Though Men of the Flying Lady starts off slow it builds to a nail biting climax that will leave you on the edge of your comfortable sofa or Laz- E-Boy as the case may be.
The men talked about her are the pilots and crews of the fighter jets who flew from carriers during the Korean War. The Fighting Lady is the ship they operate from.
The source material for the plot was a couple of stories from the Saturday Evening Post about the war. The stories are not well integrated together, mainly because one is far stronger than the other.
The first story line is about Frank Lovejoy and his insistence on flying in low for accuracy in his bombing. The problem is that opens he and his group to risk. It's not exactly an original story, though Lovejoy does a fine job.
The second story is far better when Dewey Martin is wounded during a bombing run and is blinded. This one crackles with tension as his fellow pilot Van Johnson talks him down to if not a pretty landing on the carrier, one that leaves him breathing.
The story is told in a flashback by author James Michener who is played by Louis Calhern who had the stories related to him by Flight Surgeon Walter Pidgeon.
It can't be appreciated by today's audience the impact of having Michener be a character in the story. He was a hugely popular author back in the day and his Tales of the South Pacific was made into the classic musical South Pacific which was just ending it's mammoth first Broadway run right about the time Men of the Fighting Lady came out.
The cast does a fine job and if the stories are uneven, the film is still entertaining and informative if not quite up to the standards of The Bridges at Toko-Ri which dealt with the same area.
The men talked about her are the pilots and crews of the fighter jets who flew from carriers during the Korean War. The Fighting Lady is the ship they operate from.
The source material for the plot was a couple of stories from the Saturday Evening Post about the war. The stories are not well integrated together, mainly because one is far stronger than the other.
The first story line is about Frank Lovejoy and his insistence on flying in low for accuracy in his bombing. The problem is that opens he and his group to risk. It's not exactly an original story, though Lovejoy does a fine job.
The second story is far better when Dewey Martin is wounded during a bombing run and is blinded. This one crackles with tension as his fellow pilot Van Johnson talks him down to if not a pretty landing on the carrier, one that leaves him breathing.
The story is told in a flashback by author James Michener who is played by Louis Calhern who had the stories related to him by Flight Surgeon Walter Pidgeon.
It can't be appreciated by today's audience the impact of having Michener be a character in the story. He was a hugely popular author back in the day and his Tales of the South Pacific was made into the classic musical South Pacific which was just ending it's mammoth first Broadway run right about the time Men of the Fighting Lady came out.
The cast does a fine job and if the stories are uneven, the film is still entertaining and informative if not quite up to the standards of The Bridges at Toko-Ri which dealt with the same area.