SYNOPSICS
Toward the Unknown (1956) is a English movie. Mervyn LeRoy has directed this movie. William Holden,Lloyd Nolan,Virginia Leith,Charles McGraw are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1956. Toward the Unknown (1956) is considered one of the best Drama,History,Romance,War movie in India and around the world.
USAF Major Lincoln Bond is captured, tortured and released from a POW camp in Korea. After the war he returns to the US where he is re-assigned as a test pilot at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base. The Air Force is testing the new experimental aircraft Gilbert XF-120 fighter. The acceptance of the new aircraft by the Air Force is dependent on successful tests designed to prove the aircraft's reliability and safety. However, when Major Bond flies the prototype he encounters a problem that points out a dangerous structural flaw. This could threaten the aircraft's acceptance by the Air Force and derail the whole project. Major Bond's commanding officer and some of his colleagues start to suspect that Major Bond is imagining things because of his mental condition dating back to his imprisonment and torture in the Korean POW camp.
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Toward the Unknown (1956) Reviews
Great in 1956 and great today
This is an excellent film. Most people know Mervyn Leroy as a great director, but they may not recognize Beirne Lay, Jr. Lay was a B-17 pilot in the 100th Bomb Group, 8th AAF in WW II, and the co-author of the book "12 O'Clock High", from which the academy award movie of the same name was made. Many aspects of this film are great: its desert scenery, aerial photography and accuracy of detail in regard to flight test during the 1950s are all top notch. The cast ,as played by such great character actors as Lloyd Nolan and an up and coming James Garner (a Korean War infantryman), are sincere and believable. What impressed me most then and more so now, is the way the film approached the issue of a Korean War POW who had "cracked". Remember, this picture came out more than 10 years before Americans saw the results of North Vietnamese treatment of our downed air crews. In the 1950s POWs were expected to give only name, rank and serial number if captured. Those that failed to stand fast, to what is now recognized as an unattainable standard, were shunned. Brainwashing and emotional torture weren't understood until years later. But this film used a very strong leading man (Holden) to focus on the sensitive issue of a "broken" pilot who tried to make his way back into American society and regain his dignity in the hardest court of opinion, the ranks of the active Air Force. Everything gels in this movie. It makes a good point many years ahead of its time. Under the same circumstances who knows how he'd survive being a POW? And ultimately we all can fail and redeem ourselves. I agree, they need to put this one out on DVD or VHS, so we can see it more than just on an occasional late night TV movie.
Excellent Period Piece
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.
Somebody needs to release this movie to video or DVD!!!
As a life-long military aviation buff,this is one of my favorite movies. Other reviewers here have mentioned that it contains a few technical inaccuracies and some formulaic characters and plot devices.This is true, but it is a piece of '50s film-making and some of that is to be expected.It has also been mentioned as a great companion piece to "The Right Stuff", with which I wholly agree. In 1984, when seeing TRS for the first time, I thought "The folks who made this obviously saw "Toward the Unknown" and copied some of its style", especially in the scenes where aircraft are shown from above climbing towards the camera with the desert in the background. One reviewer refers to the "fictitious bomber" in the movie. The bomber was quite real, being the XB-51, which was tested but never adopted for service. I've always been a fan of the "X" series of rocket planes and the pilots who flew them, and the inclusion of the beautiful, dart-like Bell X-2 in this film is one of its highlights for me. About fifteen years ago I had a taped from TV copy of this movie that I got off of TBS or TNT, but it is long since bit the dust. I'd dearly love to have it on DVD.
This film inspired me to join the USAF and become a jet pilot.
Why "Toward The Unknown" is not on VHS or DVD astounds me! The cast is top notch, the filming on Edwards AFB has great historical significance, the director was no other than Mervyn LeRoy, and William Holden was at the peak of his career. The faddish and superficial "Top Gun" pales in comparison to the factual importance of this landmark work. As a flight instructor, I routinely show this film during breaks in my flying academic classes. It is always met with genuine enthusiasm and great curiosity from the young military pilots. The popularity of this film has inspired several websites devoted to it. "Toward The Unknown" is a must for DVD. Why hasn't some company done it?
It's mainly Great, a hash of both good and bad...
I think this is one of the best films on the gritty business of flight testing--back in the days before a bad airplane could be tested inside a computer program. In several respects, it is a film of its time, with a young L.Q. Jones as a bumbling staff officer, a "love interest" and a sub-plot showing the protagonist, played by Bill Holden, as an agonized alumni of a Korean POW camp. In one of several galling items, he has made an attempt on his own life before the action began, but he is accepted as a test pilot anyway--which is absolutely bogus. Aircraft manufacturers are portrayed badly--which, in the main, the relevant history doesn't support. Disregard of orders is treated with unrealistic indulgence by a commander. Read Scott Crossfield's autobiography for some corrects on this. On the other hand, some of the action is simply great. A mythical bomber develops a metal fatigue problem in the air, which another pilot cannot duplicate. Several weeks later, the plane's wing once again fails and this time it costs a third pilot his life. (My personal take on this--there's a big difference between "fixing" the blame and fixing the problem.) At this point and at several others, the film is a worthy complement to the Edwards AFB scenes of "The Right Stuff". The photography is simply stunning.