Come to think of it, Steve Zahn DID portray an astronaut in From the Earth to the Moon: Elliot See, a Gemini-era astronaut who was killed in a plane crash during training and never flew on a space mission.
Not from the 1940’s, but the anime movie The Wings of Honneamise was able to do pretty much just that quite well.
If they’re offering a subtitled version these days, go for that. Watching it in English verus Japanese was enough to change it from a dull to a deep and emotional film due to the quality difference of acting.