When American scientists first started working on guided rockets, one of their greatest problems was controlling the flight of their experimental models. Before radar was fully developed, the flying bombs tended to reverse directions and blow up the launching party. This is also true of "Guided Missile;" it it starts off with some excellent documentary photography, then gets thrown off its course by a weak plot.

Navy films of rocket experiments make up the best part of this picture. Shots of the firing of a V-2 from the deck of an aircraft carrier open "Guided Missile." The success of this test was a revolutionary development in naval warfare. Subsequent scenes show detailed launchings of smaller 'Loon' and 'Dragonfly' rockets from land platforms, along with the radio and radar equipment that controls them. Navy scientists also demonstrate the weird acrobatics of a radio-controlled torpedo plane landing with hatch drawn back, exposing the empty cockpit. When these documentary scenes predominate, as they do in the first half of the picture, "Guided Missile" is interesting and dramatic.

But in between rocket launchings, Director Donnelly unloads the usual "Navy" plot--brass, sweat, and gush. The stereotyped roles of dogmatic admiral, bright young officer, and old-timer crew chief have been played hundreds of times before with the same mediocrity. Unfortunately, the plot is just as mechanical as the casting: Star Glenn Ford gets a clever idea, the admirals give him the runaround, and then he makes a pass at the base chief's secretary. At length he succeeds in blowing up his own petty officer with a "Loon" while the band plays "For Those in Peril on the Sea." This maneuvering slows "Guided Missile" down to a dead walk near the end as Ford fights his way through various psychosomatic difficulties. Mired in "naval" cliches, this picture will be palatable only to rocket fanciers.