Billed as a "patriotic" movie, it's way past that. We start by interrupting a USAF GO from his smoking to all but give us the line from A Few Good Men ("...who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!") and even is on the verge of that level of argumentativeness.
It ends, after his I /guess/ spoilery death, but it's historical and telegraphed at every turn. June Allyson's primary job is to emote "is Alan Ladd dead yet?" in about half her scenes. Anyway, it ends with more cringey "patriotic" scenes about how it is fully good he died, in a much more unpleasant way than any other fictional account I can recall much less actual people talking up heroes killed in the line of duty. Apparently, the President, the Air Force and his good friends wanted McConnell killed, even aside from the problems he uncovered with the a/c in test.
Oh, speaking of: Alan Ladd was given like 2 minutes to eject and just chose to go down in a 400 kt fireball?
Which also gets to one key complaint. I like Alan Ladd. Even when he's normally getting some guff for a role where he's stoic, they tend to work out. Here, he's supposed to be terribly excited about flying, it is his dream above all other dreams and... I mean, I guess? He doesn't seem excited by that at all. I buy his family stuff, but he was written bad or acted wrong for that key character attribute
Compare this to how a similar goal was shown by Michael Peña in A Million Miles Away. Come to think of it, good example of tragedy being shown as actually sad alongside mission-first and all without grabbing you by the collar and shaking you into believing the message.
Last, I was really lost for the first maybe 15 minutes because we got the cheap hollywood treatment, and I couldn't figure out that the very very very 1950s people were supposed to be in the 1940s and the first third of the movie is about WW2 starting, not Korea. Some other gaps in the clarity of the story for cuteness.
Decent flying scenes mostly, lots of access to the flight lines, but interiors are obviously sets. Would have done well to use more USAF installations for that part as well.
It ends, after his I /guess/ spoilery death, but it's historical and telegraphed at every turn. June Allyson's primary job is to emote "is Alan Ladd dead yet?" in about half her scenes. Anyway, it ends with more cringey "patriotic" scenes about how it is fully good he died, in a much more unpleasant way than any other fictional account I can recall much less actual people talking up heroes killed in the line of duty. Apparently, the President, the Air Force and his good friends wanted McConnell killed, even aside from the problems he uncovered with the a/c in test.
Oh, speaking of: Alan Ladd was given like 2 minutes to eject and just chose to go down in a 400 kt fireball?
Which also gets to one key complaint. I like Alan Ladd. Even when he's normally getting some guff for a role where he's stoic, they tend to work out. Here, he's supposed to be terribly excited about flying, it is his dream above all other dreams and... I mean, I guess? He doesn't seem excited by that at all. I buy his family stuff, but he was written bad or acted wrong for that key character attribute
Compare this to how a similar goal was shown by Michael Peña in A Million Miles Away. Come to think of it, good example of tragedy being shown as actually sad alongside mission-first and all without grabbing you by the collar and shaking you into believing the message.
Last, I was really lost for the first maybe 15 minutes because we got the cheap hollywood treatment, and I couldn't figure out that the very very very 1950s people were supposed to be in the 1940s and the first third of the movie is about WW2 starting, not Korea. Some other gaps in the clarity of the story for cuteness.
Decent flying scenes mostly, lots of access to the flight lines, but interiors are obviously sets. Would have done well to use more USAF installations for that part as well.