High Flight

I'd never heard of or seen this film until recently on You Tube. Yes it's there! I've seen a lot of aviation films, some poor and some very good and others in between. This one copped a "9" on my scale.

They don't get much better then this, the perfect proportion of humor and drama that always keeps you wanting more! What else could you ask for in a genre film about aircraft and the men that man them.

Great acting and the aerial photography is excellent. Seeing the RAF in the 50's in glorious Technicolor and Cinemascope is not to be missed!

I can't recommend this film too highly! It's on You Tube and there's no excuse to miss it! Happy landings!

I saw this movie when it was released in Paris. I was 16 and after watching the movie a whole afternoon, at that time in Paris you could enter a theater and stay as long as you wished, I wanted to become a pilot. Circumstances made it that I've never been one...

I think Robert J. Maxwell here is very unjust with this movie. Just try to put yourself in the situation of movie making of the late 50s. The movie was shot in Cinemascope and released either in color or B&W as stated here. Cinemascope required a huge equipment especially lighting as at the time the sensitiveness of 35mm film was not very high if you wished to have the best definition possible. The camera used were also heavy and not easy to move, just like television cameras at that time.

You cant compare the conditions of shoot in those days with the extraordinary conditions we have today with light cameras, CGI and all the computer devices at the disposal of the movie teams today.

It's a pity on youtube that the movie has been cropped to fit the 16:9 ratio. It's a betrayal of all the work of the Director of photography as well as of the director. This kind of adjustments should not be tolerated.

I just watched this film for the first time on cable channel TCM (US). I had never heard of it.

The presence of Ray Milland is a plus, and I found Anthony Newley quite amusing though the runaway toy flying saucer scene is perhaps just too goofy.

Any effort to develop the story or characters is somewhat half-hearted. What little plot there is seems to exist mainly to fill time between the flying sequences. But what great sequences they are! The formation flying is impressive, the aerial photography very well done, helped along by some beautiful writing by the film composer, and the planes are just great to look at.

Over on this side of the pond we haven't had much chance to see these British aircraft. I don't know if there was any jet in the 1950's more beautiful then the Hawker Hunter. This plane is featured in the latter stages of the film. At the end, Ray Milland guides a wounded plane down to a belly landing. On the way, there is impressive camera work that follows these two planes bounce along in the air, just above the countryside.

My father was one of the cadets in the film as he was an RAF pilot with No1 and then No2 Squadrons. I am not sure what squadron he was in when the film was made (maybe still at Cranwell), but I remember the orange LP of the soundtrack with a picture of my dad on the back.

He also served as a liaison office with the USAF in the 60's in MacDill AFB in Tampa

I now live in Australia but went to his 70th last week at which many of his old squadron colleagues attended.

Does anyone have a copy of the film? Would love to get it for him.

Blane Coulcher

..because the flying scenes are terrific.

Another one of those older movies that could be seen on TV years ago and can't be seen at all anymore. Pity.

The story is somewhat weak what with the stiff-upper-lip Wing Commander riding a new charge at his training wing (who just happens to the son of a squadron-mate from his old unit in the last war (WWII).

Now it's trial by a new fire as the "old man" feels he has to exercise restraint in reining in the young flyer's antics in order to assuage his conscience about an incident that led to the death of the kid's father.

As usual, the British seem to get what makes a movie about flying right with wonderful air-to-air shots of Hunters, Vampires, Provosts and the like. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this probably isn't the movie for you, anyway.

If you can ignore the "Cold War" overtones and some continuity errors (young pilot takes off in a DH-115; dashes about the sky in a DH-100 and lands back again in a DH-115) you may find this one at least a passing fancy.