I’m amazed that I’ve never heard of this one before.
Or am I really? Yes, there was an English dubbed version of it, and it was apparently shown in the United States, but that version is now lost, and it never seems to have ended up playing endlessly on the late-night science fiction shows like so many other films. It is also a bit of a slow burn, giving us an in-depth view of life aboard the French carrier Clemenceau and taking a full forty-five minutes to reveal why the crew was suddenly called back to duty a few days after they went ashore for a long leave.
But I don’t care. I like it.
If you’ve seen footage of our American carriers in action, the first impression you will get of the Clemenceau is that it is rather small. While it borrows a lot of the familiar design elements of American carriers, the French decided that they didn’t need anything quite as large. The flight deck is significantly narrower than we expect, nor is it as long, and the entire vessel feels smaller, whatever compartments we are shown. However, the routine of the carrier operations seems remarkably similar, with the same sort of special colored-coded team uniforms and the same breakdown of the operations into designated teams.
Now I’ll admit that I find this sort of thing fascinating, and they filmed it quite well, with a very Sixties realist look: it reminds me a lot of movies like Tora Tora Tora! and Midway, with the same, bright, sunlit look.
Except this is a French film, so they also use sudden flashes of bold colors and even a few scenes with intense color filters.
Skies Above does offer us a few characters, although I’ll admit that they don’t get as much screentime as the star of the film, the Clemenceau. There is one character who looks like he will be a major character at the beginning, but is suddenly grounded for irresponsible behavior (which I suspect may seem very minor to most of you!) and spends most of the rest of the film in his quarters.
And when he does finally get back into the story, he demonstrates that his commanding officer was probably right.
There is more to the story than the life of this huge vessel and its crew, of course. We eventually learn that a mysterious object has appeared over the earth, and that the nations of the world have all scrambled their militaries in response — although they all know that one of them might be responsible and merely pretending that they are equally panicked.
Of course, we all know that it is really some sort of UFO, but this gives them the excuse to set part of the story aboard a Soviet Submarine (a rather small one which I suspect may very well be a French one wearing a Red Star for the film).
One of the most unexpected moments comes when the radioactive visitor comes near the ship and the Clemenceau goes into security level Zero, where all the crew retreat into the bowels of the ship and seal all the hatches, and they begin an anti-radiation shower of the ship, with massive pumps spraying a huge curtain of water over the entire vessel. This was a real feature of the ship, meant to clear off any radioactive fallout after a nuclear attack. I’m not sure they would run it for this long, but it is a striking image.
If you are expecting a huge special effects extravaganza you will be disappointed. The effects are actually quite good, but you might say they are more realistic than we’ve become accustomed to, as in the real world you are far more likely to see such a craft as, well, just a bright light with no obvious shape. However, some of the shots of the thing lighting up the clouds are quite good and remind me quite a bit of some of the effects we would see later on in more extravagant films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Skies Above is a beautiful and well made film, although I suspect a lot of people may find it a bit too dry. However, if you love those big budget naval war films from the Sixties and Seventies, or find the details of military operations aboard a ship like the Clemenceau fascinating, then you will find a lot to like here. The story plays out in unexpected ways, even if it never gives us that big special effects fix we all wanted.
It is a sadly ignored film, one which deserves to be rediscovered and reconsidered. It was one of the brighter stars of science fiction’s long dry spell at the theaters from the late-Fifties until 2001: A Space Odyssey reinvigorated the genre over a decade later, even if it never found its place with contemporary audiences outside France.
It is, however, a bit hard to find right now, even if there are copies of it out there on the internet.
But it is worth the effort.
Particularly if you love carriers…
Le ciel sur la tête [Skies Above] (1965)
rivets on the poster 
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