You have to love airplanes. They're loud, smelly, and demanding -- but what a thrill to fly in one. The adrenalin pumps like an oil well in Bakersfield because, after all, you're in some kind of tubular contraption thousands of feet in the air, designed by some engineer, probably stoned at the time, and it could drop out of the sky or fly to pieces at any moment for all you know.
The movie is a standard training camp story. The new cadets include the slightly balmy Anthony Newley, obsessed with flying saucers, and the spoiled and dangerously impulsive rich kid, Kenneth Haigh. They are under the immediate supervision of the flight sergeant, Bernard Lee. ("Heels together, shoes at a forty-five degree angle, thumbs at the side of the trousers," and all that familiar drill.) Next step up the status ladder is the stern wing commander, Ray Milland, looking old and a little worn, who carries a burden of guilt about the death of Haigh's father during the war.
There isn't really much new here, except that this is in color and the aircraft are modern. Otherwise it could have been made in 1943. There is a minor brawl. Haigh breaks the rules and is disciplined for it. There is a formal dance. A man gets drunk off base and is rescued by his mates. There is aerobatic training, a couple of emergencies. There is one of those comic performances in which the cadets dress up as ballerinas for a comic rendition of "The Nutcracker Suite." Missing are a rivalry between two cadets for the hand of the stunning WAAAF, and the war games.
Instead of the war games, we have a border incident of some sort, in which Haigh's fighter is fired on and damaged. It's all very confusing. But it ends well, with a final shot of Bernard Lee's smile as he beams with pride and watches the graduating class fly over the air based in perfect formation.
Lamentably, for all the shots of various types of airplanes doing various jigs in the sky, for some reason they don't pack the charge they might have. The director may be responsible for loops and roll overs looking rather dull. Compare it to David Lean's "Breaking the Sound Barrier" to see how artistry can be insinuated into pictures of airplanes flying.
I kept trying to remember where I'd seen Kenneth Haigh before. His face wasn't so familiar -- blandly handsome -- but his voice is distinctive. Then I remembered that he was a World War I pilot in a "Twilight Zone" episode. The guy just can't keep out of the cockpit.
The movie is a standard training camp story. The new cadets include the slightly balmy Anthony Newley, obsessed with flying saucers, and the spoiled and dangerously impulsive rich kid, Kenneth Haigh. They are under the immediate supervision of the flight sergeant, Bernard Lee. ("Heels together, shoes at a forty-five degree angle, thumbs at the side of the trousers," and all that familiar drill.) Next step up the status ladder is the stern wing commander, Ray Milland, looking old and a little worn, who carries a burden of guilt about the death of Haigh's father during the war.
There isn't really much new here, except that this is in color and the aircraft are modern. Otherwise it could have been made in 1943. There is a minor brawl. Haigh breaks the rules and is disciplined for it. There is a formal dance. A man gets drunk off base and is rescued by his mates. There is aerobatic training, a couple of emergencies. There is one of those comic performances in which the cadets dress up as ballerinas for a comic rendition of "The Nutcracker Suite." Missing are a rivalry between two cadets for the hand of the stunning WAAAF, and the war games.
Instead of the war games, we have a border incident of some sort, in which Haigh's fighter is fired on and damaged. It's all very confusing. But it ends well, with a final shot of Bernard Lee's smile as he beams with pride and watches the graduating class fly over the air based in perfect formation.
Lamentably, for all the shots of various types of airplanes doing various jigs in the sky, for some reason they don't pack the charge they might have. The director may be responsible for loops and roll overs looking rather dull. Compare it to David Lean's "Breaking the Sound Barrier" to see how artistry can be insinuated into pictures of airplanes flying.
I kept trying to remember where I'd seen Kenneth Haigh before. His face wasn't so familiar -- blandly handsome -- but his voice is distinctive. Then I remembered that he was a World War I pilot in a "Twilight Zone" episode. The guy just can't keep out of the cockpit.