mc-36074 Having grown up near the Wind Tunnel Test Facilities mentioned in the film, I thought I'd purchase the DVD for archival purposes. It had some notable actors and I was surprised that Frank Sinatra had anything to do with it. Jimmy Stewart even did the narration.The 1960's based film could have been a lot better, but it does show what it was like in the early part of the space race. The most disappointing aspect was the terrible screen format used by MGM. The 16:9 aspect ratio was too small on my 16:9 TV screen. I finally managed to compensate somewhat. MGM...what were you thinking? Couldn't you at least release a better print?It would be nice to see a refresh of this movie with an improved script, better stock footage, new actors, and a more interesting story line. However, I don't discourage anyone from watching the film for it's historical coverage.

oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1961, The courageous Air Force pilots of the secret rocket plane, X-15 program are determined to take the rocket plane 100 miles above the Earth into the edge of Space. The same craft's engines will be pushed to reach the new speed of four times the speed of sound, a never before feat. They wish to prove American air supremacy in the Cold War space-race and prove that space travel can be next to accomplish. These pilots have a lot at stake and their terrified wives they've left behind.*Special Stars- David Mclean, Charles Bronson, James Gregory, Mary Tyler Moore.*Theme- Yankee courage and ingenuity gets any job done.*Trivia/location/goofs- See Mary Tyler Moore in a non-starring minor supporting role. Many continuity film goofs due to archive research film being cut into the shooting scenes of this film. Air Force vet, TV host and Orange County Congressman, Robert Dornan has an unaccredited Air Force blockhouse technician part.*Emotion- A sadly hopelessly forgettable film of these dramatic historic flight victories in the early days of sound barrier flight leading to the moon shots. If you're a fan of such flight history, watch another film and not this one. This one is terribly boring and predicable. The real story drama could have been done better. This is almost a training film for how not to make an interesting film on a great script topic.

Paul Raveling Substantial good footage of actual X-15 flights, better than in some of the documentaries I've seen. The strongest points of this film are the flight footage and its technical accuracy.This film was produced with meticulous script review of technical details by NASA Dryden and by the Air Force. Even in shots showing actors faking flight actions in the cockpit what they show is accurate in the sense that it's the truth even if it's not the whole truth. The best way to appreciate much of this is to first study the X-15 flight manual. In any case the attention to technical accuracy is remarkable by the standards of sci fi & aviation/space movies made around 1961. It appeared that nearly the entire film was shot on location at NASA Dryden and Edwards AFB. All flight footage is real except for a couple short hokey segments showing a model for flight outside the atmosphere and during reentry.The rest (script, production, directing, & such) is fairly lame and underwhelming. If only Tom Hanks had an urge to redo this film the result probably would be a great one, but it wasn't Tom Hanks who did this edition.Bottom line: X-plane enthusiasts will love the real & authentic action, but most others will conclude that it's appropriate for this flick to only show up infrequently on obscure cable & satellite channels.

TC-4 Just about 40 years ago I saw this movie in an Air Force theater where I was stationed. It was the very first movie that I saw after basic training. I thought the movie was terriffic then when I first saw it in wide-screen. I just saw it on a premium channel without commercials but it was not in wide-screen so a lot of it was missing. The flying scenes were very good as they were probably mostly shot by the Air Force but the family life scenes off-duty were very boring and predictable and mostly used a filler. What makes me smile is that the characters were just like those in a soap opera, in other words all the wives are gorgeous and the pilots were all perfect male specimens. Since I first saw this movie 40 years ago I have seen many documentarys on tv about the X-15 which were far more interesting and real than this hokey movie. I might be wrong but I thought that in the theater 40 years ago the movie started with Jimmy Stewart at his desk in his Air Force uniform but this was not in this version but I am not sure.