As directed by George Waggner, this late fifties jet pilot drama is in the vein of Howard Hawks (The Dawn Patrol, Only Angels Have Wings), and as a programmer does its job well. The casting is a bit odd, with a hefty, fifty-something Preston Foster in the lead, and the strangely named Jeff Donnell as the female love interest. Denver Pyle is excellent in a small, pivotal role. There are some nice aerial scenes, and the script emphasizes rather than runs away from clichés, and tends toward repetition in dialogue and situation (also very Hawksian), and it works amazingly well. As the superannuated star player, Foster is as forceful here as he was as a gladiator in The Last Days Of Pompeii twenty years earlier, leaving one to wonder why his talents weren't better utilized in the movies.
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