Jet Attack (1958)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

JET ATTACK is a wartime drama from AIP, the studio best known for their mildly entertaining monster and horror movies of the era. This one's talky and dull, lacking the kind of money necessary to shoot decent action scenes and thus going for hackneyed plotting overall. Three American pilots find themselves behind enemy lines in North Korea and must rely on a Russian nurse for aid. John Agar stars, but there's no suspense or tension of any kind, and the copious use of stock footage of planes and aerial combat doesn't really help any.

This film has a bad rep, mostly because it was included in a well-known book documenting the supposed '50 Worst Films Ever'. But this movie ain't half bad.John Agar still cannot act, Greg Walcott always could, and Audrey Totter.... well, chicks can do no wrong, so her presence is fine. There is an actually intriguing plot concerning espionage. Agar certainly doesn't help to bring any credibility to the story, but Audrey does, and if you go into this with an open mind, the results will entertain you.Recommended for two reasons: to see what all the critical hub-bub is about, and to see a tame, but solid war film.

Jet Attack (1958) ** (out of 4) Ultra-cheap and ultra-stupid but mildly entertaining action pic from AIP has John Agar playing a hot shot pilot who crosses enemy lines to try and determine if an important scientist was killed a week earlier when his plane was shot down. Along with the help of two of his men, Korean rebels and a Russian spy (Audrey Totter) he must try and locate the scientist without getting caught. The Medved brothers included this film in their "Fifty Worst Films of All Time) book but of course we know that they hadn't seen everything they put in the book. This film is no where near the worst ever made but it might be among the dumbest out there. There isn't a single scene in this film that contains a bit of logic as one dumb thing after another happens. We're on this important mission yet Agar and Totter have time to build their relationship up. We're on this important mission yet the enemy never seems to realize that Totter is gone. One silly sequence after another happens but this badness makes the film rather lovable if you don't mind bad "B" movies. Director Cahn is best known for films like THE GIANT CLAW but this one here doesn't reach that level of entertainment. What this one does offer is a decent "B" cast doing silly things that will make you smile. Thankfully this just runs 69-minutes so there's no too much plot or dialogue that gets in the way of it being over. Agar gives the type of performance we'd expect from him and Totter is pretty bland of the love interest. George Walcott of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE fame plays one of the soldiers here. Again, there are countless war/action pictures out there that are great and obviously this isn't one of them. Those wanting greatness should certainly look else where but those just wanting some cheap entertainment will get a few kicks out of this thing.

Real life war hero John Agar stars in this ridiculous D picture from American-International about a rescue mission during the Korean War. For reasons I cannot fathom after watching this film, radioman Joseph Hamilton who is captured in North Korea is one very valuable asset. In fact the USA and the ROK forces lead an all out effort to rescue him, topped off with a Jet Attack.John Agar leads the rescue team that is composed of Americans and Koreans both ROK regular forces and guerrillas. Helping out is a Russian double agent played by Audrey Totter. Both Agar and Totter and the whole cast in fact have that look of anxiety throughout like their paychecks for this double gobbler might not clear.Rescuing this radioman in Jet Attack turns out to be very costly. And in the end you won't really care why it was so important.