Jet Pilot (1957)

As a film, this is pretty awful: a crude piece of American patriotism with a stereotypical view of the Soviet Union shown at the height of the Cold War. In fact, the work was produced by RKO in 1950 which was owned by Howard Hughes but, by the time it was released in 1957, Hughes had sold RKO and the film was released by Universal. It is presented as a kind of old-fashioned rom-com with John Wayne (a strong anti- communist) playing a United State Air Force colonel opposite Janet Leigh who is appallingly miscast as a Soviet defector (she makes no attempt at a Russian accent).For aviation buffs, however, the film has some interest. The USAF was very helpful and we see a great deal of the the North American F-86 Sabre in single, paired and formation manoeuvres. One sequence features a night interception of a Convair B-36 Peacemaker by a Lockheed F-94 Starfire. We even have the inclusion of the last two flights of the first Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis", launched from a Boeing B-50 Superfortress, representing the part of a Soviet "parasite fighter", as well as some stunt flying by the Bell X-1's most famous pilot Chuck Yeager.

There aren't as many movies that are so bad that you can enjoy laughing at them. Has anyone ever really sat through "The Conqueror" or "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and ENJOYED them? Easier said than done.The photography here is by Winton Hoch, a former chemist, and it's magnificent, in the air or on the ground. There are impressive shots of colorful airplanes doing sinuous leaps across a sparkling blue sky. The scenes were shot in the American Southwest, including Edwards Air Force Base, from which I once caught a lift to Rome, New York.John Wayne is an Air Force colonel who get mixed up with Janet Leigh, a Soviet agent posing as a defector. Both are expert jet pilots, although they fly indiscriminately any machine that will lift off the ground. They fall in love and get married. Then Wayne pretends to defect to Russia. On a whim, they both escape from the USSR and return to Palm Springs where they drink champagne and eat huge steaks.Four editors get screen credit for this mish mash. They should all be spanked. The botches are too many to list but I'll mention just one. Janet Leigh, looking supernally beautiful and sensuous, first arrives at the Alaskan Air Force base and Wayne has to search her. She removes her flight suit. (Wow.) Wayne tells her to take off her other clothing in the bathroom. Next shot: Leigh is having a shower behind the curtain and is singing to herself. Next shot: She pokes her head from the bathroom door, remarks how nice it is to have hot water, and asks permission to take a shower. Did I mention how strikingly gorgeous she is? Yes, I think I did.Wayne is his usual casual American self but the role reduces him to two expressions -- first mock irritation, then a smiling acceptance of Leigh's betrayal. Nobody else really counts. But Wayne and Fix are obviously too old for their parts, and Leigh looks about half Wayne's age.The writers must have been on peyote or something. Nothing really makes much sense. Pilots shout loudly to one another on the radio. And they use comic book phrases like, "Here we GO!" After she finagles Wayne into defecting to Russia, the authorities squeeze all the information they can out of him, with Leigh's seductive help. Yet, she pulls a pistol on him, pistol whips him twice across the face. Wayne falls to the floor unconscious while she retrieves some item from his pocket. A dazed Wayne clambers to his feet, still smiling, and they argue about whether they love each other or not. What the hell kind of a scene IS this? But someone -- maybe Howard Hughes himself, the éminence gris behind the whole production -- knew something about flying. The aerobatics are within technical limits. And when you make too tight a turn, your airplane loses speed and spins out.Except for Leigh, whose character is so mixed up as to be indefinable, the Russians are the usual cartoon characters. Their accommodations are terrible. So are their faces, uniforms, and accents.I think there was a three-year time lapse between the shooting of this flick and its release. Maybe that accounts for some of what seem like irregularities in the film, such as the Air Force uniforms. But who knows? I mean, really -- who knows?

Its difficult to believe that Josef Von Sternberg, the great master of atmospheric romances, the man who helmed Marlene Dietrich through all her great early 1930s films--The Blue Angel, Morocco and Shanghai Express--was supposed to have been around to direct this shambles; while fans of John Wayne who will accept almost anything The Duke appeared in may be pleased to see him outwit Russian spy Janet Leigh in really impressive Technicolor, and may be happy to see the incredibly grand jet fighter footage probably provided courtesy of Howard Hughes, those of us who want a little believability with our tales may find it difficult to accept Janet Leigh as a Russian spy with perfect Hollywood articulation, especially when wrapped up in some maroon and gold sparkly drag from what might be an old Maria Montez jungle epic; the best Russian vs. American conflict remains Garbo vs. Douglas in Ninotcha, with scintillating dialogue and brilliant repartee. This doesn't even come close to that witty classic; it's mostly silly mock-heroic stuff that does go on and on. On the plus side, the aerial footage, the spectacular shots of jets in the clouds can be breathtaking, and are almost worth the nearly two hour running time

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.