The recent success of the SpaceShipOne spacecraft brought back to mind the early attempt at sub-orbital flights. Its designer, told us that he based his design on the X-15. Growing up in the 60's and 70's, the space race was part of our lives and the X-15 program was one more step towards space supremacy between the USA and the Soviet Union. Although this beautiful bird was finally shelved, the courage and vision of its designers merits that we take a second look at it. This movie, presented almost like a NASA -US AIR Force documentary, stayed in my mind although I was just a kid when I saw it on TV, some 30 odd years ago. Filmed in the early sixties, this story introduces the viewer to the team of 3 pilots that relay each other in the seat of the X-15 experimental rocket plane. The family life of these test pilots is also interesting as it is explained that these men need emotional stability to do their job. We are introduced to a young Mary Tyler Moore as one of the pilots fiancée. A young Charles Bronson plays one of these family men / test pilots with great presence .The flying scenes footage is of relative good quality but the sub-orbital scenes are poorly crafted animations that look terribly amateurish as we are now used to Computer Generated Images and other new special effects techniques. All in all, this is a good movie for any space race fan, and the DVD fits nicely in the library next to others such as The Right Stuff, From the Earth to the Moon and Apollo 13. I gave it a 7 for historical and documentary value.
Review of X-15
X-15
(1961)
The DVD fits nicely in the library next to others such as The Right Stuff
9 October 2004