High Flight film

[Chris Royle]

Does anyone remember a British film, probably mid 50's, entitled "High Flight"?
I remember seeing it as a boy, and vaguely remember Vampire trainers and Hunters featuring.
Probably an awful plot, but would love to see it again.
Anyone able to help? Is a video / DVD available?. Searches so far have drawn a blank.:ok:

[ormus55]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049313/

does this help you?

[Conan the Librarian]

I think it featured on the now, no doubt ever to be repeated "Archive night" on Discovery Wings. If you have access to Sky and can bear to watch the drivel that is often on there, it will come around again before you can blink. Or at least, it will feel that way.

It was a well put together fest of classic British aviation activity of the jet age and lasts about three hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it the first few times.

Conan

Ormus and I posted at the same time and if he is right, then I am 100% wrong. Apols if it misled you :-)

[MReyn24050]

Does anyone remember a British film, probably mid 50's, entitled "High Flight"?
I remember seeing it as a boy, and vaguely remember Vampire trainers and Hunters featuring.
Probably an awful plot, but would love to see it again.
Anyone able to help? Is a video / DVD available?. Searches so far have drawn a blank.:ok:
High Flight (1957) Directed by
John Gilling
Plot Outline: The Commanding Officer of an RAF Training School must deal with a difficult cadet, but the cadet reminds the C.O. of himself when young.
Ray Milland
Bernard Lee
Anthony Newley
The story is somewhat weak what with the stiff-upper-lip Wing Commander riding a new charge at his training wing (who just happens to the son of a squadron-mate from his old unit in the last war (WWII).
Now it's trial by a new fire as the "old man" feels he has to exercise restraint in reining in the young flyer's antics in order to assuage his conscience about an incident that led to the death of the kid's father.
Film has some wonderful air-to-air shots of Hunters, Vampires, Provosts and the like.
If you can ignore the "Cold War" overtones and some continuity errors (young pilot takes off in a DH-115; dashes about the sky in a DH-100 and lands back again in a DH-115) you may find this one at least a passing fancy.
Do a search on Google for more details.

[Chris Royle]

Thanks guys.
Conan. Ormus was correct. I did a bit of Dogpiling (meta search engine incorporating inter alia, Google) and see that an original poster for the film is available on eBay for $5.99, and that the music for the film was written by the great Eric Coates. AND, a link back to pPrune ca. 2003 where someone asks exactly the same question. But similar result to now I suspect. No DVD copies. Interestingly, released in colour in UK but black and white in the US.
Anyone out there got a copy?
Cheers,
Chris

[ormus55]

i remember the film vaguely. the flying bits were ok for us aviation freaks, but the acting and the plot were a bit dire. as per usual in these types of films.

remember the whirlybirds on the telly? c1958?
:eek:

[Chris Royle]

Yeah!
Chuck and PT and Bell 47!!
:D

[BEagle]

The Whirlybirds - Chuck Martin and PT Moore (in Bell 47 N975B), if I recall correctly.

I taped 'High Flight' off TV some years ago and now have it safely transferred to DVD. Some excellent flying scenes!

At one stage the errant cadet is being given a talking-to and the backdrop shows the RAFC course of the time. An unbelievable number of hours!

[Chris Royle]

Any chance of borrowing BEagle to copy (for personal use only.....)?
:hmm:

[Mark22]

One unresolved Spitfire mystery of the last 30 years is the identity of the 20 series Spitfire that was used in one of the scenes in the so called 'Cranwell Museum'.

No 20 Series Spitfires have been scrapped since the mid 1950's in the UK but despite intense research no surviving Spitfire matches the identity cues in these two official stills, 12" block tyre treads, exhausts, the logo, apparent original camouflage etc.

...unless you know different.

PeterA

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v634/Mark12/HighFlight-02-002.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v634/Mark12/HighFlight-01-002.jpg

[pulse1]

and the plot were a bit dire. as per usual in these types of films.


As far as I recall, the plot was almost identical to that of Top Gun without the sex - rebellious pilot with a problem over his father's death in the war and his boss, comes good in the end - yup, a bit dire!

[Gainesy]

Tyre tread spotting, now there's a niche.:)

[Mark22]

Tyre tread spotting, now there's a niche.:)

Well for a start does anybody have a recall on whether there actually was an 'in house' museum at Cranwell in the mid 1950's?

PeterA

[chiglet]

There was at Biggin [OSU] in the '60s
watp,iktch
p.s. if Beags can loan me a copy...pleeease

[Chris Royle]

Yes. A copy on loan for copying for private consumption would be great......:ok:

[Lou Scannon]

I remember taking the afternoon off from No2 FTS at Syerston with a car load of other APO's to see the film in Nottingham (and charging the group their share of the petrol!). It was John "legs" Foster who was the only one to clock the change of Vampires when the hero, Anthony Newly ignored the order to scrub, faked R/T trouble and still took off in his Vampire to fly through the crappy weather.

Strangely we didn't notice any poor acting but thought that the cadets seemed much like us.(even though they were supposed to be at Sleighford Tech)

Now for a couple of secrets that I learnt much later:

The Hunter crash utilised a real airframe that "wheeled up" when the film crew were actually on the base. The air to air shots were taken from a Hawker aircraft as the RAF wouldn't let the film company cut a hole for the camera lens in the front of one of theirs. The film people drew a screen on the front windscreen of the camera Hunter with a china-graph crayon and told the pilot to keep it full of aeroplanes with the button pressed.

..love to see it again with the same mates!:O

[chiglet]

Sorry, Lou it was the [anti] hero of the film [deceased war heros' son, pictured with Ray Milland above] and NOT Abthony Newly...had "Practice R/T failure....pedantic mode OFF :ok:
watp,iktch

[Lou Scannon]

Chiglet, you're right, as one of the 2FTS escapees has reminded me:

Jerry writes:

I actually have a DVD of High Flight! It is a very poor copy, and I got it from Canada, but it is just as we all remember it.

The errant Vampire pilot, who took of in a T11, flew through the clag in a Mark 5 and then landed in a T11 again (very clever that) was Cadet Winchester, played by Kenneth Haig.

The film is stuffed with the usual English actors, Ray Milland, Leslie Phillips and John Le Mesurier, but the continuity is pretty ropey, particularly the Hunter scenes, which are news reels of either treble one black arrows or ninety two blue diamonds, yet all the debriefs are back at Cranwell.

When Tony Newly turns up at the main gates to join up in his little MG car, the blue spruce trees either side of the main gate are quite small and have only just been planted, they are still there but are now socking great big trees.