The Last Inch

Ben Ensley, a pilot out of work, takes on a dangerous job for the money: filming sharks underwater. He brings his twelve year old son Davy with him. During the filming a shark bites Ben and he bleeds heavily. His only chance of surviving is to get back to the small African town they set out from. Davy carries his father into the plane and takes off from the beach on his father’s instructions. He finds the route the same way, but the hard part is the landing. The film builds its tension out of a job a child has to do alone. It is adapted from the story of the same name by James Aldridge. The film by Nikita Kurikhin and Teodor Vulfovich, a joint Soviet and French production, was completed in 1958.