The John Glenn Story

John Glenn's first flight ushered in the modern era of space exploration for America. His landmark return to space represented the final chapter of space exploration in the 20th century.

If I am honest, I found the exuberant narration just a little too nauseating as we spend half an hour watching how the USA celebrated not just the achievements of their astronaut John Glenn but of it's own achievements and aspirations in outer space. Jack Webb's commentary is effusive well past a point of adulation and that rather overwhelmed some of the interesting archive that is strung out thinly for an half an hour that is big on propaganda and sentiment but light on science or, even, adventure. Glenn himself contributes via existing interviews, so there's no specific insight from him into what motivated his quest for space travel, nor do we spend much time on his training regimen or learning just how strenuous the whole process was. Indeed, this is really just the kind of celebratory feature that the newsreels were churning out weekly for cinema goers, and with some ticker-tape parades and flag-waving this could just as easily be a film about a royal visit, or an inauguration - only here, of course, we have to beat the Soviets, too. Disappointing.