''The Flying Missile'' is a 1950 black-and-white

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

era

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

film starring

Glenn Ford Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-American actor who often portrayed ordinary men in unusual circumstances. Ford was most prominent during Classical Hollywood cinema, Hollywood's Golden Age as ...

and

Viveca Lindfors Elsa Viveca Torstensdotter Lindfors (December 29, 1920 – October 25, 1995) was a Swedish stage, film, and television actress. She won an Emmy Award and a Silver Bear for Best Actress. Biography Lindfors was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the da ...

. Made with the cooperation of the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

,Ford 2011, p. 111. it tells a fictionalized story of the then recently revealed story of the US Navy's first mounting and firing

submarine-launched cruise missile A submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) is a cruise missile that is launched from a submarine (especially a SSG or SSGN). Current versions are typically standoff weapons known as land-attack cruise missiles (LACMs), which are used to attack p ...

s such as the

Republic-Ford JB-2 Loon The Republic-Ford JB-2, also known as the Thunderbug, KGW and LTV-N-2 Loon, was a United States copy of the German V-1 flying bomb. Developed in 1944, and planned to be used in the United States invasion of Japan ( Operation Downfall), ...

off the deck of submarines.

Plot

Decorated US Navy submarine commander

Commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

William Talbot's (Glenn Ford) boat USS ''Bluefin'' (actually ) is on manoeuvres with the goal of simulating sinking the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

. ''Midway'' is carrying a US Senator to view the test firing of a

V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...

from its

flight deck The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters ...

. Sighting the carrier, ''Bluefin'' attempts a simulated torpedo attack but is detected and "sunk" by a simulated depth charge attack from a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

. After viewing the successful launching of the V-2 from the surface, Talbot attempts to convince his commanding officer that if his submarine had a guided missile his attack on the carrier would have been successful. His commander relays the information that the US Navy has been thinking of the same idea and sends the ''Bluefin'' and its crew to the

Pacific Missile Test Center Pacific Missile Test Center (PMTC) is the former name of the current Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division. The name of the center was the Naval Air Missile Test Center prior to PMTC. It is located at Naval Base Ventura County/Naval Air Stat ...

Naval Air Station Point Mugu Naval Air Station Point Mugu was a United States naval air station near Oxnard, California, which operated as an independent base from 1941 to 2000, when it merged with nearby Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme to form Naval Base V ...

for a short period of training and familiarization. On the way to the base, ''Bluefin'' ruins a fishing net of Lars Hansen's (

John Qualen John Qualen (born Johan Mandt Kvalen, December 8, 1899 – September 12, 1987) was an American character actor of Norwegian heritage who specialized in Scandinavian roles. Early years Qualen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son ...

) fleet, which fishes in the area when the US Navy is not testing their missiles. The crew of ''Bluefin'' are impatient with the training course they must take and attempt to speed things up and gather their own equipment through "midnight supply" (theft), but run afoul of the tight security on the base. Talbot meets and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce the base commander's secretary Karin Hansen, a Danish emigre who is the niece of the still furious Captain Lars. Talbot does obtain from Karin the location of needed missile parts at an army base and obtains them for his trial launch. The unorthodox procedures used so well in wartime cause tragedy to the couple; Karin loses her job for revealing information and Talbot's haste in launching a missile from his boat's deck results in his serious injury and the death of his friend

Quartermaster Quartermaster is a military term, the meaning of which depends on the country and service. In land armies, a quartermaster is generally a relatively senior soldier who supervises stores or barracks and distributes supplies and provisions. In m ...

"Fuss" Payne (

Joe Sawyer Joe Sawyer (born Joseph Sauers, August 29, 1906 – April 21, 1982) was a Canadian film actor. He appeared in more than 200 films between 1927 and 1962, and was sometimes billed under his birth name. Early life Sawyer was born August 29, 1 ...

). Talbot's depression leaves him not desiring to walk without braces and in danger of being medically discharged from the US Navy. Karin snaps Talbot out of his whining self-pity to take command of ''Bluefin'' during a

military exercise A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the com ...

deploying a submarine

flotilla A flotilla (from Spanish, meaning a small ''flota'' (fleet) of ships), or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. Composition A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class ...

to attack a surface fleet. Talbot conceives the idea for the missile-carrying submarines to launch their missiles, but then have them successfully guided to the surface fleet by the nearer submarines originally earmarked for a torpedo attack.

Cast

as Cmdr. William A. Talbot *

as Karin Hansen *

Henry O'Neill Henry O'Neill (August 10, 1891 – May 18, 1961) was an American film actor known for playing gray-haired fathers, lawyers, and similarly dignified roles during the 1930s and 1940s. Early years He was born in Orange, New Jersey. Career ...

as RAdm. Thomas A. Scott *

Carl Benton Reid Carl Benton Reid (August 14, 1893 – March 16, 1973) was an American actor. Early years Reid was born in Lansing, Michigan. He used his full name professionally because when he worked in radio, four other people in the business were named Ca ...

as Dr. Gates, USN *

as Quartermaster 'Fuss' Payne *

as Lars Hansen *

Anthony Ross Anthony Ross (born Rosenthal, February 23, 1909 – October 26, 1955) was an American character actor whose career extended to Broadway stage, television and film. Born in New York City, Ross was the son of Charles M. Rosenthal and Cora S. Rose ...

as Adm. Bradley * Harry Shannon as Vice-Adm. Williams *

Ross Ford Ross William Ford (born 23 April 1984) is a Strength and Conditioning coach for the Scottish Rugby Academy. He was previously a Scotland international rugby union player who played as a hooker. He made 110 test appearances for Scotland, maki ...

as Crewman Chuck Davis * Zachary Charles as Crewman Mack *

Jerry Paris William Gerald Paris (July 25, 1925 – March 31, 1986) was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next-door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'', and for directing the majo ...

as Crewman Andy Mason *

Kenneth Tobey Kenneth Jesse Tobey (March 23, 1917 – December 22, 2002) was an extremely prolific American actor who performed in hundreds of productions during a career that spanned more than half a century, including his role as the star of the 1957-1 ...

as Crewman Pete McElvoy *

Paul Harvey Paul Harvey Aurandt (September 4, 1918 – February 28, 2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. He broadcast ''News and Comment'' on mornings and mid-days on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays and also his famous ''The Rest o ...

as Gen. Benton *

Richard Quine Richard Quine (November 12, 1920June 10, 1989) was an American director, actor, and singer. He began acting as a child in radio, vaudeville, and stage productions before being signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in his early twenties. When his acting ...

as Airman Hank Weber *

John Dehner John Dehner (DAY-ner) (born John Dehner Forkum, also credited Dehner Forkum; November 23, 1915February 4, 1992) was an American stage, radio, film, and television actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performan ...

as Lieutenant Commander

Production

The subject matter in ''The Flying Missile'' was considered restricted and no other contemporary film describing US Navy cruise missile development in the immediate postwar era had been produced. As indicated in the film's opening credits, on location photography on US naval bases, aircraft carriers, surface fleet ships and submarines took place with the "full cooperation" of the US Armed Forces. Both US Naval and US Army installations were made available.

Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...

Thomas M. Dykers was the technical director on ''The Flying Missile''. After a long and distinguished career in the US Navy as a submarine commander, Rear Admiral Dykers retired from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations and moved to California in 1949. He worked as a technical advisor for the film industry, on films such as ''The Flying Missile'' (1950), ''

Submarine Command ''Submarine Command'' is a 1951 American war film directed by John Farrow and starring William Holden, Don Taylor, Nancy Olson, William Bendix, and Darryl Hickman. It is notable for being one of the first films to touch on post traumatic stres ...

'' (1951), and ''Torpedo Alley'' (1952). He later produced and narrated the 1957–58 TV series ''The Silent Service''.

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Ford, Peter. ''Glenn Ford: A Life'' (Wisconsin Film Studies). Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. .

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flying Missile 1950 films American black-and-white films Submarine films Columbia Pictures films Films scored by George Duning Films directed by Henry Levin Seafaring films American war drama films 1950s war drama films 1950s English-language films Works about V-weapons 1950s American films