The Sound Barrier

Plot synopsis:
After his aircraft company's groundbreaking work on jet engine technology in the Second World War, John Ridgefield (Ralph Richardson), its wealthy owner, employs test pilot Tony Garthwaite (Nigel Patrick), a successful wartime fighter pilot to fly new jet-powered aircraft. Garthwaite is hired by Ridgefield after marrying Ridgefield's daughter, Susan (Ann Todd). Tensions between father and daughter are accentuated by Garthwaite's dangerous job of test flying. In a noteworthy illustration of the new technology, Susan accompanies Garthwaite on a ferrying assignment of a two-seater de Havilland Vampire to Cairo, Egypt, returning later the same day as passengers on a de Havilland Comet.
Ridgefield's hopes for his new jet fighter, "Prometheus", has placed the company in jeopardy. The problems faced by the then-new jet aircraft in encountering the speed of sound, the so-called "sound barrier", are ever present. In an attempt to break the sound barrier, Garthwaite crashes and is killed. Shocked at the death of her husband and at her father's apparently single-minded and heartless approach to the dangers his test pilots face, Susan walks out on her father and goes to live with friends Jess (Dinah Sheridan) and Philip Peel (John Justin), another company test pilot. Ridgefield later engages Peel to take on the challenge of piloting "Prometheus" at speeds approaching the speed of sound. In a crucial flight, and at the critical moment, Peel performs a counterintuitive action (presaged in the opening scene of the film) which enables him to maintain control of the aircraft and to break the sound barrier.
Eventually accepting that her father did care about those whose lives were lost in tests, Susan changes her plan of moving to London and takes her young son with her back to live with Sir John.

Tags: romantic, historical fiction

Review:
But the story of the characters is what I remember best: the closeness of the small band of test pilots and their loved ones, how they are inspired by the promise of supersonic flight, and how they react when things go wrong..
Not an easy kind of picture to make, but one held together by Lean's refined direction, a great cast and a surprisingly good script by Terence Rattigan.Although Lean was to make two small-scale pictures between this and Bridge on the River Kwai, this is perhaps more than any other a transition film between his early intimate dramas and the later massive epics he is now best known for.
Like those later pictures, in the Sound Barrier the narrative switches to carry on the story through the eyes of other characters.A story like this, concerning test pilots, engineering and scientific breakthroughs, will only work if there is a strong drama underlying it  otherwise it's only going to be of interest to techies.
He is moving away a little from the rather obvious expressionistic techniques of his earliest films towards a more straightforward yet effective style.By the early 50s the golden age of British film was over, but there was still a good crop of acting talent on offer, and there are plenty of names to mention in The Sound Barrier.
His poignant final scene is one of the strongest in the whole picture.Of course, it's not just the plot of The Sound Barrier that is a work of fiction  the science is complete nonsense as well, so don't go thinking that pilots really reverse their controls to get through the sound barrier.
Richardson plays the tycoon whose dream kills his son and son-in-law, but who finally sees the error of his ways and whose daughter returns to the cold family home with his grandson.The film is also a vehicle to show the world Britain's proud lead in jet technology.
Historically and technically, the film is so out in left field as to be almost laughable (the plot point about control reversal is apparently the result of a writer hearing a valid aeronautical term and misunderstanding it completely) but in the end, the issues raised and the fine performances make Sound Barrier a winner.
The movie really does capture a sense of time and the tremendous bravery of those involved in the breaking of the sound barrier.The cast is excellent and as usual Denholm Elliot steals every scene he's involved in.
By many standards, David Lean's production of the film he directed in 1952, "The Sound Barrier" is both unusual and I suggest rewarding.
She learns because of her journey, what some men see in the serenity of the sky, and even its danger; it introduces us to the third pilot and his wife; and we are given a sense of the camaraderie of the men who flew in those days; another such moment occurs when the French ace Geoffrey de Havilland is killed trying to break the sound barrier ahead of all others.
Joseph Tomelty is admirable as Will Sparks, the designer tormented by his own part in causing test pilots to risk their lives; Ann Todd is good as the tormented Susan, wife to Tony and daughter of the boss of Ridgefield.
Dinah Sheridan is also lovely as Philip's brave wife; but it is Ralph Richardson's powerful realization of John Ridgefield, former pilot, towering presence and inspiring and dangerous leader of men who along with Justin gives the film its unusual dimension of mind and purpose.
When a reporter asked the person who first actually broke the sound barrier, Gen. Chuck Yaeger, about that "solution," he indicated that doing what was proposed would have ensured the death of the pilot.The film is well worth watching, if for no other reason than to get a taste of people taking baby steps in the new world of postwar technology..
BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER is the U.S. title for this film which I missed seeing when originally released.
RALPH RICHARDSON once again plays a father who was emotionally distant from his son (DENHOLM ELLIOT) and daughter (ANN TODD) and shows more concern for the progress of scientific investigation in solving the problem of supersonic flight than the welfare of individuals who sacrifice their lives to please him.
He shows more constraint here as the father than he did in THE HEIRESS a few years previous.Under David Lean's direction, the film moves briskly through a series of events involved in breaking the sound barrier through jet propulsion at a time when the aircraft industry was making great strides after WWII.While the characters are fictional, so are the events depicted, since a British airman was not the first to break the sound barrier--something that American pilot Chuck Yaeger was quick to point out when he was invited to attend the world premiere of the film in London.
It was broken by an American pilot as early as 1947.Tension between Richardson and his children helps make the fictional story more compelling and the acting by RALPH RICHARDSON, NIGEL PATRICK (as Ann Todd's pilot husband) and ANN TODD is excellent.Summing up: Interesting from many viewpoints despite being a bit too talky with a good background score from Malcolm Arnold..
HOWEVER, since the film was made by David Lean and features lovely actors such as Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd and Denholm Elliot, then it STILL is worth seeing despite its many deficiencies.
That being said, under the expert direction of David Lean there's plenty of good, British stiff-upper-lippishness, provided by the likes of Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, Nigel Patrick, Denholm Elliot and John Justin.
A young RAF pilot test's his father-in-law's prototype supersonic aircraft to the limit, at a time of intense development activity in the field of aviation, just as commercial jet airliners are about to come into service.This is one of David Lean's less well-known films, in which some of the development milestones and incidents in contemporary UK aviation were put into a dramatic context.
Although activities were somewhat reduced in peacetime, the UK lead the way in several key aviation fields in the late 1940s and early 1950s; there was a new Cold War to be fought.Now, lot of reviews here assume that the events portrayed were completely fictional (a la U571); whilst no film is beyond reproach in this respect in point of fact in this case nothing could be further from the truth; this film used no fewer than eight of the UK's most experienced test pilots as consultants.
It is just one of the many things that can occur in or near the transonic regime, and was probably chosen for the film because it is both simple and dramatic, and by then fairly well-known.Flying military jet aircraft at that time was incredibly dangerous even without being shot at; peacetime training accidents were numerous.
It is sobering to note that there are no surviving DH108 prototypes because they were all lost in (fatal) crashes.In this film the human drama is played well enough with fine ating and good production values, but all this definitely takes second place to the aircraft and the flying.
Sound Off. British aviation enthusiasts seek to break the sound barrier by dangerously pushing their jets beyond their limits in this solidly crafted drama starring Ralph Richardson.
The film has copped a lot of flak over the years for its historical inaccuracies (the Americans were actually the first to break the sound barrier with very different techniques), however, 'The Sound Barrier' works well as a character drama as long as one takes all the pseudoscience on hand with a pinch of salt.
I first watched THE SOUND BARRIER on TV in 1975, and liked it immensely, finding it both informative and intelligent in its presentation- It keeps the viewer interested to the end, no doubt because David Lean's direction is very good, at times even inspired, and it is helped by extremely competent cinematography and a credible screenplay.
Sir Ralph Richardson is superb as JR, a man obsessed with building ever better aircraft in competition with de Havilland and other companies, to the point of driving his son (well played by Denholm Eliott) and his son in law (Nigel Patrick) to their deaths.
I also liked John Justin as the pilot who finally breaks the sound barrier.
I find it had to beat the flight scene in the Right Stuff when Chuck Yeager broke through the sound barrier and the other scene when he is taking the F-104 past 100,000 feet.
Imagine the sky,cloudless,deep blue as only at the height of an English summer,stretching from horizon to horizon.A small boy about 12 years old is happily searching rockpools left at low tide on a south coast beach.A shadow flashes across him,followed by a deep roaring sound.He looks up and spots a pencil-slim red jet plane disappearing into the distance followed shortly by the familiar "double boom" that signalled the breaking of the sound barrier.He lowers his fishing net and shields his eyes against the sun as the plane returns for another low-ceiling run over the sea.It could be the pre-title sequence for a movie about the perils of high-speed flight,but,in fact,the small boy was me,and I had just watched one of my heroes(the other one was Stanley Matthews) Squadron Leader Neville Duke regaining the world air speed record.
Those were heady days to be a young Briton.The recent coronation of the lovely Queen Elizabeth the second,the climbing of Mount Everest,the end of the war in Korea - all these events combined to create a huge air of optimism.There was even a children's magazine called "The New Elizabethan" with no articles about how to avoid getting pregnant at 12 years of age(without being at all judgemental of course),how to spot dodgy "Ecstasy" tablets or how to get a start in modelling.To us modelling meant making planes from balsa wood.Moss and Campbell meant Stirling and Malcolm,reassuringly British names.
Back in the days when "Flight" and "The Aeroplane" were staple reading for schoolboys,it was taken for granted that "breaking the sound barrier" was an essential first step towards space flight - that panacea-like dream of the 1950s.That proved to be correct and the first astronauts were beholden to men like Chuck Yeager whose courage was recognised in "The Right Stuff",albeit in a post-modern ironic sort of way.The British supersonic flight programme rather petered out in comparison,due possibly to lack of will and vision,but more probably,lack of money."The Sound Barrier" is its filmed legacy.
The late Squadron Leader Duke was a man of high courage.A few months before his record breaking flight over the Sussex beaches a ,De Havilland 110,piloted by John Derry who had flown a Mosquito filming aerial views of Paris for "The Sound Barrier" broke up in supersonic flight at the Farnborough Air show,its wreckage causing many casualties in the crowd,which included David Lean and Ann Todd.In the deadly hush that followed,he walked out to his plane and took off.Flying low over the Hampshire hills,he banked round to the aerodrome and began his pass.The Hunter screamed over the runway and climbed rapidly,the resulting sonic boom offering a fitting tribute to his fallen colleagues and all the victims of man's restless urge to leave the confines of the Earth..
This movie stands up at least as well as the more expensive epic based on Tom Wolf's book, although "Breaking the Sound Barrier" is in black and white, virtually without special effects, and characterized not by arguments and competition, but by stiff upper-lipness and British taciturnity.Ralph Richardson plays the head of an aircraft manufacturing empire.
End of son, played by a surprisingly undebauched looking Denholm Elliot.Richardson has a daughter too, Ann Todd.
She marries a test pilot, Nigel Patrick, "not of your level," who is given a job flying new jets for Richardson's company.
Owing nothing to Hitchcock's "Psycho" they kill off the protagonist and leave us gaping , the way Patrick leaves an untidy hole gaping in what appears to be an astonishingly tidy farm field, a bit of smoking wreckage scattered about.Patrick's friend and fellow pilot takes over the final mission to crack the sound barrier.
The first opening minutes of "Breaking the Sound Barrier" show us a Spitfire over Dover with a youthful pilot doing aerobatics, and the actor, the director, and the composer let us know exactly how he feels.Very good movie..
Although many people will naturally think the claim that Britain broke the sound barrier before the Americans is its most obvious flaw, the really serious mistake in this film is the death of Denholm Elliott as a student pilot whilst making his first solo.
No aircraft could possibly be more pleasant to fly, as any ex-Tiger pilot will tell you...If you want proof of this, shortly before he died, I spoke to John Justin, who played the pilot who broke the sound barrier in this film.
You can see Lean's thinking; he didn't want to go through life riding on the coat-tails of Coward, what Rattigan didn't know about constructing a play could fit in an eye-dropper and still leave room for an eight-to-one martini, he'd served in the RAF during the war and had written one of the two finest British war films actually produced during the war, The Way To The Stars - the other was In Which We Serve, written, produced, starring and co-directed by Coward with Lean.
Pilot John Justin goes into a dive and when the plane begins to shudder he finds it difficult to throttle back, an experience he discusses with chum Nigel Patrick back on the aerodrome; Patrick, however, is in love and not interested but the object of his affection, Ann Todd, just happens to be the daughter of a leading aircraft manufacturer, Ralph Richardson, who offers Patrick a job as test pilot after the war.
THE SOUND BARRIER attempts to be one of those rousingly British true stories about a team of dedicated men working with science to achieve historical greatness.
I'm not too sure about that, but it is directed by David Lean who makes this a nice-looking picture, and it has enough notable actors to make it worth a watch for fans of British cinema.The thrust of the plot seems to be about sacrifice: the lives given up by young men in pursuit of a dream.
Said dream is to create an aircraft with the ability to fly fast enough to break the sound barrier.
One of the best things about it are the assured performances from the likes of Nigel Patrick, Ralph Richardson, and a very youthful Denholm Elliott..
The Sound Barrier is directed by David Lean, is written by Terence Rattigan, has music by Malcolm Arnold.
John pushes his son Christopher(Denholm Elliott)too hard to become a pilot and Christopher dies in a plane crash when he does something wrong during the flight.
Tony agrees much to the dismay of Susan who doesn't want her husband to become a victim of her fathers will like her brother.John's company have built a plane that he hopes will break the sound barrier.
Her father and Tony think it is worth the risk.Lean's film captures the dangers involved in testing aircraft really well.
He's charismatic and plays Tony as a focused pilot and loving husband.Ann Todd and Ralph Richardson give the standout performances for me.
She is very good in the scene where she sees her father listening to the recording of Tony in the plane and she goes into labour.Richardson plays a very complex character, at first sight you think him cold and unfeeling but in a couple of scenes near the end of the film you realise that's not true, he is a driven man with a vision, he may experience tragedy and setbacks but if he gives up because of those then they will have been in vain he must continue his work.One of Lean's most underrated films, this is one that deserves more attention today.
Of course the film is complete fiction showing our pilots breaking the sound barrier, in reality Chuck Yeager from America did that.
Of course now that we've seen "The Right Stuff" we know that the sound barrier was not broken over the skies of England by some guy working for a company with a management team of one and a design team of one.
Despite the fact that her father is an aircraft manufacturing magnate, she has never had a conversation with him about air apparently!There are two ways that Test Pilot Wives react, we find; one of them is to mope around like Ann Todd, trying to nag their husbands into letting someone else do the risky stuff and wondering why it's so important to get a plane to go 800 miles an hour.
Not one of David Lean's best, it features the dashing Nigel Patrick as a test pilot avidly pursuing the breaking of the titular maguffin.
When questioning her father regarding the reason for wanting the break the sound barrier she mentions that an airliner will be able to fly to New York in 3 hours.
It mashes up the true death of test pilot Geoffrey de Havilland in 1946 with a made-up subsequent crash and a made-up subsequent pioneering blast through the sound barrier, and it was written and filmed more than enough years after Chuck Yeager had really broken the sound barrier (after de Havilland's crash) to be a pretty outrageously and fictitiously an expression of British nationalism.All of the characters are very posh and very English (and of course lily white), with the exception of an irascible Scottish technical genius who may well have been the prototype for "Scotty" in the Star Trek franchise.
Pretty good acting, but the characters are all a little too refined, too restrained, and too polite, even as the rather unscrupulous head of the aircraft company in the movie gets a pass on getting test pilots killed in the interest of being the first guy to build a supersonic plane.