“A British Right Stuff”

By Raymond Benson

There exists a period in the career of the great David Lean in which several of his pictures are today more or less forgotten, especially in the U.S. After the one-two double punch of Brief Encounter and Great Expectations in the mid-40s, Lean directed several pictures that were less than stellar in terms of popularity and critical acclaim (e.g., The Passionate Friends, Madeleine) before he hit a spectacular stride with Hobson’s Choice, Summertime, and The Bridge on the River Kwai in the mid-50s.

Nestled neatly in this middle period is The Sound Barrier (titled Breaking the Sound Barrier in the U.S.), released in 1952. Despite doing very decent box office on both sides of the Atlantic, the film isn’t one that comes to mind when considering Lean’s genius.

It's the story of how the sound barrier was broken in Britain post-World War II, loosely based on real events and personages. Ralph Richardson stars as John Ridgefield, an airplane manufacturer and pioneer in jet engine technology. His daughter, Susan (Ann Todd, who was married to director Lean at the time the film was made), marries a crack-shot pilot, Tony (Nigel Patrick), and Ridgefield promptly hires Tony to be a test pilot.

But after Susan’s brother Chris (a very young Denholm Elliott) is killed in a flight accident, the story turns more intense and becomes a thriller with a documentary feel. To reveal how the characters achieve their goals and how the sound barrier is actually broken would be major spoilers. Suffice it to say that The Sound Barrier is an engaging, exciting picture that is exquisitely filmed. It’s a sort of British version of The Right Stuff, made thirty years prior to that landmark title. The aviation sequences are very impressive, given the time the movie was made.

There is one problem with it, though. The picture leaves the impression that the sound barrier was first broken by a British pilot. After the film’s release, many British subjects believed this to be true. This notion is patently false—it was Chuck Yeager in the United States who initially achieved the feat!

Kino Lorber’s new high definition transfer looks good, although one wishes that Lean had waited another year or two to make the picture so that he could have utilized a widescreen aspect ratio. It comes with an audio commentary by film historian and critic Peter Tonguette, as well as a ten-minute vintage interview with Lean about the picture and theatrical trailers.

For aviation aficionados and fans of David Lean and British cinema, The Sound Barrier will take viewers on a soaring flight above the clouds.

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