Thanks to Planktonrules for the thoughtful analysis/appreciation. However, there are just a few comments I'd like to add to his review.

"The Man in the Sky" (a.k.a. "Decision Against Time") is a fairly representative example of the kinds of dramas that Ealing produced in addition to their better-known comedies. In fact, out of the 96 feature-length films that Ealing released between 1938 and 1959, only about 15 to 20 were comedies, depending on what you count. The other 80% was made up of virtually every kind of movie that was being made in Britain at the time: war pictures, crime thrillers, period pieces, and even a couple of literary adaptations, musicals, and horror films. So it's not really correct to claim that "most" of Ealing's output was comedy -- though the comedies have come to overshadow everything else that Ealing did.

Since this movie is representative of Ealing's dramatic style, it's a good place to start if you only know the comedies. Like "The Cruel Sea" (an Ealing war film with Jack Hawkins),this one is primarily about the human stories that lie at the heart of tragedies or potential tragedies. We first see Hawkins' character as a family man facing typical problems, like being unable to purchase a new home, before we see him in the crisis situation that dominates the film. So like many of Ealing's dramas, this one is primarily about how an ordinary man meets an extraordinary situation. In many ways, Hawkins' character is not unlike one of Hemingway's "code" heroes. In order to succeed, he must maintain self-control and absolute professionalism. It's easy to dismiss films like this as uncritical celebrations of the stereotypically British "stiff upper lip." But in fact, the film is really about how its characters handle emotions that cannot be talked about because those emotions are conflicting and difficult to understand anyway. When the resolution comes, it is played out in silence -- a daring choice on the part of director Charles Crichton, but one that results in greater profundity than you might expect.

Finally, it's worth noting that this was the first movie that Ealing produced/released after it sold and left its home studio. In 1956, producer Michael Balcon was forced to negotiate a new distribution deal. (The British film industry was going through one of its frequent crises.) As a result, Balcon moved his production unit to MGM's British base, where Balcon had worked briefly in the mid-1930s before moving on to Ealing. After this film, Ealing would make only six more before closing down for good in 1959, thus ending one of the most brilliant chapters in British film history. Movies like "Man in the Sky," which examines reticence and self-control, just weren't what younger British audiences wanted to see, and the age of James Bond, the Beatles, and the "angry young men" was just around the corner.

This is a very simple film, and it is not giving a thing away to reveal that it concerns a test pilot trying to cope with landing a damaged experimental plane. After the engine of his test plane catches fire and it becomes only marginally airworthy, he singlehandedly over-rides ground orders to bail out and ditch the plane and tries to save it. What happens next forms the core of the story. There are several things that make this film especially watchable, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

The best reason to watch the film is the fine performance by Jack Hawkins. He gives a wonderful portrayal of an ordinary man called on to go above and beyond the call of duty, and he manages to maintain a stiff upper lip throughout (call it what you will, that's a compliment, not a slur).

The film essentially is a character study, both of the Hawkins character and of the people flying with him and watching on the ground, and of his quite ordinary family. We get a range of emotional reactions, all rational but some diametrically opposed to each other. Everybody has a different interest in the outcome, some venal. I particularly liked how the children were handled, that is a tricky situation. And how do you tell your wife when you come home quite normally, to whom you have not spoken since breakfast, that you almost died today? The shots of the plane in the air are fabulous if you like classic airplanes, and the suspense is maintained until the very end of the flight.

The scene I like the best is one in which Hawkins makes a long, strained walk to the aviation office, barely maintaining his composure after all the stress he has faced. I know what that is like, and Hawkins does a fabulous job of showing how built-up pressure becomes hardest to control only after the difficult task is done. A very human way to react. A brilliant acting job.

Notable also for being one of Donald Pleasance's first film roles - he always looked basically the same throughout his long career! - and the fact that this is a purely British film, made at Ealing, featuring British actors who fit their roles nicely. No false Hollywood touches. Recommended.

Using a script that seems to have been unmercifully padded out from a half-hour television drama, "Decision Against Time" (as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer re-titled the British film, "The Man in the Sky", for its release in the United States and Canada) has little to recommend it.

It's sad to find a fine actor like Jack Hawkins trapped in this sort of rubbish, particularly as this cliché-ridden aviation drama was obviously inspired by William Wellman's fine account of "The High and the Mighty" (1954). True, director Charles Crichton does rise to the occasion with one or two imaginative touches, but generally he is content to trudge along in the trenches. As said, Jack Hawkins does his best to make his one-dimensional character come alive, but it's an uphill struggle in which he receives little support from Crichton, and none at all from the other players. Elizabeth Sellars, Jeremy Bodkin and Gerard Lohin are especially unconvincing.