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Saturday, November 11, 2017

TOWARD THE UNKNOWN (1956)

Unexpectedly muscular direction from Mervyn LeRoy (or someone*), along with a dark, near impasto look in Harold Rosson’s WarnerColor lensing, grab your attention in this SuperSonic Test Pilot story. William Holden’s a Korean war vet, working his way back to Top Flyboy at a jet testing facility after a notorious P.O.W. breakdown. He’s also trying to rekindle an old romance with Virginia Leith, now secretary/Girl Friday/default ‘steady’ to General Lloyd Nolan, the hands-on base commander unwilling to give up the reins. Scripter Bernie Lay Jr., a specialist in airborne military saga (STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND/’55; TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH/’49) layers this 3-pronged drama to good effect between some excellent experimental flights, smartly letting the danger & heroism speak for itself. But you’ll see why the film is now little-known. Leith, her romantic episodes shoehorned in and coming to the end of a short-lived feature run, seems to have ‘looped’ all her lines. Odd coming from such a sexy, distinctive voice. You'd swear Paula Prentiss dubbed her. In a way, the whole film feels dubbed . . . dramatically dubbed. Not bad though.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *By this point, LeRoy was largely phoning it in. (Literally so per Alec Guinness on A MAJORITY OF ONE/’61 where LeRoy spent more time on the phone dealing with his stable of horses than with his stable of actors.) Here, with so much flying, there’s a high percentage of second-unit stuff. How much else did those guys shoot?

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Nice debut for James Garner: relaxed, charming, fully-formed.

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