Pluskylang
Great Film overall
Claysaba
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
Art Vandelay
Paint-by-numbers Air Force recruiting film piloted by paint-by-numbers hack Mervin LeRoy.
There's something about agnoidal Lloyd Nolan delivering cliched lines that just adds up to docu-snooze. The visit by the Senator so the base chief can over-explain what goes on at Edwards Air Force Base is particularly galling. And having an affair with the dish behind the desk? He's old enough to be her grandfather.
I can see why flying geeks like this movie, though. It's cool to see all the old planes America put to use pointlessly dropping bombs in various world sh**h*les.
Bill Holden is believable as the tortured former Korean POW. Is there anything that man couldn't make you believe? No wonder he absolutely owned the 50s.
One other note - the musical cues are as obvious as the plotting and dialogue. Maybe it was subbed out to an intern.
If you have a b*ner for vintage fighter planes or peak Holden, this movie is worth watching once.
JohnHowardReid
Copyright 1956 by Toluca (William Holden) Productions. Released through Warner Bros. New York opening at the Paramount: 27 September 1956. U.S. release: 20 October 1956. U.K. release: 6 January 1957. Australian release: 1 August 1957. 10,314 feet. 114 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Major Lincoln Bond (William Holden), who after months of torture signed a germ warfare confession in Korea, arrives at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, commanded by Brigadier General Banner (Lloyd Nolan). He hopes to be reassigned as a test pilot and enlists the aid of his friend, Colonel McKee (Charles McGraw). McKee is informed by Banner that Bond's record established him as undependable for further test pilot work. Outside the office, Bond has a somewhat awkward reunion with Banner's secretary, Connie Mitchell (Virginia Leith). Though they had been sweethearts, Bond has been too ashamed to write her since his crack- up in the prisoner-of-war camp. Bond confides to Connie how eager he is to regain the confidence of the people who used to rely on him. TNOTES: Location scenes filmed at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The needle-nosed X-2 plane shown in the movie was actually flown by test pilot Pete Everest. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Boring enough for all, if you don't mind excessive xenophobia.COMMENT: I don't share the general mild enthusiasm for "Brink of Hell". I found it dull. I agree that airplane nuts will undoubtedly get a thrill or two from the widescreen vistas of planes looping the flight fantastic, but the downstairs drama of job-jockeying and rekindled romance is strictly time-twiddling, utterly routine, cornball fluff. Heavily jingoistic sludge like this with its obligatory pats on the back for the U.S. Air Force, would tax the vitality and imagination of a really enthusiastic director. To a tired old Hollywood figure like Mervyn LeRoy, however, "Brink of Hell" doubtless represented just another paycheck.That's the way it seemed to me too. Just another airplane picture. Predictably plotted, garrulously acted, listlessly directed, this picture takes us well beyond the "Brink of Hell" into the abyss of boredom.
moonspinner55
Solid if unexceptional aerial melodrama with William Holden playing a troubled Air Force Major hoping to get into the test pilot program at Edwards Air Force Base, but finding his recent past (which includes a suicide attempt) causing doubt and concern among his superiors. Holden's crack-up is left relatively ambiguous, yet all the harping from his fellow officers seems to equate a mental breakdown (or depression) with psychotic behavior. Ditto General Lloyd Nolan's 'advanced' age, which is brought up so often it's no wonder the man is having dizzy spells! Holden's Toluca Films (the company's one and only offering) ensured a quality production (with minimal rear projection and stock footage), however the aerial action is far more exciting than anything happening on the ground. Paul Baron's emotive score and Hal Rosson's cinematography are both first-rate, while Holden's effortless star appeal helps to override the military and romantic clichés. ** from ****
DrHypersonic
This film has excellent performances by Holden and some of the other actors, but the real stars are the extraordinary research airplanes of the Air Force Flight Test Center in 1955-56, when the film was made. There is superb inflight footage of the Martin XB-51 (which is painted up as the "F-120" fighter), and outstanding footage of the Bell X-2 rocket research airplane, as well as footage of the rare TF-86 (only two were made), a two-seat version of the famed F-86 Sabre jet fighter. For "real" the X-2 in 1956 reached an altitude of 126,200 feet flown by Captain Iven "Kinch" Kincheloe, and Mach 3.2 (2,196 mph) by Captain Milburn "Mel" Apt. Both were advisers on the film. Apt died in the crash of the X-2 on 27 Sept. 1956, the same flight on which he reached M = 3.2, Kincheloe was selected as lead AF pilot on the hypersonic X-15 program, but was killed in 1958 in the crash of a Lockheed F-104. Incidentally, Holden was flown in a high-performance airplane for familiarization purposes at Edwards for the film...not sure if it was a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star trainer (most likely), though there is a curious photo I have seen of him in front of the TF-86, suggesting that, possibly, he was one of the (very) few non-Sabre pilots to have flown this machine...and if he did, it is possible as well that he flew faster than Mach 1, the speed of sound, as the TF-86 could clearly do so. A great film, not to be missed.
