The Sound Barrier (1952)

Nigel Patrick: Tony

Photos 

Quotes 

• Tony Garthwaite : What's so ruddy peculiar about the speed of sound? We all know exactly what it is, don't we? 750 miles per hour at ground level. Now if we go slower than that we can hear ourselves going, and if we go faster we can hear ourselves coming. It's a mere matter of acoustics.

• Tony Garthwaite : Hello, it looks like you've been jumped on by 20-plus Focke-Wulfs.

  Philip Peel : I tried to pull out of a flat-out dive just now.

  Tony Garthwaite : Oh, good show.

  Philip Peel : The damn stick needed Carnera to move it. The harder I pulled, the more the nose went down. It felt for a moment as if the controls were reversed.

  Tony Garthwaite : And were they?

  Philip Peel : Of course not, you clot, or I wouldn't be here, would I? There was a lot of buffeting too. It was almost as if I'd suddenly run into a... a solid sheet of water, or something.

  Tony Garthwaite : Really?

• Tony Garthwaite : I'm meeting her train. I shall take her for a quiet drive and ask her to marry me, simply, firmly and directly.

• Tony Garthwaite : Sue, what do you think of me?

  Susan : As a driver?

  Tony Garthwaite : No, as a man.

  Susan : Oh, well I, I told you, I think I prefer you with hair parted on the other side.

• Tony Garthwaite : You really have looked at this from every angle?

  Susan : I haven't left an angle out and I promise you.

  Tony Garthwaite : I mean, you know the sort of chap I am.

  Susan : I know the sort of chap you are.

  Tony Garthwaite : Not on your level at all.

  Susan : Miles above.

  Tony Garthwaite : Oh, gosh!

  Susan : Please, Tony, stop saying, "Oh, gosh." Can't you think of anything else to say?

  Tony Garthwaite : I love you so very much.

• Chris : Did you get my present?

  Susan : Oh, darling, thank you so much. It was a lovely present. We adored it, didn't we?

  Tony Garthwaite : Oh, yes, rather. We adored it.

• John Ridgefield : I think its the most exciting sound I've ever heard.

  Tony Garthwaite : Well, it isn't only the sound that's exciting, Tony, boy.

• Tony Garthwaite : Well, what the heck is it, sir?

  John Ridgefield : The aircraft engine of the future.

  Tony Garthwaite : Well, where's the propellor?

  John Ridgefield : There is no propellor.

  Susan : Well, how does it keep the aircraft in the air then?

  John Ridgefield : By propulsion.

  Tony Garthwaite : Propulsion?

  John Ridgefield : Yes, jet propulsion!

• Tony Garthwaite : What exactly does happen to an airplane at the speed of sound?

  Will Sparks : I don't know. And shall I tell you something, Tony?

  Tony Garthwaite : What?

  Will Sparks : No one else in the world does either.

• John Ridgefield : No doubt about it. They're just on the fringe of the problem.

  Susan : Father, what problem?

  John Ridgefield : Supersonics.

  Susan : The sound barrier?

  John Ridgefield : Yes. That's a newspaper phrase.

  Tony Garthwaite : Like most of them, pretty misleading.

  Susan : You mean it isn't a barrier?

  John Ridgefield : Oh, it's a barrier, all right.

• Susan : What makes the barrier? Is it sound?

  Tony Garthwaite : It's a combination...

  John Ridgefield : It's air! You see, Sue, there's a limit to the speed that air itself can move. Now, this rule is traveling at 30 mph, let's say, you can hear the air whistle as it moves out of it's way. But, if it were traveling at 750 mph, the speed of sound, mach 1, the air could no longer move out of its way; because, it just can't move that fast. It would pile up in front of the rule or the aircraft, making, if you like, a barrier! Now, we don't exactly know what happens to an aircraft that gets into these conditions. Tony knows it buffets as he gets near to them. Some say the craft would go right out of control. Others say that it'll break up, all together. Now, I don't believe that, Sue. I believe that with the right aircraft and the right man, we can force our way through this barrier. And once through, there is a world! A whole new world! With speeds of 15 hundred to 2 thousand miles an hour within the grasp of man. And Tony, here, may be the first man to see that new world.

• Susan : [flying over Greece]  The Earth is beginning to look awfully small and insignificant. I don't know that I like it.

  Tony Garthwaite : You're being old fashioned, darling. Why look at the floor on earth? Look up there! There's our future. Space. You can't make that insignificant. Down there has had it.

• Philip Peel : You know, when I got your wire, I thought you must be tight.

  Tony Garthwaite : I probably was.

• Tony Garthwaite : What is it Dad?

  John Ridgefield : A galaxy - Andromeda.

  Tony Garthwaite : How far away is that?

  John Ridgefield : Oh, about 700,000 light years.

  Tony Garthwaite : You mean what I'm seeing now is the way this galaxy looked 700,000 years ago?

  John Ridgefield : That's right.

  Tony Garthwaite : I'm looking into the past, then, aren't I?

  John Ridgefield : In a manner of speaking.

  Tony Garthwaite : Is there a way of looking into the future?

  John Ridgefield : Yes.

  Tony Garthwaite : How?

  John Ridgefield : Through that telescope. What you see there is the past, the present and the future; all in one. The process of continuous creation. Stars die. Stars are born. No beginning. No end. Yes, you can see into the future, out there, all right.

• Tony Garthwaite : Pity.

  Susan : What?

  Tony Garthwaite : That I didn't meet you 10 years ago?

  Susan : Why?

  Tony Garthwaite : I'd had 10 years longer being married to you.