AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Brucey D There are those who would speak of this film in the same breath as 'The Conqueror'. I disagree, this is a much better movie than that; just endlessly meddled with and released too late for the film's 'hooks' to be relevant back in the day; the aircraft were out of date and US-Soviet relations had noticeably deteriorated in the meantime. Gorgeous though she is, Leigh is about as convincing a Russian thing as a slice of apple pie would be, and John Wayne is, well, John Wayne, i.e. a bit wooden whenever he isn't sat on a horse, pretty much.However, looking at it fifty or sixty years later, none of that matters; there are those who would argue that a 'bad film' that happens to have John Wayne and Janet Leigh in it is actually a 'good film' in the grand scheme of things. Even if you are not big on either lead, it is still an interesting period piece and has enough amusing/interesting moments (just) to make it watchable in it's own right.For example, I never knew that a jet plane could wolf-whistle before, but that is the way it is dubbed in the scene where Leigh disrobes whilst being 'searched' early in the film.Aviation enthusiasts will doubtless be interested to see the period aircraft; F-86A Sabres, Boeing B50, Bell X-1 (last flight ever), Convair B36, Lockheed F94 Starfire, Lockheed T33 Shooting Star, Northrop F-89 Scorpions all make an appearance, some painted to more closely resemble Soviet types.Sure, the plot is nonsense, and asides from the aerial sequences, the production values are nothing to get excited about. But this film is still worth watching, even if all it does is give rise to dumb questions like 'who gave her a pearl necklace, anyway...?' ...who wouldn't have...?

ma-cortes So-so film was held up for 7 years , before being finally released , being spoiled by an absurd story , though saved only by the impressive flying scenes . It deals with Air Force Col. Jim Shannon (John Wayne) is tasked to escort a defecting Soviet pilot Lt. Anna Marladovna Shannon / Olga Orlief (cute-pie spy played by attractive Janet Leigh) who is scheming to lure Shannon to the USSR . Maj. Gen. Black (Jay C. Flippen) and Maj. Rexford (Paul Fix) assign Shannon to survey Anna , but things go wrong . Later on , they marry , but our protagonist suspects she is a spy planted to find out US secrets . Then Shannon pretends defect with her back to Russia to watch what he can find out , but they again flee . This romantic comedy packs thrills , one-dimensional heroics , comic-strip dialogue , spy-game , ludicrous screenplay and a lot of sky-shattering scenes that are flashily breathtaking . Intimate as well as spectacular WWI airplane movie with an agreeable cast , overwhelming aerial scenes , though including a silly romance . It is one of the Greatest Air Spectacle of the Jet Age but it has a ridiculous plot that relies heavily on an ridiculous love story . This is an entertaining as well as showy Dramedy about relationship between two pilots as well as a tough commanding officer determined to improve efficiency , interwoven with nice aerial footage ; it was so big it took years to make with an inestimable help from the US Air Force , still taking advantage of Chuck Yeager's 1947 supersonic flight for publicity , offered his services as a stunt pilot . This was apparently one of the first films in which the US Air Force during the Cold War was featured , including spectacular aircrafts , such as : first Bell X-1 , Glamorous Glennis , Boeing EB-50A Superfortress , serial 46-0007 ,B-36 , F-94 Starfire F-80 Shooting Star , prototype Northrop XP-89 Scorpion ,Lockheed T-33As , B-36B by a Lockheed F-94A Starfire , among others . It appeared in a number of films afterward , notably Bombers B-52 (1957) , A gathering of eagles (1963) , Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and By Dawn's Early Light . Amiable acting by John Wayne , in real life a staunch anti-communist, who shambles through the action with a permanent sympathetic grin , he plays a jet pilot in charge of Alaskian Air Force base who falls in love with a defecting pilot , a gorgeous Janet Leigh . Support cast is frankly excellent , such as Jay C. Flippen , Paul Fix , Richard Rober , Hans Conried and brief appearances by Bill Erwin , James Brown , Mamie Van Doren , Kenneth Tobey and Denver Pyle . Brilliant cinematography in Cinemascope and Technicolor by Winton Hoch , John Ford 's usual cameraman , shot on location , the filming for the Russian air base was done at George Air Force Base, a World War II air base with many of its wartime structures still intact, giving the base a primitive appearance . Thrilling as well as rousing musical score by Bronislau Kaper . The film was produced by RKO in 1950 which was owned by Howard Hughes, although this was shot in the fifties , it took seven more years to be released because Hughes couldn't keep his hands off it . As he intended to show off the latest in aircraft technology in 1950 , when this film was shot . By the time it was released to the public, in 1957 , the aircraft featured were already obsolete . The picture was regularly directed by Josef Von Sternberg . His commercial breakthrough was Underworld (1927), a prototypical Hollywood gangster film . With The Last Command (1928), starring the equally strong-willed Emil Jannings , von Sternberg began a period of almost a decade as one of the most celebrated artists of world cinema . Both his film career and his personal life were transformed in the making of Blue Angel (1930). Chosen by Jannings and producer Erich Pommer to make Germany's first major sound picture, Von Sternberg gambled by casting Marlene Dietrich . Josef , subsequently , directed her in various prestigious pictures as Dishonored , The Devil Is a Woman , Blonde Venus , The Scarlet Empress and the greats hit : Shanghai Express ; being Jet pilot his last film .

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.

MARIO GAUCI Unsurprisingly, this film barely ever crops up in discussions of Josef von Sternberg's work (in retrospect, it comes across as his most impersonal effort): this is perhaps because the subject matter was more suited to someone like Howard Hawks! When it is mentioned, it is as yet another Howard Hughes folly (for what it is worth, Hawks' own collaboration with the notoriously volatile producer on THE OUTLAW {1943} had proved equally disastrous if somewhat more rewarding as a film) or as one of 4 cinematic embarrassments that clouded the career of its legendary star, John Wayne – the others being the Commie-baiting BIG JIM McLAIN (1952), THE CONQUEROR (1956; with "The Duke" a most unlikely Genghis Khan!) and the flag-waving Vietnam War epic THE GREEN BERETS (1968).Though he respected Hughes and looked forward to working with scriptwriter Furthman again, Sternberg was humiliated into being asked to make a directing test before the start of shooting – having been away from film-making for almost a decade, with only a documentary short to his name in the interim and uncredited work on another troubled "Sex Western" as THE OUTLAW was i.e. the David O. Selznick production of DUEL IN THE SUN (1946)! Being also his only official film in color, the director says in his autobiography that he had revolutionary ideas about how this should be approached but, needless to say, he was not allowed to experiment on Hughes' time (and money)! Small wonder, then, that – eerily presaging their subsequent collaboration on MACAO (1952) – he walked away or was replaced (of all people, by Furthman himself…though there is also mention of Nicholas Ray being involved, yet again, in the re-takes!). Incidentally, while shooting was completed in 1950, mysteriously the film took 7 years to finally emerge – the last film to be officially released under Hughes' aegis – by which time, the airline novelties he had hoped to showcase had become obsolete and the studio he owned, RKO, had folded (so that the picture ultimately got released under the Universal banner)! The plot is the typical 'relinquishing of Communist ideals in favor of the Western world's way of life' which not only dated as far back as Ernst Lubitsch's Greta Garbo vehicle NINOTCHKA (1939) but, in the days of the Cold War, invariably produced a host of other comedies on the theme, namely NEVER LET ME GO (1953), THE IRON PETTICOAT (1956), SILK STOCKINGS (1957; actually a musical remake of NINOTCHKA itself) and Billy Wilder's ONE, TWO, THREE (1961; the director having earlier co-scripted that same Lubitsch film). To get back to JET PILOT, the person to go through this cultural switch is young Russian aviatrix Janet Leigh: in true Hughes fashion, she was chosen for her natural attributes more than anything else but, in hindsight, she proves delightfully perky – even involving the usually stoic "Duke" into situations of sexual innuendo that, again, were a Hawksian prerogative and, where Wayne is concerned, would be featured most prominently in his relationship with Angie Dickinson in RIO BRAVO (1959). The hero, of course, is the titular air ace who, in spite of the Commies' flying prowess, is shown to know a trick or two that can still surprise them and incur their envy! Familiar character actor Paul Fix, who is said to have taught Wayne the works of the acting profession and would thus be prominently featured in any number of the star's vehicle, appears here as his sidekick/Second-In-Command (who first attempts to communicate with Leigh in Yiddish!).Well, the narrative takes the formulaic route in that initial antagonism gives way to romance, which then is jeopardized by the discovery that Leigh is really a spy; prior to this, having learned of her imminent deportation, Wayne marries her but, of course, subsequently gives her the cold shoulder. That is, until his C.O. (Jay C. Flippen) is persuaded to have the hero ostensibly defect to Russia in order to provide the Commies with wrong information about American aviation techniques while getting a low-down of where they were themselves at! While Leigh believes Wayne had really turned traitor for her sake, she then discovers his ruse and is about to give him away to her own stern superiors! However, when the latter (an understanding Roland Winters and, for what it is worth, a former Charlie Chan!) is transferred and replaced with the smarmy Hans Conried (a brief but very nice turn), the heroine realizes that the Russians really intend doing away with Wayne, she is all-too-happy to return with her husband to his home country…because, after all, you don't get juicy steaks in the Soviet Union and certainly not like they do them in New York! All in all, JET PILOT (which I had first watched not too long ago on late-night Italian TV as a double-bill with the afore-mentioned THE CONQUEROR{!} – both would ultimately be released on DVD as part of Universal's 5-movie set JOHN WAYNE: AN American ICON) is reasonably enjoyable in a 'classic Hollywood' sort of way, despite being itself no such thing; making the viewing that more palatable are the notable contributions of cinematographer Winton C. Hoch (like Wayne himself, a John Ford regular) and composer Bronislau Kaper.