User Reviews

BAILOUT AT 43,000 :1957

This Pine-Thomas production stars, John Payne, Paul Kelly, Karen Steele, Constance Ford, Richard Eyer and Eddie Firestone. The film is about US Air Force's Air Research and Development Command. At the moment they are working on an automatic ejection seat for use on the B-47 Stratojet bomber.

The B-47 had a crew of three, two of which sat under the top canopy. The third man was deep inside the fuselage and had no way out during an emergency. Of course being this crewman did not do much for morale. The tests are to make sure a new downward ejection seat for the third man works.

The tests so far have been successful. But these have all been made with dummies. It is now time to try the device with a live test subject. There are three men up to make the test, Adam Kennedy, Eddie Firestone and John Payne. Payne really does not want to be here. He had been called back out of civilian life to join the test program. He has a wife, Karen Steele and a child, Richard Eyer.

Eddie Firestone is first up to give the ejection seat a go. They will fly to 40,000 plus feet and then fire the seat with Firestone out the bottom of a B-47. The test goes wrong and Firestone's chute engages at too high a height. When he lands he has been seriously injured with a wrenched neck. He is hauled off to hospital for repairs. Now the men need to go over the seat and find out what happened. The lead scientist on the project is of course an ex-German Luftwaffe type. The man, Gregory Gaye, goes over everything and decides that a stronger release spring for the parachute harness is needed.

Up for the next test is Adam Kennedy. He however goes down to the night before with an appendicitis attack. Now it is up to John Payne. He is torn between asking to be relived or to go through with it. His wife, Steele, can see that he is rattled by the decision either way. Kelly pays a visit to the project commander, Paul Kelly. She asks Kelly to let Payne off the assignment. When Payne finds out that Steele had approached Kelly, he forces himself to take the flight.

The test is a success and Payne is over his jitters. There is a side story where the pilot husband, Richard Crane, of one of the base wives, Constance Ford, is killed in the crash of a B-47. He had died because he could not escape the plane.

The film was made with the full cooperation of the United States Air Force and featured quite a few shots with Boeing B-47 Stratojet bombers.

The director was Francis D Lyon. Lyon was an Oscar winning film-editor (Body and Soul) who made the switch to directing.

The film was the last made by veteran actor, Paul Kelly before his death.

The film was produced by the "Dollar Bills", William Thomas and William Pine. The two Bills were known to be tight with a buck as they churned out low-budget fare for the bottom of the double feature. They were so good at this that they ended up in charge of the b-film unit at Paramount studios. This is one of their later independent productions which was released through United Artists.

***SPOLIERS**** Called back to the service WWII & Korean veteran Maj. Paul Peterson,John Payne,is slated to test out this new parachute by the US Air Force in being dropped from a B-57 at 43,000 feet. It turns out luckily for Paterson that he's third in line to test it out with both Capt. Mike Cavallero,Eddie Firestone, and Lt. Edward Simmions, Adam Kennedy, ahead of him. With Cavallero breaking his neck when his parachute failed to open properly and Simmons, the evening before he's to make the jump, suffering from an attack of appendicitis it's now up to the very reluctant Maj. Peterson to make the drop.

It's Maj. Peterson's good friend and head of the jump operation Col. William Hughes, Paul Kelly, who senses his fear of both flying and jumping since he's in his late 30's with a wife and young son back home. It's when Col. Hughes after talking things over with Paterson's wife Carol, Karen Steele, in seeing just how nervous and sweaty he's been after being assigned to do the jump he decides to take his place instead: Jumping some 43,000 feet and free falling for some 80% or some 35,000 feet before he opens his parachute!

****SPOILERS**** Finally getting his courage, that he left behind in Korea, back Paterson decide to do the jump against Col. Hughes and his wife Carol's advice. And Paterson succeeds with sky high flying colors despite-in suffering a black-out on the way down- not following orders. That's for him to spread eagle in cushioning the impact while falling to land safely. Not only did Paterson succeed in his some 6 mile high jump but proved to himself and everyone else that he still had it as well as proved that jumping 43,000 feet and free falling more then three quarters of the way down was possible with the right, the new parachute designed by a former Nazi scientist, equipment.

P.S This turned out to be actor Paul Kellys' last film. Kelly died on November 6, 1956 as he left the voting booth after casting his vote for president for Adlai Stevenson. As it turned out Adlai got trounced in the election by President Eisenhower who won in a landslide vote of 57.3% to Adlai's 41.9%!

Tense army drama about test divers working on increasing parachute jumping heights, and the pitfalls of the experiment. John Payne is up for one of the test spots, but as the testing continues, various bailouts result in accidents and fatalities. For Payne, a husband and father, watching the first go increases his chances of getting picked. His wife (Karen Steele) keeps having premonitions, and when she befriends another officer's wife (Constance Ford), that premonition increases. A long sequence of Ford and Steele playing bingo increases in tension as Ford's husband is delayed in meeting them as other officer's wives look on in either worry or jealousy over her winning a game, followed immediately by Steele. This is one of those explanatory dramas over what different parts of the military actually do, trying to explain to civilians like me why they actually have to do what they do. It's interesting, but not terribly exciting.

I will give credit to the cast for sincere performances, which also included Paul Kelly as Payne's commander and a very young Barbara Eden in a rather "loose" female part. Ford, always a portrayer of intense characters on film, makes the most of her small role, really showing what acting with ones eyes entails. It was only two years later when she went onto play a very different wife in the smash hit "A Summer Place", and becoming beloved on daytime's"Another World" as the loving Ada Hobson. Payne and Steele seem a bit far apart in age to be a married couple, but act convincingly in their scenes together. For a military film without combat, it touches on different emotions, and that makes it rather unique.