THE HUNTERS Movie Review
1958 Dick Powell
The F-86 Saberjet is a very cool airplane, beautifully designed with sleek lines that somehow recall the great World War II fighters. Hollywood didn't make nearly enough movies about it. In fact, this lumbering soap opera is probably the F-86's finest hour. Aerial photographer Tom Tutwiler makes it look as quick, graceful, and agile as any plane that ever graced the screen. His work is by far the best part of an otherwise routine formula '50s picture.
Robert Mitchum is Maj. Cleve Saville, a World War II ace who still refuses to fly a desk, despite his seniority. In Japan, on his way to his first posting in Korea, he meets Lt. Carl Abbott (Lee Philips), a young pilot who fears that he doesn't have the right stuff. With 30 missions and no kills, he tries to hide his fears in bourbon. His wife Kris (May Britt) doesn't know what to do with him. Maj. Saville sympathizes with her, perhaps more than he should. Filling out the roster when they finally arrive in Korea are the Fighter Group's boss, Col. Dutch Emil (Richard Egan) and Lt. Ed Pell (Robert Wagner), a jive fighter jock who spouts ersatz hipster lingo, as embarrassing now as the day it was written. Their nemesis is the dreaded North Korean ace Casey Jones (Leon Lontoc).
Overall, the film shares the flaws of the big-budget pictures of its era: slow pace, sugary romance, a penchant for postcard scenery, ponderous script, and a coy, uncomfortable attitude toward adultery, though it's an important subplot. Along with those, one crash scene attempts—unsuccessfully—to incorporate archival footage of a similar but obviously different fighter. Then there is the plot. Wendell Mayes's screenplay, based on James Salter's novel, proceeds along fairly realistic lines until it reaches the third act. Then it inexplicably loses control. Really, if the Loch Ness Monster and Liberace were to make a late entrance, it would be no more unrealistic than what actually happens. Actor turned producer-director Dick Powell boldly glides right over that bit of fantasy, and the film pushes on to a conventional conclusion, but whatever illusions he had created are lost.
The flying scenes are enough to recommend the film to aviation fans. All others are on their own.
Cast: Robert Mitchum (Maj. Cleve Saville), Robert Wagner (Lt. Ed Pell), Richard Egan (Col. Dutch Imil), May Britt (Kristina Abbott), Lee Philips (Lt. Carl Abbott), John Gabriel (Lt. Corona), Stacy Harris (Col. Monk Moncavage), John Doucette (The Sergeant), Jay Jostyn (Maj. Dark), Leon Lontoc (Casey Jones), Ralph Manza (Gifford), Alena Murray (Mrs. Mason), Robert Reed (Jackson), Victor Sen Yung (Korean man), Can-dace Lee (Korean child); Written by: Wendell Mayes; Cinematography by: Charles Clarke; Music by: Paul Sawtell. Producer: Dick Powell, 20th Century-Fox. Running Time: 108 minutes. Format: VHS.