Filmed on location, The Big Lift is a reenactment of the Berlin airlift of 1948. Flexing their postwar muscles, the Russians blockade the Western sector, refusing to allow the Allies to ship supplies to the starving Berliners. From their headquarters at Templehof Airport, a group of courageous American flyers risk their lives to transport supplies by air. Paul Douglas plays a ground operations sergeant with several scores to settle (he had a hard time of it as a POW during the war), while Montgomery Clift costars as a pilot who inaugurates a doomed love affair with German girl Cornell Borchers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide