Customer Reviews

Jet Pilot [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

John Wayne is a tough-talking air force colonel who ends up falling in love with Soviet defector Janet Leigh, who has some secrets of her own. The film is a nice mixture of action (with wonderful shots of the US Air Force in action performing various flight maneuvers), romance, and comedy. The dialogue is a little clunky at times, but still, it's a good, romantic adventure that has two of America's favorite screen legends: The Duke & Ms. Leigh.

In a side note about this film, in her autobio, "There Really Was A Hollywood", Ms. Leigh wrote that this film was made in 1950. However, eccentric millionaire producer Howard Hughes kept making changes to the film by tinkering with special effects and miniatures, even having the actors refilm scenes two years later. The picture didn't get released until 1957.

Yellow Airplane book reviews. This was not one of John Wayne's best movies but it had great shots of the F-86 Sabre Jets in action. There were also many shots of a unique T-33 along with rare shots of the B-29 loaded with the X-1 in its belley and a number of great shots of the X-1 in flight. The story was weak but had a good ending with John Wayne getting married. If you're into aviation history -- you'll love the flight scenes.

C. Jeff Dyrek

Other reviewers rightfully acknowledge the superb flying footage, including the launching from a B-29 bomb bay of the X-1 rocket plane destined to break the sound barrier, but I would like to point out that this film highlights a young and beautiful Janet Leigh (only 22 or so at the time the film was made) as no other from her early career -- the sexy energy she projects through her character manages to steal every scene! Though the plot is preposterous, the film is nevertheless most enjoyable. The beauty of the aerial ballet between the two protagonists as they play hide-and-seek among the clouds is cinematic love-making at its most subtle and slyly humorous -- so much so that it seems to have escaped the notice of other reviewers. To see the hero (Wayne) utterly nonplussed by the dynamic and self-assured heroine (Leigh) playing the archetypal socialist egalitarian wonder girl is pure pleasure! The closest thing in film to this cross-cultural romantic situation (at the height of the Cold War no less!) is the one depicted between Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the later comic musical 'Silk Stockings.' Save for the recent forgettable 'thirties futurist serial-inspired flop with that Lara Croft actress, Hollywood has never produced a film with a woman military pilot as the heroine. For this it took Howard Hughes. In 1950 however one must suppose that it was necessary for cultural reasons to ignore the recent phenomenon of unsung American WAC pilots having ferried fighters and bombers from Canada to Great Britain (suffering losses along the way) by depicting the heroine (Leigh) as a passionately anti-capitalist Russion patriot who (naturally) falls for (or appears to fall for) the strong, silent American male archetype (Wayne). After fifty years this aviation romance is still loads of fun!

I just thought I'd mention that the shots of the F-86 Sabre flying was done at Edwards Air Force Base (then Muroc Air Base). The Sabre was flown by none other the Chuck Yeager (yes, that Yeager, the one who broke the sound barrier).