Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

rogerdarlington As a film, this is pretty awful: a crude piece of American patriotism with a stereotypical view of the Soviet Union shown at the height of the Cold War. In fact, the work was produced by RKO in 1950 which was owned by Howard Hughes but, by the time it was released in 1957, Hughes had sold RKO and the film was released by Universal. It is presented as a kind of old-fashioned rom-com with John Wayne (a strong anti- communist) playing a United State Air Force colonel opposite Janet Leigh who is appallingly miscast as a Soviet defector (she makes no attempt at a Russian accent).For aviation buffs, however, the film has some interest. The USAF was very helpful and we see a great deal of the the North American F-86 Sabre in single, paired and formation manoeuvres. One sequence features a night interception of a Convair B-36 Peacemaker by a Lockheed F-94 Starfire. We even have the inclusion of the last two flights of the first Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis", launched from a Boeing B-50 Superfortress, representing the part of a Soviet "parasite fighter", as well as some stunt flying by the Bell X-1's most famous pilot Chuck Yeager.

robbybonfire Interesting film, in that the contrast of positives and negatives is as glaringly apparent as The Grand Canyon is wide.First, to get the negatives out of the way, the (mis)casting centers around Jay C. Flippen, a career "character actor," as John Wayne's Air Force Commanding General. John Wayne reporting to Jay C. Flippen is like Humphrey Bogart reporting to Jerry Lewis, as in "Something is amiss, here." Where the John Wayne-Jay C. Flippen seniority debacle is concerned, it makes one wonder, "Where have you gone Dean Jagger?" - who did such a credible job propping up Gregory Peck in "One O'Clock High," filmed in the same year of 1949.It has already been noted, elsewhere here, the credibility gap of Janet Leigh lacking a hint of a Russian accent. This, of course, is the typical Howard Hughes bravado of just getting his "starlet of the year" up there on the screen, and to hell with the consequences of in-default major details undermining everything else. Ava Gardner, Jean Peters, Jane Russell, and Janet, et al, never complained, we may assume. Some may think this is strictly an Air Force public relations-type vehicle. However, the real motivation behind this film may have been more subtle, such as putting Janet Leigh's kissy face and contour-friendly mammary gland dimensions opposite John Wayne, to propel her into the national "silver screen" luminary spotlight. And giving John and Janet multiple kissing scenes validates this theory, as John Wayne indulged in few kissing scenes with his leading ladies, over the entire span of his career. And as smiling fate would have it, Janet's career went full bore right into the 60's, complete with "Psycho" shower scene immortality, without so much as a "leg up" from this film, which was finally released in 1957 for political red red tape reasons far in excess of any political statement this film actually makes.The most compelling question surrounding this film has to do with the V.I.P. treatment this "off course" seductive female Soviet fighter pilot receives, courtesy of the U.S. military, as John Wayne is assigned the task of escorting her on a whirlwind tour of parties, clubs and dances, ad nauseam. This begs the question: at what point does the U.S. Government come to regard her as a spy(?), which is the delayed reaction, two-thirds into the film. So that, if a cold war spy suspect is pretty, she gets a pass? Hollywood script writers are known for their apostasy when it comes to sticking to the facts, but this one is off the chart for script-writing license absurdity.The saving grace for this film is simply that John and Janet seem a great "opposites attract" pairing, complete with a smoldering physical attraction chemistry. Janet does not seem over-matched as John's intellectual rival when it comes to social banter and as regards discussing the nuances of advanced-technology aviation. She holds her own, in fact.Call this film entertaining and well worth seeing, so long as you don't take it too seriously. After all, those who produced it didn't make that mistake, either.********

Edgar Soberon Torchia Once he ended his professional relationship with Paramount and Marlene Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg was unable to develop projects. A confessed admirer of everything Japanese, he made a trip in 1936 to Tokyo where he discussed the possibility of a new film, impeded by the next world war; he did not finish a version of "I, Claudius" that he had started in 1937 in London; and in the next decade he could only make "The Shanghai Gesture" (1941), a film that enjoys today a deserved cult following, and a short for the U.S. government, "The Town". Then in the 1950s he directed his last three films, two of which brought him new problems with the studios, where he had no control of what he shot, unlike his final work, "The Saga of Anatahan". In the other two films, "Jet Pilot" and "Macao", made for RKO, its owner, Howard Hughes, hampered the creative process, as usual. As "Trivia" tell us, due to his interest in aviation Hughes also wanted to produce a show of the latest advances in aeronautical technology, but when the film was released the planes on the screen were old fashioned (only experts can tell this, for me they seem war airplanes all the same). Sternberg's Hughesian hell began with "Jet Pilot", which was supposedly finished in 1950. But Hughes continued making changes until 1953, and the film was released in 1957. By then Hughes had sold RKO, but he had had enough time to change it to his liking. Written by Jules Furthman, "Jet Pilot" is a cross between a screwball comedy and one of those Cold War atrocities dealing with the fear to the "Red Menace": the communist Soviet Union. The anti-Soviet barrage was frequently more stupid than brilliant and if it came from American minds, hands or mouths, the result was worst (than the funny satires of Don Camillo, for example). The vociferous jingoism and proto-Fascist patriotism was disguised as chic efficacy, "democracy" and a few more idiocies. Right-wing to the bone, John Wayne enjoyed every minute of it and it shows, but at least it is nice to see him laugh for a change, while he falls for a pilot (Janet Leigh) who has defected from the USSR. She turns out to be a spy, but everything will turn out well, as in a not too distant Doris Day vehicle. In the last shot there is a memorable line of dumb dialog when, while she eats a beefsteak, Janet tells John that all she wanted to communicate to her fellow Russians is that "not everything is war". Sure, it is also beef, but the one who wrote it forgot about Hiroshima. Maybe as a prize, Hughes let Furthman (who wrote the line) direct a few additional scenes, as he and others did to no avail.

cselubks-1 JET PILOT (1957) is one of the most idiosyncratic and surprising films that I have seen recently. That Janet Leigh, complete with jet-age bra support, has no pretensions to a Russian accent is in itself strangely disarming, setting the tone of a complex artifice that caricatures and manipulates the images and mannerisms of Cold War America. The dialog and the aerial acrobatics are a feast of double entendre. The scene in the restaurant with platters of sizzling Technicolor steaks ("That's all they have here.") is a worthy precursor of Warhol's multiples. Viewers with a taste for the more eccentric films of Vincent Minelli and, more recently, Todd Haynes will find this film a rare delicacy.