Written by Terrance Rattigan, this early 1950s British aviation movie is long on human drama, but somewhat deficient in the area of technical expertise. The British were NOT the first to exceed the sound barrier, and the manner in which it is accomplished in the film is rubbish. Although Terrance Rattigan was among the very best writers of his day, in this particular instance the producers might have done better to have hired Nevil Shute ("No Highway in the Sky"), who was not only a first-rate writer but was also a genuine expert on aeronautics. That being said, under the expert direction of David Lean there's plenty of good, British stiff-upper-lippishness, provided by the likes of Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, Denholm Elliot and John Justin. What makes the film even more interesting, however, at least to aviation buffs, is the presence of a variety of late 1940s British jet aircraft. Even more interesting is the fact that they are actually mentioned in the credits, as if they were members of the cast. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the aerial photography, although filmed in black-and-white, is quite excellent. Give this one a 7-out-of-10 for the aeronautical ironmongery and the flying scenes, and overlook the trite stuff on the ground.

I remember liking this movie as a child on TV on Saturdays, and I wasn't the only one apparently since it won the BAFTA for best picture. Alas, now that I've searched out the DVD and have looked at it as a 21st-century adult, I regretfully conclude that it hasn't held up well at all. There is still some suspense in the test dives. Of course now that we've seen "The Right Stuff" we know that the sound barrier was not broken over the skies of England by some guy working for a company with a management team of one and a design team of one. (Oops, that's your big spoiler right there: a guy actually breaks the sound barrier in the movie.) We have a lot more appreciation for scientific and engineering progress as a team effort, and we are less likely to demand that for dramatic purposes everything be run by some one businessMan like in an old Heinlein story.But that's not my main problem with the movie. For me, the thing that makes it really hard to watch is the "human drama" side which is precisely the thing which I suppose originally made the film particularly "interesting" back in 1952. It brings in the wives. And it brings them in to educate them, or really to mansplain to them. And the message to them is, "Yes, we understand that your cute little female minds would like to keep your husbands alive, and can't fathom why Progress is so Important that your men want to go and give their lives for it. But it really is, so you should just be supportive and smile through your tears and go home and live at Downton Abbey and raise another generation of sons. Or go shopping!"Yes, it really IS just that gender-laden a film from first to last. You think when you see Ann Todd for the first time in uniform during the war that maybe she will be a role model of some kind, but you catch on quick that WWII was an emergency situation, when women were forced to do unnatural things like work in military offices and drive staff jeeps, but as soon as it's won they should go home and be mommies and raise children. ("SONS!") Right, sons. There's of course a whole literature now on postwar anti-feminist reaction in which this film ought to get a mention. Ann Todd's character is later called upon to be the doofus who knows nothing of sound so that men can explain the whole speed of sound business to her. Despite the fact that her father is an aircraft manufacturing magnate, she has never had a conversation with him about air apparently!There are two ways that Test Pilot Wives react, we find; one of them is to mope around like Ann Todd, trying to nag their husbands into letting someone else do the risky stuff and wondering why it's so important to get a plane to go 800 miles an hour. (Of course it's to beat the Russians, but that isn't driven home in the film, so let's just focus on phrases like "It's just got to be done, that's all".) (She might also wonder why her dad doesn't invest in a wind tunnel or find some way to test the properties of the plane other than just send up a guy to dive at the ground and see what happens.) The other way is to be a proto-Stepford airhead like Dinah Sheridan's character, who provides comic relief by bursting in with fabric samples and not giving her husband a second to tell her about his triumph of the day. (Isn't that just like a woman, after all?)I could go on, but it would be tedious and boring. But, you may say, this movie was a product of its reactionary time and place! So true. So, what are our numbers supposed to represent though? Are they meant to sum up Lean's place in cinema heaven, like in Mark Twain's "Captain Stormalong" where people's lives are judged on the basis of what, in the view of omniscience, they did with what they had? My aims are more limited - I'm just saying how much I, today, here (Chicago), liked the movie and why. And it wasn't pleasant.

By many standards, David Lean's production of the film he directed in 1952, "The Sound Barrier" is both unusual and I suggest rewarding. The screenplay by Terence Rattigan I found to be riveting throughout. This I judge stems from the fact that its subject is men of vision, and what they do to about their greed for something unnameable, necessary and sometimes deadly. The author in the film is at pains not to paint such men as glory hunters, nor seekers after excitement alone; in one scene, the central character talks about the fliers of the past, and then suggests the men of the future will need vision even more than flying skills to conquer what awaits us--and the answer to what that is is given as "the stars"--called the final frontier in this film in all but name. There are three fliers we meet in the film at a fictitious industrial empire called Ridgefield. The boss's son who hasn't got what a flier needs, Tony, who marries his daughter and reaches his limit because he lacks the necessary genius, and Philip, who has "the right stuff". What I find extraordinary about this very well-directed cinematic tale is that it is always about the people and the joy and danger of flight at the same time, without the focus ever losing sight of the people. The music for this film was supplied by Malcolm Arnold, and it is extraordinary almost everywhere but I find never intrusive. One sequence involves one of the three pilots taking his new wife for a swift flight to Cairo from England; the scene accomplishes many things at once. She learns because of her journey, what some men see in the serenity of the sky, and even its danger; it introduces us to the third pilot and his wife; and we are given a sense of the camaraderie of the men who flew in those days; another such moment occurs when the French ace Geoffrey de Havilland is killed trying to break the sound barrier ahead of all others. Jack Hildyard and several others supplied the cinematography and aerial scenes; Elizabeth Hemminges did a fine subdued job on the costumes; Vincent Korda is credited with the Art Department's superb work while Muir Matheson is acknowledged as music director. Among the smallish cast, the pilots are all beautifully played. bright Nigel Patrick is likable ace Tony, young Denholm Elliot stands out as the boss's son, and John Justin is just right as the third of the trio, Philip. Joseph Tomelty is admirable as Will Sparks, the designer tormented by his own part in causing test pilots to risk their lives; Ann Todd is good as the tormented Susan, wife to Tony and daughter of the boss of Ridgefield. Dinah Sheridan is also lovely as Philip's brave wife; but it is Ralph Richardson's powerful realization of John Ridgefield, former pilot, towering presence and inspiring and dangerous leader of men who along with Justin gives the film its unusual dimension of mind and purpose. One may quarrel with the motivations attributed to Richardson in the last scenes; but he has been so alone in his vision and at such a cost, he may be forgiven for asking at last to be understood. The ending I find to be most satisfying, the film's climax tremendously moving. This is a great film, which has never been appreciated as it should have been. It is B/W film-making at its dramatic best for my money. Its science may not be perfect, but its depiction of human merit and what happens when that quality is lacking in a man is powerful indeed. Not to be missed.

It's a fact universally acknowledge that some writers work better with some directors than others and vice versa. Working separately director Marcel Carne made one great film (Hotel du Nord), several decent films (Therese Raquin, Julia ou le cle des songes) and several ho-hum entries; also working separately Jacques Prevert fared slightly better writing Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, Les Amants de Verone, Voyage Surprise, Un oiseau rare among other but TOGETHER they made seven of the most distinguished movies in French cinema and if you want me to list them you clearly stepped in here to get out of the rain, the Multiplex is three blocks down. Terry Rattigan worked best with Puffin Asquith and David Lean with Noel Coward yet here we have Lean directing a Rattigan screenplay. You can see Lean's thinking; he didn't want to go through life riding on the coat-tails of Coward, what Rattigan didn't know about constructing a play could fit in an eye-dropper and still leave room for an eight-to-one martini, he'd served in the RAF during the war and had written one of the two finest British war films actually produced during the war, The Way To The Stars - the other was In Which We Serve, written, produced, starring and co-directed by Coward with Lean. On paper this was great, get some stats about supersonic flight, turn them over to Terry and let him flesh them out and humanise them. Mostly it's good but it COULD have been great - think Sinatra and Lawrence Welk; put these two together and you'll get an album that neither has to be ashamed of but team Sinatra with Billy May, Gordon Jenkins, Nelson Riddle and we're talking Hall of Fame. So: We have a lyrical opening sequence in which a plane is 'stooging' about over the channel with the cliffs of Dover prominent; there's a carefree, buoyant, waltz-time feel that sets us up for the revelation that this is wartime. Pilot John Justin goes into a dive and when the plane begins to shudder he finds it difficult to throttle back, an experience he discusses with chum Nigel Patrick back on the aerodrome; Patrick, however, is in love and not interested but the object of his affection, Ann Todd, just happens to be the daughter of a leading aircraft manufacturer, Ralph Richardson, who offers Patrick a job as test pilot after the war. Rattigan gets this over economically so that we can cut to the chase, which, in this case, is the quest for fire i.e. designing and building a plane capable of supersonic flight. In only his second film Denholm Elliott unveils the prototype for his series of weak, callow youths, in the role of Todd's kid brother who funks his first solo and winds up on the menu. Leslie Phillips, sans moustache gets twice as much screen-time as Elliott but is totally forgettable leaving the real acting to the big boys. Nigel Patrick had just come off Rattigan's The Browning Version - with Puffin Asquith at the helm - and played essentially the same role if schoolteachers were piloting jet planes or pilots were flying desks. Nigel Patrick was one of the old school stage actors, shoot cuffs first, ask anyone for tennis later and enhanced virtually every film in which he played. This is a film you want to like and mostly do if only ...