It shows how good a director David Lean was that a film that should make me run a mile - ex-WWII RAF pilots attempt to break the sound barrier - is, in fact, an involving drama.
It's popularity here and in America was reflected at award time: Terence Rattigan was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay and it righly won for Best Sound with it's excellent use of silence, echoes and the sudden whoosh of jets. At the BAFTA Awards it won Best Film, Best British Film and Best British Actor for Ralph Richardson.
Richardson - I think playing a Yorkshire man but going a bit Gorbals at times - plays John Ridgefield, the owner of a jet building company who, while obsessively developing a jet to break the sound barrier, remains emotionally distant from his daughter and son.
Shelf or charity shop? THE SOUND BARRIER is part of a David Lean box-set but I am happy to keep it for Sir Ralph's Ibsen-like Ridgefield and the performances of Nigel Patrick as his son-in-law pilot Tony, Joseph Tomelty as his over-worked jet designer and I even like Ann Todd who, although glacial as ever, finally proves effective as Ridgefield's daughter Susan. A special mention too for Jack Hildyard's excellent cinematography; his striking visuals really lift the film out of the ordinary.
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