Movie Review: Bailout at 43,000 (1957)
Synopsis: After a series of successful tests with dummies,
the Air Research and Development Command is ready to use human test subjects
for its new downward ejection seat, designed to allow bombardiers to escape from
high altitudes. Major Paul Peterson has been called back to active service and
is in line to test the ejection seat. However, when the first test results in
the volunteer suffering a broken neck, Paul, who has a wife and son, is
reluctant to go through with his duty.
Who’s in it? The movie stars John Payne, Karen Steele, Paul Kelly, Richard Eyer and Eddie Firestone.
Review: I’ve had Bailout at 43,000 in my library for a
few weeks but every time I was going to watch it, came across something else I
wanted to watch more. I finally got around to seeing the movie this morning and
while I started out having some doubts about it, it turned out to be a decent
choice.
This is a different type of war movie. There are no gun
battles and not a whole lot of action overall. However, it still winds up being
interesting and entertaining because it focuses on an aspect of the military
that is sometimes forgotten about - those who volunteer to test new technologies
while risking their lives in the process.
The movie does a great job building up the drama surrounding
Paul (Payne) and the dilemma he’s facing. The man who tested it before him
nearly died and ended up in the hospital and the scientist who designed the
ejection seat, Dr. Franz Gruener (Gregory Gaye) insists the failure was due to
human error and not a design flaw. When coupled with the fact that Paul is
married, a father and his wife (Steele) is opposed to the whole situation, it would
be hard to find fault with Paul if he refused to do it.
The end of the film is also surprisingly good, with quite a
bit of suspense built into the test of the seat. While I highly doubted the
movie would kill off the main character, it did keep me watching to find out
what would happen. At minimum, I can honestly say you wouldn’t catch me doing
what Paul did.
Final Opinion: It doesn’t have as much action as your normal
war/military film but there’s still quite a bit about this movie that makes it
fun to watch while also giving a bit of a history lesson about how some technologies
that are taken for granted today required men risking their lives to test.
My Grade: B
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Here are some reviews of other movies from 1957:
Movie Review: Pharaoh's Curse (1957)
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