I just watched a rather interesting British movie produced by Albert R Brocolli.
The movie is about a bunch of trainee pilots, one of whom is a complete maverick who has issues because of the death of his pilot father. And the father has a connection to the commanding officer of the base (Ray Milland).
Towards the end of the movie there is a hostile engagement which results in the maverick, learning to be part of a team.
The photography of the jets is superb throughout but what really struck me was that, his film is the British Top Gun! Seriously, there are a LOT of similarities and I have a sneaking suspicion that the writers of the Tom Cruise movie took a bit of "inspiration" from High Flight.
HIGH FLIGHT had eighteen days of location shooting at the Cranwell RAF Training Base in Lincolnshire, England. Although the 1957 film was shot and shown in Great Britain in Technicolor, Columbia Pictures released the film in the U.S. in 1958 only in black-and-white prints. Various prints of the film have been listed as running anywhere from 83 to 102 minutes.
Douglas Gamley and Kenneth V. Jones composed the film's score. It was performed by the Sinfonia of London under the direction of Muir Mathieson. It has not been released.
I wonder if the film made reference to the famous poem of that title by John Magee? It was memorably quoted by President Reagan exactly thirty years ago in response to the Challenger disaster. More to the point, it was set to music by Miklos Rozsa in 1942.
I wonder if the film made reference to the famous poem of that title by John Magee? It was memorably quoted by President Reagan exactly thirty years ago in response to the Challenger disaster. More to the point, it was set to music by Miklos Rozsa in 1942.
I wonder if the film made reference to the famous poem of that title by John Magee? It was memorably quoted by President Reagan exactly thirty years ago in response to the Challenger disaster. More to the point, it was set to music by Miklos Rozsa in 1942.
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