When you think about it, a jet engine is a pretty simple device: a powerplant featuring an intake that sucks in air, which is then compressed, ignited and pushed out the back in order to create propulsion. It is hard to believe that humanity went from the plane the Wright Brothers created to jet powered aircraft in a little over 30 years, but this mediocre film from 1950 shows how this was one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of technology. It is hard for me to call this movie mediocre (as it includes Humphrey Bogart), but it does have some problems which I'll take about later. The story follows Lieutenant Colonel Matt Brennan (Bogart), a former B-17 pilot during the Second World War. One day during a mission, he and the other lumbering planes in his formation are pounding Nazi Germany from the air when they come across the experimental Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet: a real life rocket plane designed to shoot down American bombers. Being powered by a combination of dangerous and corrosive chemicals, the Komet is insanely fast and very small, making it extremely hard to shoot down. Luckily, Brennan survives the mission and lands his Flying Fortress in England. After the war, Brennan now runs a flying school to teach civilians about aviation. Brennan gets a new job at a plane company called Willis. Here, he is slated to test a prototype jet fighter known as the JA-3. The jet is the brainchild of Carl Troxell, one of Brennan's fellow world war 2 flyers. The JA-3 lifts off for the first time with Brennan at the controls, and is witnessed by a girl named Jo Holloway (Eleanor Parker), whom Brennan wants to impress. The plane proves to be a success and is capable of speeds well over mach 1. After breaking the sound barrier, the JA-3 goes on to reach 1400 miles an hour (pretty absurd for an early 50s aircraft). In order to test the plane's abilities even further, Brennan wants to pilot it from Alaska to Washington DC and overfly the North Pole in the process. Concurrently, he and Troxell kind of become rivals as the latter wants to test fly an improved variant of the plane called the JA-4. The new model incorporates a new safety measure in the form of a jettisonable escape pod containing the pilot in case of an emergency. However, when Troxell test flies the plane, he tries to punch out and the capsule's parachute fails to open. He falls to his death. Jo expresses doubt over what Brennan wants to do and thinks he will certainly die, but Brennan says he still wants to do it. Although the flight is dangerous and Matt loses radio contact with different stations multiple times, he eventually glides to an airstrip in Washington after the JA-3's fuel tanks run dry. Brennan is given 30 grand for his trouble, which he plans to use to give himself and Jo a better life together. One last thing to take care of: Matt decides he needs to test the escape pod for the JA-4 and prove it's safe so that Troxell didn't die for nothing. Brennan does not tell his superiors that he's flying the new and unproven plane, but takes it up anyway and tries to eject. Jo and the others see the JA-4 slam into the ground and explode, and all hope seems lost. Right after, Jo spots the escape pod floating down to Earth with the help of two parachutes. After it lands, she and Brennan are reunited. This movie was ok. One of the trailers for it says it's better than Casablanca (try not to laugh) but as someone who always liked reading and watching things about planes, I thought it was passable. There's a love story that was crammed into the movie and really has no point being there, since hardly anyone watching cares about it. The JA-3 is the main focus. The producers got permission from the newly formed US Air Force (which wasn't a thing in world war 2) to film at various air bases. The basis for the JA-3 was formed by a Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter plane, as evidenced by its tricycle landing gear which features one wheel up front and two more in the back, one under each wing. The airacobra was not well liked by the US military during the war, so it was instead exported in large quantities to the Soviets, who gladly used its large 37 millimeter cannon to blow up nazi armored vehicles. Despite the film's claim of the JA-3 being jet powered, this doesn't make sense upon further inspection seeing as how it does not have any air intakes or open areas air can get funneled into. Even though this movie is quite flawed, it still has significance in that it introduced jet aircraft (new at the time) to movie audiences. The sound of the JA-3's engine was taken from a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, another jet fighter that appears in the film.
