhound, but not way more than the train. One-way rail fare LA to NY was $98.45, but if you wanted a bed all the way it totalled $170 minimum. Bare-minimum airline fare was $107.60; coach fare on a jet nonstop was $141. (Federal tax on both kinds of travel, 10% maybe.)
No, they’d build a set. or reuse one of the generic airplane interior sets that had been used in dozens of movies and TV shows.
The cost of chartering what was then a brand-new jet, pulling out a row or two of seats, sending a remote crew and the cast out to the airport - all for shooting a couple of scenes for a situation comedy episode - would have blown the entire first-season budget.
I just watched the episode mentioned and there is a connection to the movie. He did a fabulous dance number impersonating a marionette in both.
The first thing I noticed was the 2 x 2 seating instead of 3 x 3. They were in nice seats.
When I was very young I flew on what was probably a DC-7. It was noisy and I was air sick the whole time. I remember I had (1) sickly sweet molasses cookie before the flight. You know it’s bad when you remember it for 60+ years.
But yes, everybody dressed up to fly. It was a much more refined experience. There were no emotional support peacocks or people on meth trying to open the door.
And I couldn’t see the lights mentioned above but I found a facebook link showing them.
So the interior “airliner” scene is a mockup set? With over-the-shoulder reading lights and everything? Don’t think it’s modeled on a 707 – maybe not on a jet at all?
But outside fuselage diameter on a Douglas propliner was 23 inches less than a 707’s – maybe four seats that wide wouldn’t fit into it. Might have needed a new mockup when jets appeared.
Sets are designed and built around the needs of the production - cameras, lighting, microphone placement, etc. Unless there’s a need for the set to be very realistic, verisimilitude is close enough.
It’s pretty much generic “airplane interior.” Here’s the cabin from the Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
And here’s the cabin from the movie The High and the Mighty. I believer that plane was supposed to be a DC-4.
My first time on a plane I was nine months old, so I obviously don’t remember it. My mom wanted her older sister to be my godmother, so we were flying back to Ohio for the baptism (and did the monsigner chew her out “Nine months old, and she’s not baptized!!!”) Since my dad had to work, she brought my older sister, too. She was only a year a half older than me. My mom said there was terrible turbulence, and we babies were both barfing from airsickness the whole flight. Fun times.
I hope she didn’t let you play with all of the buttons…
I didn’t remember that episode, so I just watched it.
Totally unrelated observation: the scene where Mel Cooley appears in Rob’s dream, brandishing the giant pair of scissors, to cut the strings Laura is using to control her ‘puppet’… the Coen brothers HAD to be thinking of that when they had the nihilists appear in The Dude’s dream, to cut off his “chonson”.
Apologies for the hijack.
The most amazing part of this thread is that, nearly four years after the OP, Dick Van Dyke is still alive.
After we toured the Boeing factory a few months ago we participated in a study where we sat in a mock up cabin on a seat I suppose was under consideration and gave feedback.
Not to mention that it’s 65 years since the episode originally aired and DVD is still alive.