Les espions s'amusent

Unless you're willing to concede that the the movie was made as a farce, which I don't happen to believe, then the plot and acting are one cringeworthy moment after another, starting with Janet Leigh's improbably striptease after landing her Soviet fighter at a US airbase, not that there's anything wrong with her stripping, of course. The improbabilities pile on higher and deeper to the point that being probable is no longer even the point and you just don't care anymore.

That said, the true star of this movie is the period hardware, some of it seldom seen anywhere else. The scene of the night interception of the Convair B-36 showed an early model in flight in such detail that if you look closely you can see that the retractable weapons, usually seen retracted on this rather rare machine, are extended. Also other fighters of the era are portrayed including the Bell X-1 that fills in for the Soviet parasite fighter that is actually the rocket plane that Chuck Yeager flew on the world's first supersonic flight. If you are an aviation enthusiast I highly recommend this movie. If you are fan of The Duke or are looking for action adventure or suspense entertainment, pass this one by, it's not for you.

There is great colour footage of F-86, F-80, B-36 and Bell X aircraft here interspersed with utterly ridiculous lines and a bizarre plot. Typically paper thin film making from Howard Hughes with big stars, high production values and zero aspiration towards making a decent movie. How some reviewers can say Wayne acts well in this film beats me! Janet Leigh is gorgeous though...

I waited a long time to see this movie, now I have and I must say I found it better than I had reason to expect. It is a fast moving comedy with many really funny scenes. Could it be this was the first movie that made fun of the Cold War? Could it be it was shelved for years for that reason (maybe the war in Corea made it inopportune to laugh about such matters)? Josef von Sternberg, steeped in German Expressionism, would be the last director you'd expect to helm a movie that at first sight seems to be an older version of Top Gun. But things are set straight very soon as it becomes evident that this is supposed to be a comedy in the vein of something by Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder. Ninotchka comes to mind, and in a way - a hilarious way - Janet Leigh as the (intentionally?) grounded Russian jet pilot is in the footsteps of Greta Garbo here. So John Wayne as American jet pilot is a reticent, rather shy Melvyn Douglas. In his part you'd rather expect Cary Grant, and Wayne does seem to be slightly embarrassed throughout the movie.

Vivacious Janet Leigh's physical assets are highlighted as much as possible and with great success. There is a nice striptease scene in which she gets out of her cute white overalls, and each time she starts peeling off a new layer of clothing - woooosh - a jet plane is heard diving down. It's really a hoot. Soon she reappears in the American's war room in a neatly pressed Red Army uniform, full of medals and fruit salad (she must have stashed it somewhere in that jet plane of hers). Soon she and Wayne are off to Palm Springs, so that she can see what the Commies are missing. Wayne, in turn, gets a whiff of Socialist reality later on, as he accompanies the Russien pilot he sort of married back home. It's grim and Stalag-like, of course.

There is a lot of aerial footage in Jet Pilot and it is high quality material that still fascinates. A lot of elegant acrobatics is performed and filmed from different angles. But even the jets are well embedded in the comedy this movie ultimately is. One of the scene I liked best: Janet Leigh escapes. She runs to a jet with its – er – engine already running, pushes away the ladder and dashes of as if it were a little sports car or some getaway after a heist in a gangster movie. It's unparalleled and one of many laughs Jet Pilot offers.

Cold War romance brought to you not by Kraft, makers of fine cheese, but by Howard Hughes in all his mentally ill glory. There's John Wayne doing his best John Wayne, which is always fun. We get lots of scenes of flying jets complete with a seemingly endless soundtrack of jet noises. What are jet noises? You know, that sound like on the Roadrunner cartoons when Wile E. Coyote strapped a rocket to his back. But the main reason to watch this is lovely Janet Leigh, Hughes' muse of the moment. The camera's absolutely in love with her. She made many better pictures but few quite as enjoyable for me. It's a good movie of its type, helped along by some unintended comedy and the lovely Ms. Leigh. It's the kind of movie I just like to look at even if I don't care what the actors are saying.

As ludicrous as the narrative and dramatics are, this movie has some of the best, even wonderful, jet-age aerial scenes ever filmed. All in color, too!

Forget the story, discard any literary seriousness..., for genuine vintage military aircraft buffs, the flight footage alone is more than worth the price. Also has great shots of aircraft on the ground. It's like a historical (occassionally hysterical) air museum in motion.

The fact that it avoided grainy/phony stock shots, that the aerial footage was shot especially for this movie, that Chuck Yeager performed much of the stunt flying, and that there is actual original footage of the Bell X-1 in flight, makes this movie a true gem for military aviation buffs.

For Paul Frees fans, his brief appearance is incredibly energetic.

Oddly, the DVD is letterboxed, but the 1950 production (with a delayed 1957 release) was shot before the widescreen era, and should have been uncropped full-screen on video.

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