The Sound Barrier is a 1952 British aviation drama film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. It was David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd, but it was his first for Alexander Korda's London Films, following the break-up of Cineguild. The Sound Barrier stars Ralph Richardson, Ann Todd, John Justin and Nigel Patrick. It was known in the United States as Breaking Through the Sound Barrier and Breaking the Sound Barrier.
The Sound Barrier was a box-office success on first release, but it has become one of the least-known of Lean's films. Following on In Which We Serve (1942), the film is another of Lean's ventures into a genre of filmmaking where impressions of documentary film are created.
Plot
After his aircraft company's groundbreaking work on jet engine technology in the Second World War, John Ridgefield, its wealthy owner, employs test pilot Tony Garthwaite, a successful wartime fighter pilot, to fly new jet-powered aircraft. Garthwaite is hired by Ridgefield after marrying Ridgefield's daughter, Susan. Tensions between father and daughter are accentuated by Garthwaite's dangerous job of test flying. In a noteworthy illustration of the new technology, Susan accompanies Garthwaite on a ferrying assignment of a two-seater de Havilland Vampire to Cairo, Egypt, returning later the same day as passengers on a de Havilland Comet.
Ridgefield's plan for his new jet fighter, "Prometheus", has placed the company in jeopardy. The problems faced by the new jet aircraft in exceeding the speed of sound, the so-called "sound barrier", are ever present. In an attempt to break the sound barrier, Garthwaite crashes and is killed.
Shocked at both the death of her husband and at her father's apparently single-minded and heartless approach to the dangers his test pilots face, Susan walks out on her father and goes to live with friends Jess and Philip Peel, another company test pilot. Ridgefield later engages Peel to take on the challenge of piloting "Prometheus" at speeds approaching the speed of sound. In a crucial flight and at the critical moment, Peel performs a counterintuitive action (foreshadowed in the opening scene of the film) which enables him to maintain control of the aircraft and to break the sound barrier. Eventually accepting that her father did care about those who died in tests, Susan changes her plan of moving to London and takes her young son with her back to live with Sir John.
Cast
Ralph Richardson as John Ridgefield
Ann Todd as Susan Garthwaite
Nigel Patrick as Tony Garthwaite
John Justin as Philip Peel
Dinah Sheridan as Jess Peel
Joseph Tomelty as Will Sparks
Denholm Elliott as Christopher Ridgefield
Jack Allen as 'Windy' Williams
Ralph Michael as Fletcher
Rodney Goodall as Little Boy (uncredited) Donald Harron as ATA officer (uncredited) Vincent Holman as Factor (uncredited) Jolyon Jackley as Baby (uncredited) Douglas Muir as Controller (uncredited) Leslie Phillips as Controller (uncredited) Anthony Snell as Peter Makepeace (uncredited) Robert Brooks Turner as Test Bed Operator (uncredited)
Production
The strong relationship to aviation history in The Sound Barrier has led to its being characterised as a "semi-documentary". The film pays tribute to the British effort in the historic advance in aviation of the development and final perfecting of the jet engine by Frank Whittle and Power Jets Ltd and others following.
David Lean had begun to gather research based on media reports of jet aircraft approaching supersonic speeds, interviewing British aeronautic designers. He even managed to fly with test pilots as he produced a 300-page notebook that he turned over to dramatist Terence Rattigan. The subsequent screenplay concentrated on the newly discovered problems of flying at supersonic speeds and is also loosely based on the real-life story of aircraft designer Geoffrey de Havilland and the loss of his son. Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr. was the de Havilland company test pilot who died on 27 September 1946 attempting to fly faster than the speed of sound in the DH 108.
John Derry, another de Havilland test pilot, has been called "Britain's first supersonic pilot," because of a dive he made on 6 September 1948 in a DH 108.