"The Right Stuff" is the first movie made about the American Astronauts training and the U. S space program. It's also about the U. S. test pilots after World War II who led the way for space exploration and the pilots who would man American spacecraft. Modern audiences may not know the name Chuck Yeager, but he was a legend to Americans in the mdi-20th century. I can recall a Saturday of my boyhood when everyone was excited about the news of a new record by Chuck Yeager. I was working at my dad's steak house and lounge on Dec 12, 1953, when the news came over the TV that Yeager had set a new record speed of Mach 2.4 at 75,000 feet. Many young boys in those days dreamed of taking off in their own supersonic plane one day.
This movie is based on Tom Wolfe's 1979 book of the same title. It focused a lot on the character and type of men it took to challenge the skies and space travel. The book and film do this very well. Without the men willing to risk their lives, all of the science and engineering for aircraft and space flight would go nowhere. This film opens with the test pilots, leads up to the U. S. space program, and then portrays NASA and its astronaut program.
The film shows the amazing preparation there is for astronauts. Who could imagine so many different physical tests and health exams? And the numerous tests of skill, and difficult and challenging types of physical training? The film has some faults, but it got great reviews from film critics. Yet, with all of this, it was a box office flop, with a mere $21 million in worldwide ticket sales against a budget of $27 million.
Did fate and coincidence have a bearing on the low box office for "The Right Stuff?" It had a limited release in North America on Oct. 21, 1983, and then a general release in 1984 in the U. S. and worldwide. But in May of 1983, the third super blockbuster Star Wars film, "Return of the Jedi," hit theaters. With a box office of $482 million ($1,5 billion in 2024), "Jedi" nearly tripled the sales of the number two film for 1983. People sure loved space movies. The huge box offices for the Star Wars trilogy that began in 1977 proved that. But could it be that fascination with futuristic space travel and adventure diminished public interest in anything of the past? Were films about flight and space in real recent history no longer of interest to the public?
Surely there was action and tension in the early section of "Right Stuff," with the test flights. But then, people knew the results of the actual first orbit flights, so maybe that wasn't interesting enough to grab audiences. The two James Bond movies released in 1983 had the usual mix of adventure, excitement and action - and they both fared very well - in the top 15 box office films for the year.
Well, for whatever reason this film didn't fare well with audiences then. But today it is considered a very good historical film. It's the best one about the astronaut program, and the only one with the contributions of the Air Force test pilots. Sam Shepard is superb in the role of Chuck Yeager. The rest of the cast who play the astronauts and family members are all very good. Some well-known actors head the list -- Ed Harris as John Glenn, Scott Glen as Alan Shepard, Fred Ward as Gus Grissom, Barbara Hershey as Glennis Yeager, and more.
But for three clear flaws in the screenplay, this film would rate 10 stars. Why Hollywood took license for these is beyond me. The first was the portrayal of Gus Grissom as panicky on his splashdown in the ocean. Well before the film was finished, a plethora of engineers and experts had concluded that a mechanical failure was responsible for the hatch that opened. Astronaut Wally Schirra said the portrayal of Grissom as bungling and cowardly was not the truth. The astronauts didn't like the portrayal of the NASA engineers. In an interview, Schirra said, "They insulted the lovely people who talked us through the program - the NASA engineers. They made them like bumbling Germans." The third flaw is the fictional depiction of some of the astronauts at a night spot in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was apparently a pick up place for women. Where did the filmmakers get that? Why would they put in the film? Alan Shepard said that neither the book author, Tom Wolfe, nor the film director and writer, Philip Kaufman "talked to any of the original seven guys, at any time..."
I've had two memorable occasions in which I learned quite a lot about the American space program. One was a special group tour of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. One stop was at the huge rocket assembly building, which stands 525 feet high. We rode an elevator over 50 stories up and could look down on the rocket being assembled at the time. My second memorable occasion was a luncheon in Washington D. C. at which Wernher von Baun spoke about his work on the rocket program for NASA.
Vonn Baun was a young scientist who had worked on Germany's rocket program before and during WW II. After the war, he was among several hundred engineers and scientists who were secretly brought to the United States. He first worked on ballistic missiles and rockets for the first Ameican space satellites. In 1960 his group became part of NASA, and von Braun was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He was the chief architect of Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.
This movie is based on Tom Wolfe's 1979 book of the same title. It focused a lot on the character and type of men it took to challenge the skies and space travel. The book and film do this very well. Without the men willing to risk their lives, all of the science and engineering for aircraft and space flight would go nowhere. This film opens with the test pilots, leads up to the U. S. space program, and then portrays NASA and its astronaut program.
The film shows the amazing preparation there is for astronauts. Who could imagine so many different physical tests and health exams? And the numerous tests of skill, and difficult and challenging types of physical training? The film has some faults, but it got great reviews from film critics. Yet, with all of this, it was a box office flop, with a mere $21 million in worldwide ticket sales against a budget of $27 million.
Did fate and coincidence have a bearing on the low box office for "The Right Stuff?" It had a limited release in North America on Oct. 21, 1983, and then a general release in 1984 in the U. S. and worldwide. But in May of 1983, the third super blockbuster Star Wars film, "Return of the Jedi," hit theaters. With a box office of $482 million ($1,5 billion in 2024), "Jedi" nearly tripled the sales of the number two film for 1983. People sure loved space movies. The huge box offices for the Star Wars trilogy that began in 1977 proved that. But could it be that fascination with futuristic space travel and adventure diminished public interest in anything of the past? Were films about flight and space in real recent history no longer of interest to the public?
Surely there was action and tension in the early section of "Right Stuff," with the test flights. But then, people knew the results of the actual first orbit flights, so maybe that wasn't interesting enough to grab audiences. The two James Bond movies released in 1983 had the usual mix of adventure, excitement and action - and they both fared very well - in the top 15 box office films for the year.
Well, for whatever reason this film didn't fare well with audiences then. But today it is considered a very good historical film. It's the best one about the astronaut program, and the only one with the contributions of the Air Force test pilots. Sam Shepard is superb in the role of Chuck Yeager. The rest of the cast who play the astronauts and family members are all very good. Some well-known actors head the list -- Ed Harris as John Glenn, Scott Glen as Alan Shepard, Fred Ward as Gus Grissom, Barbara Hershey as Glennis Yeager, and more.
But for three clear flaws in the screenplay, this film would rate 10 stars. Why Hollywood took license for these is beyond me. The first was the portrayal of Gus Grissom as panicky on his splashdown in the ocean. Well before the film was finished, a plethora of engineers and experts had concluded that a mechanical failure was responsible for the hatch that opened. Astronaut Wally Schirra said the portrayal of Grissom as bungling and cowardly was not the truth. The astronauts didn't like the portrayal of the NASA engineers. In an interview, Schirra said, "They insulted the lovely people who talked us through the program - the NASA engineers. They made them like bumbling Germans." The third flaw is the fictional depiction of some of the astronauts at a night spot in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was apparently a pick up place for women. Where did the filmmakers get that? Why would they put in the film? Alan Shepard said that neither the book author, Tom Wolfe, nor the film director and writer, Philip Kaufman "talked to any of the original seven guys, at any time..."
I've had two memorable occasions in which I learned quite a lot about the American space program. One was a special group tour of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. One stop was at the huge rocket assembly building, which stands 525 feet high. We rode an elevator over 50 stories up and could look down on the rocket being assembled at the time. My second memorable occasion was a luncheon in Washington D. C. at which Wernher von Baun spoke about his work on the rocket program for NASA.
Vonn Baun was a young scientist who had worked on Germany's rocket program before and during WW II. After the war, he was among several hundred engineers and scientists who were secretly brought to the United States. He first worked on ballistic missiles and rockets for the first Ameican space satellites. In 1960 his group became part of NASA, and von Braun was director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He was the chief architect of Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.