The Hindenburg (1975)

Director:

Robert Wise

Writers:

Nelson Gidding (writer)
Richard Levinson (story)

Release Date:

25 December 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | History | Thriller

Tagline:

The truth at last? What really happened to The Hindenburg?

Plot:

A film that chronicles the events of the Hindenburg disaster in which a zeppelin burst into flames.

Plot Keywords:

Disaster | Sabotage | Zeppelin | Bomb | Gestapo

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

George C. Scott	...	Col. Franz Ritter
Anne Bancroft	...	Ursula, The Countess
William Atherton	...	Boerth
Roy Thinnes	...	Martin Vogel
Gig Young	...	Edward Douglas
Burgess Meredith	...	Emilio Pajetta
Charles Durning	...	Capt. Pruss
Richard Dysart	...	Capt. Lehman
Robert Clary	...	Joe Spahn
Rene Auberjonois	...	Maj. Napier
Peter Donat	...	Reed Channing
Alan Oppenheimer	...	Albert Breslau
Katherine Helmond	...	Mrs. Mildred Breslau
Joanna Moore	...	Mrs. Channing
Stephen Elliott	...	Capt. Fellows

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Mono (Westrex Recording System) (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1987) | USA:PG (certificate #24257) | Netherlands:12

Filming Locations:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Company:

The Filmakers Group

Trivia:

The song sung in the Frankfurt beer hall is an English version of Horst Wessel, the theme song of the Nazi party.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the Hindenburg drops its water when coming into Lakehurst, the sailors bathe in it. This is wrong because water falling from such a height would have such a force that it would crush human bodies. It was also unsanitary from being for washing and human waste.

Quotes:

Reed Channing: There's a new voice sweeping the fatherland Loyal Germans understand As they rally round its exciting sound How their hearts expand There's a new voice keeping the fatherland To its ancient noble bounds Helping restless men start to build again Showing where and how...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (TV)

Soundtrack:

There's A Lot to be Said for the Fuhrer

a good 70's "disaster" flick

The 1970's were the age of the disaster films. Films featuring man made and natural calamaties with flashy special effects and big name stars were the "in" thing back then. Irwin Allen was the master of these when he made The Posiedon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Jennings Lang also made an epic disaster film with Earthquake. In 1975, Robert Wise got into the act with The Hindenburg. Wise is one of our finest directors and I was so happy when he won the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award several years ago. Everyone loves a good mystery and the Hindenburg disaster is certainly one of them. What caused the explosion? We will probably never know. What we do know is that politics had a lot to do with it. The Hindenburg was filled with volatile hydrogen gas instead of helium. Helium is so safe it would actually smother fire. The American government did not wish to give the Germans helium because they feared they would use it for military purposes. This film has a first class cast with George C. Scott leading the way as the heroic Colonel Franz Ritter. Only a fine actor like Scott could have made a Nazi likeable. There are so many other fine thespians in the cast like Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning (as the Captain). A very fine character actor named William Atherton is the rigger who plants the bomb. Wise is a master of suspense because we all know what is going to happen and the ship is going to blow up, and yet you are on the edge of your seat as Ritter desperately races time to find the bomb. I would also like to mention how much I enjoyed Wise's masterful use of actual film footage of the disaster which he intermingles with scenes of the various actors trying to escape the burning ship. One of the fun things about these disaster films is watching who lived and who died at the end (what is really funny is that those near the top of the cast usually lived the longest!). There was indeed a theory that a rigger on the airship named Eric Spehl (they called him Karl Boerth in the movie) had indeed sabotaged the Hindenburg. The surviving crew members said that they had heard a sudden pop over their heads and looked up to see a circle of bright light that looked like a flashbulb igniting. It was near the axial gangway and this rigger was one of only a few who had acess to it. Spehl was known to have anti Nazi views. Did he plant a bomb? The theory is that Spehl had timed his explosive device (really a flashbulb attached to a photographic timer) to go off after the airship had landed. But the landing was delayed by a storm and he could not get back in time to re set it. Spehl was killed in the disaster and thus we will never know. The most chilling part of this film is where they play Herb Morrisons recording. He was the WLS Chicago reporter who was there to witness a routine airship landing and instead it was one of the most famous recordings ever made. Morrison lived until 1988 and resided near my home in West Virginia.