Captain Jim Hollenbeck (Guy Madison) is a physician working for the United States Air Force Medical Corp. His job is to assess what happens to men that are in stress situations. Jets are getting faster and are flying higher than ever before. Effects on people and equipment must be tested and problems solved. His boss Dr. Hugh Thornton (Dean Jagger) sends him to Sovern Air Force base to assess any problems.
Currently an ejection system is the primary issue. Mike Bentley (Warren Stevens) breaks his arm during a recent test. Jim believes that another test is needed to determine if the problem is with the seat or the pilot. Jim believes that in order to properly evaluate the situation he will have to do the test himself. Jim does his own test and gets the same result. He breaks his arm. Jim now knows that a wind blast when the seat is ejected caused his arm to fly off the ejection release. Now the Air Force knows what to do to fix the problem.
Another concern is with the human side of the equation. Equipment may be able to withstand great speeds but can people. When do your innards become jelly? One of the tools to determine what a person can endure is the rocket sled. Problems with it causes injuries to humans. Adjustments must be made. Each stumbling block requires innovation.
Dr. Thornton’s pet project is to test the first balloon gondola designed to bring a human twenty miles into space. If man can survive there than perhaps they can survive in space. Dr. Thornton thinks that Jim is the perfect candidate for the test. Lt Colonel Dick Masters (Walter Coy) has given Jim the go ahead to start the tests. When Masters dies in a car crash Major Ward Thomas (John Hodiak) is assigned to be the new head of the program.
Thomas is far more cautious than Masters was. He puts a hold on the high altitude program. Jim is frustrated but eventually his time will come. Jim Hollenbeck will be the first man to perform a high altitude test. He will climb in a high altitude gondola floating under a balloon and reach a height of 100,000 feet reaching the threshold of space. When his radio goes out everyone on the ground waits breathlessly for some word that Jim is still alive.
“On the Threshold of Space” was released in 1956 and was directed by Robert D. Webb. Technically the movie is not really a science fiction space film. Most view it as a drama since it is a historical depiction of air force tests made in the United States for the imminent space race. A lot of what is shown is science fact.
For science fans the film will be a slice of history in story form. For science fiction fans it is a science fiction drama that just happens to be true. The events happened somewhere around 1953 so the film, being made in 1956, shows the events as semi-futuristic thereby dating them. It doesn’t change the fact that what man was doing was in fact mind blowing. The film shows the baby steps that man made to be able to eventually step on the moon.
For me the first part of the movie was a little slow. Not enough to actually bore me but enough to make me think the movie might not be for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself getting engrossed in the movie as it went along. What started out looking like an educational film ended up being an interesting story about one man’s reach for the stars. Man’s curiosity is vital to the human spirit. Like climbing Mount Everest, we go into space because it is there, and we want to see and know. And like James Kirk, man, even in the fifties, wanted to go where no man has gone before.
John Hodiak died of a heart attack before finishing the movie.