Anybody familiar with 60’s spy spoof show Get Smart will be familiar with the recurring gag of the “Cone of Silence”. I’m not sure what I was expecting from 1960 feature film Cone of Silence, but it is definitely not associated with that show. That’s a shame, as the movie eventually made of that show, The Nude Bomb, wasn’t very good.
This 1960 movie isn’t even a comedy. Instead, this is a rather serious drama about two mishaps involving a pilot and the same model of plane. Are the aircraft the problem? Or is the older pilot (Bernard Lee) who is to blame? After all, two of the incidents are when he is at the controls, and nobody else seems to have such issues. Also, the last name of Lee’s character is Gort, which only brought to my mind the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still, which got me wondering if Lee was suddenly going to make aircraft stop working using only his mind.
This is an oddly structured work: part courtroom drama, part corporate intrigue and part airplane drama.
George Sanders is perfectly cast as the lawyer representing the airplane manufacturer in the trial scenes. That first trial concerns Lee’s inability to achieve takeoff in an accident which killed his co-pilot. A toy plane makes for a great prop for both Sanders and Lee in a confrontational scene, where the lawyer keeps advancing the tiny craft across a long table in a simulation of the failed flight, the nose of the plane seemingly pointing the finger directly at Lee.
There is also the possibility the crash was due to a fault in the planes themselves, the Phoenix series of jets. An engineer played by Noel Willman practically radiates duplicity, but he is kept largely on the sidelines.
The real star of the film is Michael Craig, who is the trainer for Pheonix pilots. The title refers to a test he puts Lee through to regain his pilot’s certification. Literally flying blind, Lee must guide the aircraft to a beacon which is emitting an audio signal. The closer you get, the shorter the gap between the beeps. Then there is complete silence when one reaches the beacon. It is an interesting setup, and I wondered if this was ever something done in real-life to test pilots.
Alas, Craig has taken an interest in Lee’s daughter (Elizabeth Seal), which makes his re-certification of the pilot suspect. Given the great many speaking parts in this production, Seal isn’t given much screentime, but I liked how she holds her own, with a character who has some initiative beyond being the star’s love interest. There’s also a great moment where she gets sick of Craig’s bullshit and she proves to have a surprising left hook.
Among those speaking parts are a great many actors one might recognize from their frequent use in British film and TV of the time. Two of the fellow pilots are Andre Morell and Gordon Jackson. Lee, of course, will be forever associated with his many turns as M in the early Bond pictures.
But the most welcome appearance is that of Peter Cushing as a fellow pilot. He seems to have it out for Lee, as he is appalled the pilot has been reinstated and believes Lee is too old to fly. Cushing saying Lee is too old for the job is some pot-kettle-black there. His performance here is one of the few times he claimed he played a villainous role, but I don’t think his characterization is so simple and clear-cut. I thought he was only very stern and highly opinionated.
These characters are interesting and they are thrown into an interesting plot, albeit one that does feel a bit awkward. There are also some interesting effects, such as an airport lounge where the airstrip through the windows is rear-projection footage of a model plane. I also like a tense scene where Lee takes a plane through a hailstorm, the ice balls flying towards the camera in shots pointing outwards through the front windows of the cockpit.
Cone of Silence was the last film I wanted on Severin’s Cushing Curiosities set, and only one of two films included which I would recommend. Cushing may only be a small part of this ensemble film, but she is interesting to see here, and in a film that would be intriguing even without his presence.
Dir: Charles Frend
Starring Michael Craig, Peter Cushing Bernard Lee, Elizabeth Seal
Watched as part of Severin’s blu-ray box set Cushing Curiosities