Toward the Unknown

William Holden goes where no man's gone before in director Mervyn LeRoy's high-flying aviation adventure. Tortured into making a false confession while a POW in Korea, Major Lincoln Bond (Holden) returns to active service as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base. Determined to clear his name, Bond battles a hard-nosed base commander (Lloyd Nolan), prejudiced officers and his own insecurities in hopes of landing the most coveted -- and dangerous -- test project of all: the Bell X-2 rocket plane. The first and only film made by Holden's own company, Toward the Unknown features an X-2 mockup especially built for the production by Bell Aircraft and marks the screen debut of James Garner, whose TV series Maverick would make him a household name just a year later.

• drama