Fighter Attack

Little seen or remembered, Fighter attack is a very ordinary World War II film that can only be recommended to the staunchest of Sterling Hayden fans. Set in Nazi occupied Italy, story finds Hayden's fighter pilot forced to ditch behind enemy lines when his mission goes awry. Finding help from Italian partisans, and having his head turned by a shapely Joy Page, film builds to the inevitable conclusion where the mission will finally be accomplished and the hero gets the girl.

There really isn't much more to it than that, it's a standard time filler that plods along ponderously until the action picks up for the finale, all five minutes of it! The print I witnessed was washed out in colour, so that didn't help matters, but really this is a picture of very little redeeming qualities outside of Hayden's butch machismo and J.Carrol Naish's fun performance as Italian resistance leader Bruno. 5/10

Uninspired formula piece in which a US fighter pilot proves what he's made of after being shot down behind enemy lines. If you suspend judgment, all the ingredients are there for a good 90 minutes of escapism – danger, romance, adventure, fighter planes, guns and incompetent enemy soldiers. And there's some aerial filming of actual fighter planes of the period in action. But you'll have to ignore the low budget production, wooden acting and unconvincing plot developments. This movie also contains the most unflattering romantic compliment I've ever heard addressed to a woman on screen: `You look older than your age'!

When you watch "Fighter Attack", you'll likely notice the odd color palate used in the film. This is because it was filmed in Cinecolor, a cheap but inferior alternative to Technicolor. It seems that this two-color process was cheap to make...as cheap as black & white film stock. But its major problem was that the colors looked odd owing to the two-color (instead of three-color of Technicolor) process...often making things look very orangy and greenish. Now this later version of Cinecolor is much more realistic looking than earlier Cinecolor...but it's still noticeably different...more faded and with more brownish tones.

This cheap color process combined with the fact it's an Allied Artist release, I assumed it would be, at best, a routine film. This is because Allied Artists used to be known as Monogram...and Monogram was well known for producing cheap B-movies...very cheap Bs (though not as awful as PRC's output at least).

The film is about a P-47 Thunderbolt squadron based in Italy in the latter part of WWII. Steve (Sterling Hayden) is about to go on his final mission...but he ends up getting shot down and tries to complete the mission with the help of the local partisans.

As is often the case with WWII aircraft films, the film has plenty of archival footage....and it was integrated into the film rather well. However, apart from that the film is very routine and, at times, a bit weak when it came to some of the acting and the script...and an unnecessary and silly romance. Not a bad film...more like one that is just a time-passer and nothing else.

Nothing very exciting in this acceptable war drama, but the Sterling Hayden's presence, and also J Caroll Naish's one too, helps a lot; let's admit it; Director Lesley Selander was a genuinely western film maker, chain western maker all long his career. He gave us some war films, mainly taking place in Korea, and some, as this one, with WW2 settings. And a science fiction movie plus one or two other non westerns films. So, back to this one, the plot is not really riveting, just good enough to help you kepping your eyes open. I had already seen it ten years ago and forgot it. Last movie made in Cinecolor process.

The opening credits were a bit of a shock, the captions being a vivid scarlet that almost hurt the eyes. This was in contrast to the rest of the film, which, as another reviewer has noted,was in a washed-out colour - I wonder if this was deliberate so that it matched the real-life action footage?

Hayden himself had served behind enemy lines during the actual war and filled the lead role in a stolid sort of way. The Italian partisans looked realistic, and Joy Page didn't jar too much as the girl member, though the trousers made her appear very dumpy and I'm never keen on instant romances as depicted in this film. The method used to detect the suspect traitor was a bit curious, as there seemed no evidence that he had actually betrayed his comrades.