The Sound Barrier (1952) on Netflix
Approved19521h 57mAdventureDramaRomance
Sir John Ridgefield's company builds jet aircraft. He hires Tony Garthwaite, a wartime fighter pilot married to his daughter Susan, to fly jets meant to reach the speed of sound.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.7/102,703 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Plot summary
Sir John Ridgefield owns an aircraft company that did ground-breaking work on jet engines during the Second World War. He brings in Tony Garthwaite, a wartime fighter pilot, to fly the company's new jets; Garthwaite is married to Ridgefield's daughter Susan. The dangers of test flying sharpen the tension between father and daughter. Ridgefield has staked the company on Prometheus, a jet fighter meant to fly faster than sound, a speed his aircraft have not yet reached. Susan flies with her husband on a ferrying assignment to Cairo and comes home the same day as a passenger on a jet airliner. Philip Peel, a test pilot for the company, and his wife Jess are friends of the family.
Cast
- Vincent Holmanas Factor
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sound Barrier (1952)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The screenplay is loosely based on the story of aircraft designer Geoffrey de Havilland and the loss of his son, the de Havilland company test pilot killed on 27 September 1946 attempting to fly faster than the speed of sound in the DH 108.
- Kenneth More tested for the role of Tony Garthwaite, but the part was offered to David Niven, who turned it down, and it went to Nigel Patrick, who was already more strongly established than More.
- Because the 1947 Bell X-1 flight had not been widely publicised, many who saw The Sound Barrier thought it was a true story and that the first supersonic flight had been made by a British pilot.
- David Lean interviewed British aeronautic designers and even flew with test pilots while researching the film, producing a 300-page notebook that he handed over to dramatist Terence Rattigan.
- The film's fictional experimental jet fighter, Prometheus, was played by a Supermarine 535 prototype for the later Swift (VV119), an aircraft that itself suffered particularly difficult teething problems during development.
