John Chard

Lighter Attack. Little seen or remembered, Fighter attack is a very ordinary World War II film that can only be recommended to the staunchest of Sterling Hayden fans. Set in Nazi occupied Italy, story finds Hayden's fighter pilot forced to ditch behind enemy lines when his mission goes awry. Finding help from Italian partisans, and having his head turned by a shapely Joy Page, film builds to the inevitable conclusion where the mission will finally be accomplished and the hero gets the girl. There really isn't much more to it than that, it's a standard time filler that plods along ponderously until the action picks up for the finale, all five minutes of it! The print I witnessed was washed out in colour, so that didn't help matters, but really this is a picture of very little redeeming qualities outside of Hayden's butch machismo and J.Carrol Naish's fun performance as Italian resistance leader Bruno. 5/10