Fighter Attack (1953)

What makes it different from others?

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The opening credits were a bit of a shock, the captions being a vivid scarlet that almost hurt the eyes. This was in contrast to the rest of the film, which, as another reviewer has noted,was in a washed-out colour - I wonder if this was deliberate so that it matched the real-life action footage?Hayden himself had served behind enemy lines during the actual war and filled the lead role in a stolid sort of way. The Italian partisans looked realistic, and Joy Page didn't jar too much as the girl member, though the trousers made her appear very dumpy and I'm never keen on instant romances as depicted in this film. The method used to detect the suspect traitor was a bit curious, as there seemed no evidence that he had actually betrayed his comrades.

Little seen or remembered, Fighter attack is a very ordinary World War II film that can only be recommended to the staunchest of Sterling Hayden fans. Set in Nazi occupied Italy, story finds Hayden's fighter pilot forced to ditch behind enemy lines when his mission goes awry. Finding help from Italian partisans, and having his head turned by a shapely Joy Page, film builds to the inevitable conclusion where the mission will finally be accomplished and the hero gets the girl.There really isn't much more to it than that, it's a standard time filler that plods along ponderously until the action picks up for the finale, all five minutes of it! The print I witnessed was washed out in colour, so that didn't help matters, but really this is a picture of very little redeeming qualities outside of Hayden's butch machismo and J.Carrol Naish's fun performance as Italian resistance leader Bruno. 5/10

Uninspired formula piece in which a US fighter pilot proves what he's made of after being shot down behind enemy lines. If you suspend judgment, all the ingredients are there for a good 90 minutes of escapism – danger, romance, adventure, fighter planes, guns and incompetent enemy soldiers. And there's some aerial filming of actual fighter planes of the period in action. But you'll have to ignore the low budget production, wooden acting and unconvincing plot developments. This movie also contains the most unflattering romantic compliment I've ever heard addressed to a woman on screen: `You look older than your age'!