Script supervisor: Mary Gibson. Producer: Richard Einfeld. Copyright 1959 by Associated Producers Productions, Inc. Released through 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. No New York opening. U.S. release: June 1959. U.K. release: August 1959. Australian release: 22 October 1959. 74 minutes. Cut to 70 minutes in the U.K.
SYNOPSIS: Unable to recover from the shock of a Korean War crash landing that left him slightly lame, fighter pilot Jim Logan is now an embittered alcoholic selling his war medals for whiskey money. A former Korean friend, Ted Wallach, lends a helping hand and introduces Jim to Ben Randall, the ex-executive of an aircraft plant experimenting with jet passenger planes. Randall, somewhat reluctantly, agrees to let Jim test one of the new planes. However, despite the encouragement of company psychologist Joyce Matthews, Jim is unable to cope with the demanding test conditions and flunks out. But Randall gives him another chance.
COMMENT: Although a synopsis of the story makes this film sound like the usual dreary, slow-moving, painfully low-budgeted Associated Producers' offering, it is much, much better than we might anticipate. Fowler's direction is remarkably fluid at times with the camera craning and tracking across huge sets and the screenplay is spiked with plenty of action. It's a reasonably fast-moving yarn and though Brodie is no great shakes as the lead and the girls, though well-endowed look considerably past their bloom, and the cast generally is second- rate, there is a pleasing characterization by John Doucette as a crusty commodore and we like Carleton Young's smooth portrayal of the company president.
There's some aerial photography of jet planes in action which should moderately excite the aerial enthusiast, a drag race for the car- crashing fans. Altogether, production values are considerably above the "B"-feature average. There are many changes of setting and the sets themselves are by "B"-feature standards astonishingly lavish. A bit of location shooting in an actual factory helps, even though Brodie does watch the goings on per medium of double exposure.
SYNOPSIS: Unable to recover from the shock of a Korean War crash landing that left him slightly lame, fighter pilot Jim Logan is now an embittered alcoholic selling his war medals for whiskey money. A former Korean friend, Ted Wallach, lends a helping hand and introduces Jim to Ben Randall, the ex-executive of an aircraft plant experimenting with jet passenger planes. Randall, somewhat reluctantly, agrees to let Jim test one of the new planes. However, despite the encouragement of company psychologist Joyce Matthews, Jim is unable to cope with the demanding test conditions and flunks out. But Randall gives him another chance.
COMMENT: Although a synopsis of the story makes this film sound like the usual dreary, slow-moving, painfully low-budgeted Associated Producers' offering, it is much, much better than we might anticipate. Fowler's direction is remarkably fluid at times with the camera craning and tracking across huge sets and the screenplay is spiked with plenty of action. It's a reasonably fast-moving yarn and though Brodie is no great shakes as the lead and the girls, though well-endowed look considerably past their bloom, and the cast generally is second- rate, there is a pleasing characterization by John Doucette as a crusty commodore and we like Carleton Young's smooth portrayal of the company president.
There's some aerial photography of jet planes in action which should moderately excite the aerial enthusiast, a drag race for the car- crashing fans. Altogether, production values are considerably above the "B"-feature average. There are many changes of setting and the sets themselves are by "B"-feature standards astonishingly lavish. A bit of location shooting in an actual factory helps, even though Brodie does watch the goings on per medium of double exposure.
