Someday a book must be written to explain the failures of great directors. This film is directed by the great Joseph Von Sternberg but not a touch of his greatness shows up on the screen. It is an unintentionally hilarious piece of overstated Cold War Propaganda relieved only by the leering glances of John Wayne at 23 yr. old Janet Leigh. There is nothing here to suggest it was directed by anything other than a studio hack. There must be a story in the fact that this film though completed in 1950 was not released until 1957. I saw this as a child and was, of course, transfixed by the flying scenes. It was not until a few years ago while reading Chuck Yeager's autobiography that I learned he did some of the flying at the behest of the Air Force. There are also scenes of what looks like the Bell X-1 (the rocket plane in which he broke the sound barrier). This film shows up on AMC quite often and, heaven help me, I sometimes can't turn it off as I wonder at the awfulness of it!