Films with engineers as hero

What about Steve McQueen as Jake Holman, engineer of the San Pablo in "The Sand Pebbles?" Or Stanley Baker as Lt. Chard in "Zulu?" (He's the engineer that comes to build a bridge but takes command before the Zulus attack.) There's David Niven as the explosives expert in "The Guns of Navarone." Also, Walter Pidgeon/Richard Basehart as Admiral Nelson in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (Movie/TV versions). Or Peter Weller as "Buckaroo Banzai."

Ayn Rand''s "The Fountainhead" propels the concept of an engineer as hero back into center stage as it also shows in the clearest possible terms the consequences of what can happen with great ideas. While using the metaphor of the architect to represent brilliant thinking in any context, it simultaneously accurately portrays engineering in actual reality. Even though the film only partially reflects the genius of the novel, it''s one of a kind. Man as hero. A=A.

It's not a movie, but Fred MacMurray spent 12 years on TV playing aeronautical engineer Steve Douglas in "My three Sons." He played a regular guy, not a nerd, who loved his kids, steered them well from youth through marriage, and generally kept his head. A bit different than the way engineers (and fathers in general) are portrayed today. Today we're played as introverted geeks who are generally just smart enough to breathe.