Jet Pilot (1957 film)

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Jet Pilot is a 1957 Cold War aerial comedy film starring John Wayne and Janet Leigh. After an unauthorized landing on an American airstrip, Anna, a female Soviet pilot, meets Air Force Colonel Shannon, an American jet pilot. They fall in love and marry, but Anna plans to lure Shannon to the USSR.

Shooting began in late 1949 but the film was kept out of release by Howard Hughes' tinkering (something he was notorious for) until seven years later.

Written by Jules Furthman and begun by director Josef von Sternberg, the movie had several impeding directorial hands. Von Sternberg directed between December 1949 and February 1950, after that Jules Furthman, Phil Cochran (second unit director), Ed Killy (assistant), Byron Haskin (for the model work), and Don Siegel also directed scenes (Siegel's wasn't used). The last day's shooting took place in May 1953, but the film wasn't released until October 1957, by which time Hughes had sold RKO, and Universal ended up distributing Jet Pilot.

In one aerial scene, they fly a F-94 Starfire to test a radar approach to intercept a B-36 bomber.