The Sound Barrier

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.