Ralph Richardson

Ann Todd

Nigel Patrick

John Justin

Dinah Sheridan

Joseph Tomelty

Denholm Elliott

Jack Allen

Ralph Michael

Leslie Phillips

Donald Harron

Vincent Holman

Douglas Muir

Terence Rattigan

David Lean

Geoffrey Foot

Joseph Bato

George Partleton

Winston Ryder

Norman Spencer

Jack Hildyard

Elizabeth Hennings

John Palmer

Bert Ross

Malcolm Arnold

John Hawkesworth

Adrian Pryce-Jones

Ida Mills

John Cox

Vincent Korda

Wally Fairweather

Jean Osborne

Margaret Townsend

Drama

Romance

The Sound Barrier

London Films Productions

United Kingdom

CinemaSerf

“JR” (Sir Ralph Richardson) is a magnate determined to develop an aircraft that can break the speed of sound. This is no mean feat, and with the man becoming all but obsessed with this breakthrough, he engages “Tony” (Nigel Patrick) who just happens to be married to his daughter “Susan” (Ann Todd) to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, quite literally, “Chris” (Denholm Elliott). What this film does manage is to generate quite a sense of the perilous jeopardy facing these pilots as they pushed their embryonic technology harder and harder, almost feeling their way forward. That is really well illustrated by some archive aerial photography of just about everything from a bi-plane to more advanced jet engines aircraft, and Malcolm Armold delivers a suitably grand  and flourishing score to accompany the frequent sky scenes. Sadly, though, that pace isn’t really very well transferred to the activities on the ground as the melodrama rather clutters up the proceedings and it becomes a little too stodgy. Patrick was always a proficient actor and for a while the planning and design elements of the plot prove quite compelling, but there just aren’t enough of these scientific elements to punch through the fog of mediocre (and extensive) dialogue that rather grounds this drama. It is a good looking film and it goes some way to illustrating - like “The First of the Few” (1942) - the dedication and commitment required to make air travel speedier and safer and it is worth a watch, but I found it a bit disappointing.

English