The Right Stuff (1983)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Philip Kaufman

Writers:

Tom Wolfe (book)
Philip Kaufman (screenplay)

Release Date:

21 October 1983 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History

Tagline:

They were ordinary men and women who shared a common ambition and what they achieved together captured the imagination of the world [UK Theatrical]

Plot:

The original US Mercury 7 astronauts and their macho, seat-of-the-pants approach to the space program.

Plot Keywords:

Astronaut | Space Program | Rocket | Sound Barrier | U.S. Space Program

Awards:

Won 4 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Sam Shepard	...	Chuck Yeager
Scott Glenn	...	Alan Shepard
Ed Harris	...	John Glenn
Dennis Quaid	...	Gordon Cooper
Fred Ward	...	Gus Grissom
Barbara Hershey	...	Glennis Yeager
Kim Stanley	...	Pancho Barnes
Veronica Cartwright	...	Betty Grissom
Pamela Reed	...	Trudy Cooper
Scott Paulin	...	Deke Slayton
Charles Frank	...	Scott Carpenter
Lance Henriksen	...	Wally Schirra
Donald Moffat	...	Lyndon B. Johnson
Levon Helm	...	Jack Ridley / Narrator
Mary Jo Deschanel	...	Annie Glenn

Runtime:

193 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

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

Certification:

Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | Iceland:12 | Australia:PG | Finland:S | France:U | Ireland:12 | Norway:11 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG | Portugal:M/6 | Norway:12 (original rating)

Filming Locations:

California & Montgomery, Financial District, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Ladd Company, The

Trivia:

Allegedly composer Bill Conti wrote about three different scores for this film. The first consisting of his own original work. The second one being one that featured Holst's The Planets as inspiration. The final score purely copied the film's temp track which was primarily The Planet's peace under the condition that if 'Philip Kaufman' used that portion of the score he would've had to credit Gustav Holst, the real composer of the music knowing that he was plagiarizing it for Kaufman's benefit and did not want to take credit for something that was written by someone else. They had a compromise in the end, using the middle score that Conti wrote inspired by Holst, and the incorporation of "Wild Blue Yonder" during the Yeagher's Triumph sequence and Henry Mancini's White Dawn track stayed in the film. Conti would go on to win for Best Original score despite the fact that it was somewhat of an adaptation of The Planets.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During some of the failed shuttle launches at Cape Canaveral, what the ground crew are watching is clearly footage of the real events and not an actual explosion. The picture quality is noticeably different and grainier.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Disaster! (2005)

Soundtrack:

The U.S. Air Force

Real Heroes, And An Era That Went By All Too Fast

An interesting insight into the United States' space program, beginning with the exploits of fighter pilot Chuck Yeager (Sam Shephard) and concluding with the dramatic flights of the first astronauts.

Those astronauts - the Mercury 7 pilots - are a varied group of aviators and they are all pretty interesting guys. John Glenn (Ed Harris) gets favorable treatment in here among the group. Gordon Cooper might be the wildest with the cocky and humorous Dennis Quaid playing him. Overall, it's a good cast including not just the fliers but their wives. I also enjoyed Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard and Barbara Hershey as Yeager's wife.

Yeager's feats were perhaps the most interesting and they set a fast tone to this 3-hour film as we witness him breaking several sound-barrier records prior to the formation of the astronaut team. Then we are treated to a long-but-interesting segment of how those first astronauts were trained.

The only unnecessary and ludicrous parts of this film were the ones on Lyndon Johnson, where they made him into a total fool. It was as if the screen writers had a personal vendetta against him, to make him look almost like a cartoon figure. And the bit with the Australian Aborigines smacks too much of Hollywood's love affair with tribal religions. I sincerely doubt some sparks from a fire on earth could be seen miles and miles above in space.

At any rate, this was an informative look at a period in our history than came-and-went way too fast. Sad to say, most people know very little about those first astronauts, who were true heroes. At least this film gives them their due, as well as to Yeager, who deserved this tribute, too