Page 6 - Aerotech News and Review, April 20 2018
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High Desert Hangar Stories
Toward the Unknown: Edwards AFB meets Hollywood
bv Bob Alvis
special to Aerotech News
ent this time, as I allowed myself to be drawn into the mystery of William Holden’s character. Maj. Lincoln Bond.
er works, Strategic Air Command and Above and Beyond, were great works of cinematic art with great subject man- ner, focusing on serious issues facing the leadership of the military and the result- ing stress put on the rank and file.
A fun bit of trivia is that in pre-pro- duction, Toward the Unknown was go- ing to have Clark Gable as Banner and Gregory Peck as Bond.
Wrangling over the stars contracts got in the way, as so often happened back in the day. William Holden, who was try- ing his hand at producing with Toward the Unknown, ended up stepping in as leading man.
Lay, Holden and Lloyd Nolan all had a passion for sharing stories with avia- tion and wartime themes. In Toward the Unknown, they were attempting to ad- dress a real-life problem that returning soldiers and airmen were facing when coming home from combat duty. Wil- liam Holden’s character Linc Bond was based on two real-life pilots who, dur- ing the Korean War, were shot down, captured and brutally incarcerated and tortured by their captors. Linc’s character was based on the real-life experiences of Lt. Col. Frank “Pete” Everest and Col. Walker “Bud” Mahurin. Add in the fact that the base commander was modeled after Gen. Albert Boyd, you then see the movie plot’s focus on the questions of
Up late the other night and looking at He seemed to be a pilot with “the right late night viewing options on the small stuff,” but reluctant base commander screen, I saw that the movie Toward the Brig. Gen. Bill Banner, played by Lloyd Unknown was on offer at midnight on Nolan, kept turning him down for flight TCM. assignments.
“What the heck,” I thought — sleep is overrated and I needed a fix of good old American aviation movie making! To- ward the Unknown is a favorite of mine. It was filmed at Edwards and it’s always a great chance to test my knowledge of the locations around the base that served as backdrops to the story.
My viewing experience was differ-
The writer who put together this sto- ry and screenplay was Beirne Lay, Jr., who was also responsible for one of the great aviation films of all time, Twelve O’Clock High. Lay always wrote in a fashion that addressed underlying per- sonality issues when it came to military themes and the problems faced by men and women in uniform. Two of his oth-
Courtesy photograph The Martin XB-51 as the Gilbert XF-120 fighter with an F-100 chase plane in
a scene from the movie Toward the Unknown.
movie Toward the Unknown.
how the military dealt with men who were broken down in prison, leaving them in a questionable mental state, and how can the military still find a home for them, using their years of aviation experience to further the mission.
It’s always entertaining to see that in a two hour-movie, Hollywood can ad- dress these issues and seal them up nice and neat — as illustrated in this movie, which features a fancy ending punctu- ated with the Air Force Thunderbirds at
an Edwards AFB open house. But the reality of what the production team was trying to address was not just about the unknown areas of flight research, but also the unknown workings of the hu- man mind. Here we are, more than 60 years after the film’s release, and I’m sure many are still wondering how to deal with such delicate subjects as these even today, as we work to integrate com-
See HOLLYWOOD, Page 7
Courtesy photograph The Bell Aircraft hangar at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in a scene from the
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