I chose to watch this film precisely because it was featured in the book "The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time". Call me a weirdo, but I have taken great pains to try to see all 50 and this film marks about the 40th film I have seen from the book.
By the way, this movie could easily be confused with John Wayne's JET PILOT--the second worst film Wayne ever made (after THE CONQUEROR) and a great film to watch for laughs. The titles and plots are similar but JET ATTACK stars John Agar--an almost guarantee that this will be a bad film, as he had a very long string of stinkers to his credits following an initially promising career.
A top scientist is testing out a machine that supposedly will be able to tap into the enemy's broadcasts--making it easy to know when the Reds are planning something. However, the pilot of this A-26 airplane is apparently an idiot and they wander too far over enemy territory and are shot down--which is odd, as the machine was designed to intercept enemy broadcasts--including orders given to their pilots! For some odd reason, a group of completely untrained soldiers are sent in to rescue the scientist (since he apparently did NOT write down any of his work--now THAT made sense!). You'd think they'd send in commandos or the Rangers or Rambo but instead they take well-trained fighter pilots and parachute them into enemy territory to do reconnaissance. In addition to the pilots, they send a few others who seem like morons, such as a guy who must be the brother of Maynard G. Krebs from "Dobie Gillis". These are just the sort I'd send on an ultra-important top secret mission!
Once behind enemy lines, they meet up with sexy Audrey Totter who is supposed to be a White Russian who leads a resistance group. Totter's accent and look is about as convincing as a Russian as if they'd cast Janet Leigh in such a role. Oh, wait...Ms. Leigh she played a Russian who defected in JET PILOT!! So what do Totter and her comrades do when they meet the Americans? Yep, they have a party--complete with belly dancing! If any of this makes sense to you, then I suggest that you should visit your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist.
Totter apparently works for the Russian military and she is able to infiltrate the hospital in which the scientist is being held. Her plan is to fake the scientist's death and use the Americans (dresses like orderlies) to take the egghead with them. And, thanks to help from South Korean sympathizers, this all takes place with relative ease. After all, it's only a military hospital filled with soldiers.
The rest of the film is a mad dash towards freedom. Fortunately, the Krebs-like character is left behind and this means a slow and painful death at the hands of his captors. All in all, this is my favorite part of the film but I wished they'd shown him being tortured a bit more--he WAS a really, really annoying character (sort of like a 50s version of Jar-Jar). Unfortunately, the rest of them manage to make it back--as I was rooting for the Commies! It takes some really annoying characters to get me to root for them Commies!!
So is this film bad enough to have made the inglorious list of the 50 worst? I still think that John Wayne's 2950s F-86 fighter film, JET PILOT, was worse--mostly because it starred actors that should have known better and had a much larger budget (having been made for RKO instead of American-International, like JET ATTACK). Plus the dialog and script was actually worse in JET PILOT. I really think that it didn't get included in the book for two reasons. First, THE CONQUEROR was actually worse and I assume Harry Medved didn't want to include two John Wayne flicks in his wonderful book. Second, for decades crazy ol' Howard Hughes would not allow JET PILOT to be shown after its initial release (the same for THE CONQUEROR--but Medved somehow got to see it), so he may not have even had a chance to see the film. Both airplane films, however, are brainless and seem to have been written by 6 year-olds. My final verdict--probably not quite bad enough to make the list but certainly a very bad film. Laughably bad.
By the way, the average viewer could care less about this, but all the 'Russian' airplanes in this movie and JET PILOT are American fighter planes. The F-86 looked a bit like the Russian MiG-15, so it's at least closer than the Lockheed Shooting Star that stood in for a Russian Fighter plane in JET PILOT.
By the way, this movie could easily be confused with John Wayne's JET PILOT--the second worst film Wayne ever made (after THE CONQUEROR) and a great film to watch for laughs. The titles and plots are similar but JET ATTACK stars John Agar--an almost guarantee that this will be a bad film, as he had a very long string of stinkers to his credits following an initially promising career.
A top scientist is testing out a machine that supposedly will be able to tap into the enemy's broadcasts--making it easy to know when the Reds are planning something. However, the pilot of this A-26 airplane is apparently an idiot and they wander too far over enemy territory and are shot down--which is odd, as the machine was designed to intercept enemy broadcasts--including orders given to their pilots! For some odd reason, a group of completely untrained soldiers are sent in to rescue the scientist (since he apparently did NOT write down any of his work--now THAT made sense!). You'd think they'd send in commandos or the Rangers or Rambo but instead they take well-trained fighter pilots and parachute them into enemy territory to do reconnaissance. In addition to the pilots, they send a few others who seem like morons, such as a guy who must be the brother of Maynard G. Krebs from "Dobie Gillis". These are just the sort I'd send on an ultra-important top secret mission!
Once behind enemy lines, they meet up with sexy Audrey Totter who is supposed to be a White Russian who leads a resistance group. Totter's accent and look is about as convincing as a Russian as if they'd cast Janet Leigh in such a role. Oh, wait...Ms. Leigh she played a Russian who defected in JET PILOT!! So what do Totter and her comrades do when they meet the Americans? Yep, they have a party--complete with belly dancing! If any of this makes sense to you, then I suggest that you should visit your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist.
Totter apparently works for the Russian military and she is able to infiltrate the hospital in which the scientist is being held. Her plan is to fake the scientist's death and use the Americans (dresses like orderlies) to take the egghead with them. And, thanks to help from South Korean sympathizers, this all takes place with relative ease. After all, it's only a military hospital filled with soldiers.
The rest of the film is a mad dash towards freedom. Fortunately, the Krebs-like character is left behind and this means a slow and painful death at the hands of his captors. All in all, this is my favorite part of the film but I wished they'd shown him being tortured a bit more--he WAS a really, really annoying character (sort of like a 50s version of Jar-Jar). Unfortunately, the rest of them manage to make it back--as I was rooting for the Commies! It takes some really annoying characters to get me to root for them Commies!!
So is this film bad enough to have made the inglorious list of the 50 worst? I still think that John Wayne's 2950s F-86 fighter film, JET PILOT, was worse--mostly because it starred actors that should have known better and had a much larger budget (having been made for RKO instead of American-International, like JET ATTACK). Plus the dialog and script was actually worse in JET PILOT. I really think that it didn't get included in the book for two reasons. First, THE CONQUEROR was actually worse and I assume Harry Medved didn't want to include two John Wayne flicks in his wonderful book. Second, for decades crazy ol' Howard Hughes would not allow JET PILOT to be shown after its initial release (the same for THE CONQUEROR--but Medved somehow got to see it), so he may not have even had a chance to see the film. Both airplane films, however, are brainless and seem to have been written by 6 year-olds. My final verdict--probably not quite bad enough to make the list but certainly a very bad film. Laughably bad.
By the way, the average viewer could care less about this, but all the 'Russian' airplanes in this movie and JET PILOT are American fighter planes. The F-86 looked a bit like the Russian MiG-15, so it's at least closer than the Lockheed Shooting Star that stood in for a Russian Fighter plane in JET PILOT.