Blue Thunder (1983)

The cop test pilot for an experimental police helicopter learns the sinister implications of the new vehicle.

Director:

John Badham

Writers:

Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby

Stars:

Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Roy Scheider	...	Officer Frank Murphy
Warren Oates	...	Capt. Jack Braddock
Candy Clark	...	Kate
Daniel Stern	...	Officer Richard Lymangood
Paul Roebling	...	Icelan
David Sheiner	...	Fletcher
Joe Santos	...	Montoya
Malcolm McDowell	...	Col. F.E. Cochrane
Ed Bernard	...	Sgt. Short
Jason Bernard	...	Mayor
Mario Machado	...	Himself
James Murtaugh	...	Alf Hewitt
Pat McNamara	...	Matusek
Jack Murdock	...	Kress
Clifford A. Pellow	...	Allen (as Clifford Pellow)

Storyline

Blue Thunder is a specially modified helicopter. It is for police work, but is armed and designed to counter street insurgencies. Its makers want to show what it will do, but have to train Los Angeles Police pilot Frank Murphy to fly and use it in order to allow it to operate in the city. Murphy and the project pilot have differences going back to Vietnam. The conflict between them continues to heat up as Murphy begins to suspect that Blue Thunder is more than has been disclosed.

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Plot Keywords:

helicopter | pilot | police helicopter | surveillance | police officer killed | 

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Taglines:

The Skies Will Never Be the Same!

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Official Sites:

Sony Movie Channel [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 May 1983 (USA)

Also Known As:

Relámpago azul

Filming Locations:

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Plant, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$22,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$42,300,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation, Rastar Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) Dolby (35 mm prints)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

During filming of the "ambush", where Cochrane ambushs Murphy's Blue Thunder at that incomplete skyscraper, the MD-5 Defender (the one Cochrane flew) had an engine failure and had to auto-rotate to a landing below. Fortunately, the parking lot was cleared and the pilot walked away uninjured, and the helicopter was only slightly damaged.

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Goofs

During the first night flight of Blue Thunder, JAFO asks if they want Big Brother active. When they both decide no, JAFO says "I got the fuse right here." He is actually seen to remove a light bulb from the annunciator panel, not a fuse.

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Quotes

[Murphy and Lymangood are on patrol]
Lymangood: All those people. What do you suppose they're all doing down there?
Frank Murphy: Well, according to the latest statistics, about 1 million, 775 thousand of them are... getting it on!
Lymangood: That many, eh!
Frank Murphy: The rest are waiting for 'Laverne and Shirley'!

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Crazy Credits

There are no opening credits after the title is shown.

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Connections

Featured in The Man who shot Chinatown - Der Kameramann John A. Alonzo (2007)

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Soundtracks

Theme From Blue Thunder (Murphy's Law)
(uncredited)
Written by Arthur B. Rubinstein (as Arthur Rubinstein)
Performed by Arthur B. Rubinstein, Cynthia Morrow, Brian Banks and Anthony Marinelli (as the Beepers)
Produced by Evan Pace
Associate Produced by Reno Romano

User Reviews

Somebody is watching you, me, and them.

One of the things that really caught my attention about this film was the brief blurb at the beginning which stated something to the effect of "All of the surveillance equipment depicted in this film exists and is in use in the United States." Knowing what I do of technology, I am not surprised that those capabilities existed back then. However, I received a powerful demonstration of the stealth technology called "whisper mode" in the film, a couple of years after seeing it. I live near a major U.S. Army firing range, and our local airport hosts a considerable amount of military traffic. At this particular time, I was renting a house about one kilometer from the airport. I went out for a walk late one Sunday night, and, shortly after leaving the house, I heard a noise I could not identify. It was a loud hissing sound, 'which seemed very close at hand, but I could not locate the source, until I looked up. Passing overhead at about 200 meters was a Chinook helicopter, the type with two rotors, and fuselage that looks kind of like a banana. Normally, the rotor noise on these cargo helicopters will rattle windows, but this baby was tip-toeing out of town very quietly. If I had been indoors, I never would have heard it. This made me completely rethink the sequence where the helicopter was hovering right outside of a building, and the people inside couldn't hear it! I took it for artistic license at the time, but the demonstration I witnessed of "whisper mode" made it seem entirely feasible.

This film appealed to me strongly, for several reasons. I am a techno freak, to begin with, and I love anything that flies. Also, the characters in the movie are amazingly human, kooky, (especially the lead characters wife,) and easy to identify with. And the kind of shenanigans the Feds were trying to pull seem all too realistic to me, in light of some of the things that they have been caught doing! And I loved the response of sending a couple of F-15's armed with missiles after the renegade, when he is stooging around in downtown Los Angeles. Missiles are not known for being highly selective when they are of the heat seeking type, and urban areas are rich with thermal signatures which can confuse the tiny brain packed into an air-to-air missile. The filmmakers actually downplayed the havoc that could result from launching such weapons in a downtown area.

I found the film to be an enjoyable, realistic, thought provoking experience, which I would recommend to most people. The hardware is not the star, thanks to the excellent work of Roy Scheider and his supporting cast, and the dialog is tight and realistic. When informed that one of the suspects in a liquor store robbery is wearing a Hawiian shirt and a cowboy hat, Scheider's character says, "What ever happened to being inconspicuous?"