Battle Taxi

This film was a mainstay of late-afternoon television in the NYC area in the late-fifties, early-sixties, having been shown at least a half-dozen times or more. As an early teen at the time, I enjoyed watching it, especially after having built a Revell model of the Sikorsky helicopter featured so prominently. The brief sequences of jet fighters flying overhead just made it all the more entertaining to my young eyes. In those days, America could do no wrong, but regrettably, we would soon learn otherwise.

A very good movie for all the aviation buffs : it can easily be considered as the "Sikorsky H-19 " helicopter definitive film. Then , there are a lot of good old Sabres and Shooting Stars, some S-51 Hely and other USAF stuff of the period(F-51 , B-45, B-29, Hu-16) . Haiden was a super actor and Franz did his best. A must for all the Hely lovers and aviation fans. Typical production of the early fifties, mainly done to promote Air Force and to give an idea of the hard work usually done by the Air Rescue Service men. The aviation movies regarding the Korean conflict are usually full of North American F-86 Sabres and are the vehicle for daring and handsome Fighter Pilots. This B movie is an honest one mainly produced to inform people of the obscure and dangerous work the SAR people performed and still do in saving life of pilots.

Rough tough, phone in the performance and cash the paycheck Captain Sterling Hayden commands a fleet of helicopters in the Korean War. Can he keep his BATTLE TAXIS in the air rescuing shot down pilots, or will re-purposed hot shot pilot Arthur Franz keep flying the copters into unnecessary danger?

If you want character driven drama, any sense of suspense, or performances you'll remember five minutes after "The End", this is not the movie for you. If you want camp, atrocious dialog, and amazing overacting, this also is not the film for you. But, if you love watching spliced bits of stock footage, newsreel stuff, and endless shots of helicopters and jet fighters in the midst of not so exciting action, this is your movie. Heck, this flick even has Hayden and Franz show a group of hot shot pilots a movie full of stock footage, newsreel stuff and helicopters, just to get all that stuff that had been rotting at the stock company's shelves in.

The performances are pretty dull -- but in fairness to the actors, there is so much footage from other sources, they don't have much time to develop their characters beyond the desired stereotypes. The script is pretty dreary as well, with only one moment of actual originality appearing two-thirds of the way. But if you enjoy looking at old helicopters and jets, this is actually a pretty valuable film.

Very similar to other war films of this type where a "rebel" is eventually turned into one of the more regular guys via a few heroic acts of course. The usual love interest was missing and I had expected to see a few pretty nurses here and there for added complications.

The stock footage was poor with some of it being very well known WWII footage, the soldiers on the railway line and the plane attacking a bridge for example.

It could have been, and should have been, a lot better than it was considering the assistance they had from the real rescue service which was largely wasted.

Not worth watching except by those with an interest in helicopters.

No doubt, the film contains more than its share of deficiencies, which have been amply pointed out in previous reviews of this title. But we have to remember that it was probably shot on a minuscule budget, and most likely in a heluva hurry, for the war had been over for at least a year before it got released. For me, "Battle Taxi" rates 4-5 for cinematic quality, but as a document of aviation history it's at least an 8, and for sentimental value (for me), it's off the charts. Along with Richard Widmark's "Hell and High Water," this was my favorite movie back around 1958, when I was four years old. My old man was an Air Force fighter jock at that time, having flown F-80s in Korea, now stationed at Hamilton Field north of San Francisco, flying F-86s. For whatever reason, I absolutely loved helicopters, especially the H-19, and a Chickasaw pilot lived on the same street as we did in Novato. One of my earliest memories is of being invited out to the base to see a real H-19, and actually getting to SIT IN THE COCKPIT, while my brother and cousins had to stand below in the cargo bay. I hadn't seen this film in at least 30 years when it showed up on TCM around 2005. Yet I remembered it in almost every detail, especially the "truck gas" episode. Seeing it again was a priceless time-warp experience. PS: for any H-19 fans out there, floating around YT is a 25-minute Army training film about pre-flight inspection of the Chickasaw. I would have given my last toy revolver back in 1958 to have seen that!