Movie review - "High Flight" (1957) **1/2

Service drama from Warwick Films which is remarkable for it's similarities to the later Top Gun - like that it's set in a training school for pilots (only here they are British), and the lead character (Kenneth Haigh) is a devil-may-care type who won't be a team player and pulls stunts using planes, whose father died mysteriously on an operation with the instructor (Ray Milland) with whom our hero buts heads but also respects for his ability (and reminds him of when he was young). There's a comic fellow pilot (annoying Anthony Newley) and some comic escapades and japes at the school with a homoerotic aspect (here it's men in drag rather than volleyball), a training segment which almost goes wrong, a pilot who freaks out, a climax that involves a hostile engagement in peace time (in this case over East Germany), a crusty sergeant (Bernard Miles) and crusty superior (John Le Mesurier).

There's no real romantic subplot, which is bewildering. The comedy is idiotic and the plot surely felt cliched even back then but it's quite entertaining, with decent aerial footage and some of the air stuff feels realistic. The climax is good, with a solid crash - it just lacks an emotional punch.