This movie came out a year after David Lean's BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER and can probably best be described as Antony Asquith's take on the matter. James Donald -- whom I best recall as the wan Senior British Officer in THE GREAT ESCAPE -- is the boffin-pilot of the M-7, a plane that can go three times the sound barrier. Top-billed Phyllis Calvert is underused as his loyal wife who is tempted by continental Herbert Lom; and there is a spy somewhere at the testing facility, which has everyone on edge.
Asquith seems happiest with the soap opera aspects of the movie, which is the least interesting part to me; the "Flying Wing" design of the plane, with its "atomic motors" looks good, but I kept expecting someone to begin singing the theme from "Supercar!"
For a soap opera with scientific bafflegab, it's a well-constructed bit of fluff. Cinematographer Desmond Dickinson does his usual interesting work, shooting the majority of the scenes in a dark, foreboding fashion that suggests the murky loyalties and emotions; only the control room and the scenes of the plane in flight are brightly lit: that's where reality and certainty lie.
Still, it's an uneasy melding of the two genres. I'd stick with the Lean movie, even if the plane only goes a third as fast.
Asquith seems happiest with the soap opera aspects of the movie, which is the least interesting part to me; the "Flying Wing" design of the plane, with its "atomic motors" looks good, but I kept expecting someone to begin singing the theme from "Supercar!"
For a soap opera with scientific bafflegab, it's a well-constructed bit of fluff. Cinematographer Desmond Dickinson does his usual interesting work, shooting the majority of the scenes in a dark, foreboding fashion that suggests the murky loyalties and emotions; only the control room and the scenes of the plane in flight are brightly lit: that's where reality and certainty lie.
Still, it's an uneasy melding of the two genres. I'd stick with the Lean movie, even if the plane only goes a third as fast.