WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

JohnHowardReid Copyright 1956 by Toluca (William Holden) Productions. Released through Warner Bros. New York opening at the Paramount: 27 September 1956. U.S. release: 20 October 1956. U.K. release: 6 January 1957. Australian release: 1 August 1957. 10,314 feet. 114 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Major Lincoln Bond (William Holden), who after months of torture signed a germ warfare confession in Korea, arrives at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California, commanded by Brigadier General Banner (Lloyd Nolan). He hopes to be reassigned as a test pilot and enlists the aid of his friend, Colonel McKee (Charles McGraw). McKee is informed by Banner that Bond's record established him as undependable for further test pilot work. Outside the office, Bond has a somewhat awkward reunion with Banner's secretary, Connie Mitchell (Virginia Leith). Though they had been sweethearts, Bond has been too ashamed to write her since his crack- up in the prisoner-of-war camp. Bond confides to Connie how eager he is to regain the confidence of the people who used to rely on him. TNOTES: Location scenes filmed at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The needle-nosed X-2 plane shown in the movie was actually flown by test pilot Pete Everest. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Boring enough for all, if you don't mind excessive xenophobia.COMMENT: I don't share the general mild enthusiasm for "Brink of Hell". I found it dull. I agree that airplane nuts will undoubtedly get a thrill or two from the widescreen vistas of planes looping the flight fantastic, but the downstairs drama of job-jockeying and rekindled romance is strictly time-twiddling, utterly routine, cornball fluff. Heavily jingoistic sludge like this with its obligatory pats on the back for the U.S. Air Force, would tax the vitality and imagination of a really enthusiastic director. To a tired old Hollywood figure like Mervyn LeRoy, however, "Brink of Hell" doubtless represented just another paycheck.That's the way it seemed to me too. Just another airplane picture. Predictably plotted, garrulously acted, listlessly directed, this picture takes us well beyond the "Brink of Hell" into the abyss of boredom.

secondtake Toward the Unknown (1956)In some ways this is fascinating stuff—you get a glimpse of mid-50s American military aeronautics, and a specific mention (and micro-glimpse) of the rocket efforts marking early space technology. William Holden plays a troubled test pilot who leads us through the different planes and testing efforts via his own return and rise through the system. It's not bad.However.You can't quite call this a formula film—maybe a genre film if there is a genre called test pilots in trouble—but there is a canned quality to this whole thing that holds it back unreasonably. There is the woman from his past who loves him but also has an affair going with the general (the likable Lloyd Nolan) on the base (Edwards Air Force Base). There are the competing test pilots (all good actors known mostly for television). It makes for a good group that is forced into a thin plot about rivalry and camaraderie. The really best part of the plot (and the reason I watched the movie at first) is that Holden is a man who was in a Korean War prison camp, where he was abused and tortured and "brainwashed." It's this last thing that was so talked about at the time, and which was used to make some really terrific movies like "The Manchurian Candidate," and I wanted to see where it would go here. Well, a heads up, it goes nowhere. His prison camp experience causes a pivotal scene in the movie on the base, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with brainwashing.Too bad on that.Holden by this point in his career is not the leading man he once was, though this is just five years after his terrific comeback year with "Union Station" and "Sunset Blvd." But he's really good, holding his scenes together with the woman (Virginia Leith) who has the eyes (blue) and lips (red) to pop on the WarnerColor screen, but who can't act very well.Obviously if you like airplanes and the air force, this is a movie to definitely see. Some great footage of test aircraft in flight (real footage from the military). And of course the whole supersonic flying experiments were a big deal at the time. If all of this seems a bore and too historical for a good movie, you're partly right. It's not a great plot or drama. But it's not a terrible movie by any means. Director Mervyn LeRoy, rightfully a legend by now, and cinematographer Harold Rossen, equally a legend, together made sure that it held water and survives it's own flaws very well.

Gerald Asher "The Right Stuff" tried hard to capture the feel of Edwards and the 'golden age' of flight testing - but "Toward the Unknown" outdoes the later film in spades. In spite of the cut-n-pasted love story with the wooden Virginia Leith, this film catches the flavor of USAF flight testing with William Holden's credible performance as a previously up-and-coming aviator tries to regain his stature following a tormented experience as a POW during the Korean War. The "pilot speak" is dumbed down just enough for the civilian audience, and the flying sequences are well done - no models here. As a footnote, Holden is a composite of real-life test pilot Pete Everest (with whom Holden developed a fast friendship during filming) and Walker "Bud" Mahurin, whose Korean War POW experiences were woven into the script (although Mahurin never attempted suicide). In fact, there are striking similarities (surely purposeful) in appearance between the leading actors and their real-life counterparts: Stand Holden next to Everest, and Lloyd Nolan next to General Al Boyd, and you'll see what I mean.I have a VHS copy I had made from a deteriorating 16mm print of the film which I picked up off eBay (the friend who made the tape said the emulsion was chipping off the celluloid as he taped it, it was in such poor condition), so I'll have to live with that until a DVD becomes available - which, according to a credible source, won't happen until the Holden estate reaches an agreement with the production company. I do know a print of the film was furnished to the Edwards AFB theater recently for a showing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original premier of "Toward The Unknown."

dckalvn I would like to see this movie"toward the unknown" made in DVD,I am aware that there many people who have asking this question also.I enjoy seeing these old planes in the movies,especially the x-2. I understand that both aircrafts were destroyed, so the movie was made in between the testing of these aircrafts. we cannot find this movies at no place,only in cable stations.Will there be production made of this movie in the future? If not then who can I get in touch with to encourage the making of this movie? i understand that there are many clubs in this country that was formed from this movie. I, myself, have build many crafts and rockets from that time period. thank you!