The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Director:

Robert Aldrich

Writers:

Lukas Heller (writer)
Trevor Dudley Smith (novel)

Release Date:

15 December 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Tagline:

One of the most startling twists of fate you have ever experienced in a motion picture!

Plot:

After a plane crash in the Sahara, one of the survivors says he's an airplane designer and they can make a flyable plane from the wreckage.

Plot Keywords:

Exotic Dancer | Belly Dancer | Dehydration | Hallucination | Welding

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 4 nominations

Cast

James Stewart	...	Capt. Frank Towns
Richard Attenborough	...	Lew Moran
Peter Finch	...	Capt. Harris
Hardy Krüger	...	Heinrich Dorfmann (as Hardy Kruger)
Ernest Borgnine	...	Trucker Cobb
Ian Bannen	...	'Ratbags' Crow
Ronald Fraser	...	Sgt. Watson
Christian Marquand	...	Dr. Renaud
Dan Duryea	...	Standish
George Kennedy	...	Mike Bellamy
Gabriele Tinti	...	Gabriel
Alex Montoya	...	Carlos
Peter Bravos	...	Tasso
William Aldrich	...	Bill
Barrie Chase	...	Farida

Runtime:

142 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #21017) | West Germany:12 (f) | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 (re-rating) | Norway:16 (original rating) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Buttercup Valley, California, USA

Company:

Associates & Aldrich Company, The

Trivia:

Three Fairchild C-82 Packet cargo planes were required for filming and were located at Long Beach Airport, CA. They were all operated by Steward-Davis Inc., and were registered as N6887C, N4833V and N53228.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Early in the movie, while Cobb is taking a walk in the dunes around the crash site, the camera looks back at the downed aircraft and shows the Port (left) tail boom broken in half. In every other part of the movie, the Starboard (right) tail boom is broken in half.

Quotes:

Lew Moran: If you marched a hundred and six miles by the stars and your calculations were just one per cent out, you could pass the Eiffel Tower in daylight and never even see it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The A-Team: Holiday in the Hills (#1.9)" (1983)

Soundtrack:

Senza Fine

Great character studies in a survival context.

These comments are partly inspired by other comments and the message boards. This film presents a hypothetical survival situation and does a great job of showing how innovation and persistence bring the survivors through. Strengths and weaknesses are plausibly portrayed in characters who have depth and a mix of vices and virtues. That Sgt Watson does not suffer for his sin is just the sort of thing that makes this an adult movie. That's what "real life" is like. Often people who do the wrong thing seem to go unpunished, or worse, to actually benefit. You could get a whole other novel out of the Sgt's subsequent life. There was a real survivor story a few years back where a trimaran, the "Rose-Noelle" capsized, and the crew existed on the overturned craft for many weeks. There were tensions between people. Each individual seemed to be weak in some ways and strong in others - eg one guy was very despondent and was often treated with contempt by 2 others, but he was also far more patient at fishing, he caught a lot more than anyone else. The skipper/owner kept up his leadership role and the others resented him being hard on them (I thought no harder than was needed). When the trimaran eventually ran ashore, and they were picked up by emergency services, at least 2 of the crew immediately separated themselves from the skipper and never contacted him afterward, according to his book. When these two wrote their own book, they stated that they had taken food from the common store when they weren't being watched. I was flabbergasted that they would admit such a thing without feeling any guilt. They didn't express any anyway.

In the 70s I read a self-improvement book about so-called "non-eroneous" people who would never worry about what other people thought about them or what they did. I now believe the old saying that "Only very competent men, or very beautiful women, or very rich people of either gender can afford to be totally forthright all the time." Hardy Kruger's character was a wonderful example of the "non-erroneous" person. His view was that he worked harder, he planned everything, he was essential to the project, so it was OK for him to take more water than the others. He openly admitted it when confronted by the pilot (James Stewart). However he changed his behaviour because he saw that he had to get people on-side if the project was to succeed. That a model aircraft engineers skills were as good as a full-size engineers was self-evident to him.

He was not without his faults however. During the engine-starting sequence, he rather lost his nerve. He was not able to trust the best man for the task (the pilot), to do the task, without trying to interfere. Hardy Kruger is one of my favorite actors, very versatile, he always managed to please even when cast in utter tripe like Hatari!