The Flight of the Phoenix

Rating:
Summary: Great film--was surprised I liked the remake better, though!
Review: It's a little Man against Nature and Man against Man when a flight of men are stranded in the desert after their plane experiences engine trouble in a sand storm. Will they make it out alive? They try to send two men to find help. They try to negotiate for help with the locals. Finally, they realize their only hope is to cobble their broken airplane back together with the aid of poorly socialized genius. Will they get it off the ground? Will they even survive long enough to try? This is a wonderful story with a lot of heart. Jimmy Stewart as their aging pilot, Captain Townes, is wonderful. Highly recommended, but watch the new one as well. I think they did the original justice!

Rating:
Summary: The real deal
Review: Does remaking movie and TV material from the Sixties have to be the artistic equivalent of hara-kiri? Maybe not, but bucket-loads of blood have been shed in recent years.

This 1965 original has the acting, direction, script and tone of a classic, and movie-lovers should stick with it. Those involved in 2004's dog's breakfast of a do-over ought to have, too.


Rating:
Summary: EXtremely Enjoyable Tale of Survival
Review: A small plane mainly in the business of ferrying oil workers around the Sahara is forced to crash land off course in the middle of the desert. The survivors reckon they may have enough water to keep them alive for a couple of weeks. Soon it becomes clear no one is coming to rescue them. Tensions are rising. German aeroplane designer Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger) has a plan to reconstruct the `plane and fly it to safety. But the pilot Frank Towns (James Stewart) is sceptical. Partly it's just that he and Dorfmann are very different kinds of alpha male and instantly and instinctively loath each other. Matters are not helped when it turns out that Dorfmann's experience is only in the design of model aeroplanes. (Whatever you do, don't call them `toys')

This is all splendid fun. Apparently there's a remake doing the round but who cares, the original is just fine. And its hard to imagine any cast improving on Stewart, Kruger, Richard Attenbourgh, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen and Ronald Fraser, etc: an extremely classy ensemble. It's beautiful character driven drama with a vivid and alarming sense of men slowly falling apart and losing it as physical extremity takes its toll and a satisfyingly exciting climax. It's too interesting to see the way national stereotypes work out here: plucky stiff-upper-lipped Brits, a dour bolshy Scot and of course Dorfmann who signals an evolution in the popular image of Germany, no longer the evil Nazi empire, but clever, efficient and just slightly ruthless, home to the 60s economic miracle, viewed by THE UK and US with a confused mixture of admiration and alarm.


Rating:
Summary: A never ending cult movie !
Review: When a plane crashes in the Arabian desert the Pandora Box of the human nature will open before us . The entire cast is splendid But the special mentions go to Peter Finch , Ian Bannen and Ernest Borgnine .
A portentous portrait of sociological repercussions and somehow a movie miles way ahead its time .
Between you and me , this film is immersed in Shakespeare environment .



Rating:
Summary: Footnote to RMurray847"s Review
Review: RMurray847 writes that there are no women in the cast. Actually, there was one -- Raquel Welch! (How could he forget?) The studios, anxious to give their new starlett some exposure (no pun intended) inserted a dream sequence with a belly dance. It interrupted the plot and destroyed with the mood, but there it is!

Rating:
Summary: Simply excellent!
Review: Well, the reviews bellow tell everything about this great movie. Watched it yesterday with my girlfriend, and she loved it. Nothing can compare to the excitement of the movie's finale. It is far superior to 99% of the empty theme movies that are in circulation today. It portrays an excellent display of the clash of the cast's characters. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Consumed by fire, the Phoenix shall rise from its' own ashes
Review: It seems so long since I've reviewed what I consider to be a 5 star film...maybe too long, so I decided to review one of my favorites in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), a tense and wonderfully entertaining, character driven film about a small, yet diverse, group of men struggling to not only overcome the adversity of a harsh and deadly environment, but also having to come to terms with each other, the strengths and flaws inherent within themselves, to complete a nearly impossible task, one that will determine their very survival.

Based on a popular novel by Elleston Trevor, the film is incredibly well directed by Robert Aldrich (whom I'm a big fan of), who also did Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974), to name a few. The film boasts an impressive cast, including James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, and Peter `I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!' Finch. Also appearing are Ernest Borgnine, Hardy Krüger, George Kennedy, and Ian Bannen.

As the film begins, we see a small group of men, some military men, but mostly crewmembers who work on an oil field located somewhere in the Sahara Desert, preparing to leave by plane, one piloted by Captain Frank Towns (Stewart), a world weary airman who's found himself in the position of shuttling men and equipment between outposts in rickety contraptions that resemble airplanes, along with his navigator (who has a penchant for the booze), Lew Morgan (Attenborough). The flight begins well enough, but soon a sandstorm disables the engines, and the plane is forced to crash land in the desert, miles away from any type of civilization, including that precious commodity many of us take for granted being water. After a few days, and hopes of a rescue dwindle away, a German engineer named Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Krüger), returning from visiting his brother at the oil field, proposes a completely fantastic and equally outlandish plan of building another plane from the wreckage of the first. The idea is not well received, especially by Captain Towns, due to its' seeming absurdity, but soon it becomes obvious that this one in a thousand chance is the only one they have, as the alternative is to do nothing and allow the desert to consume them slowly, as they suffer from heat and water deprivation. Now it's a race to complete the insurmountable task of constructing a workable aircraft before their limited water reserves run dry, fighting not only the elements within the desert, the burning heat during the day, the freezing cold at night, murderous nomadic tribes, and the ever present sand (don't you hate it when sand gets in your clothes? I do...), but they must also face their own weaknesses, those now magnified as the ever present threat of death looms so very close.

While this film is listed as an action/adventure/drama, the main element that holds it together is the character driven aspects of the plot featuring those played by Stewart, Attenborough, and Krüger. Stewart's character seems locked in a tense battle of wills against Krüger's, as the realistic captain, concerned with the welfare of his charges, feeling the weight of responsibility, fights for control against Dorfmann, the pragmatic, analytical, and logical engineer with Attenborough's character squarely in the middle, trying maintain the peace and keep hope, along with themselves, alive. The rest of the cast does am extremely fine job in their supporting roles, and I especially enjoyed that of Ian Bannen, as the jovial pessimist, who could nearly always be counted on to provide a bit of harsh levity no matter the situation. The one thing I really enjoyed within this film, and reminded me a little of the Humphrey Bogart film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1946) in that as the story progresses, we see the characters stripped of all the superficial aspects they possess, as their true natures are revealed, for better of worse. Aldrich's direction is impeccable, giving the right amount of attention to all the various aspects of the story, and just generally really putting the viewer within the story, feeling not only the disparity of the situation as the characters do, but the hope and faith the men manage to maintain, qualities I believe to be brought forth from our own instincts of survival and self preservation. One thing I noticed is that the film has no qualms about killing off various characters, regardless of the actor's prestige. So often I've seen films populated with seemingly pointless characters, only to watch them predictably perish, but that's not the case here. There are a number of deaths, and not all of them anticipated. Not only that, but also a few characters who normally would have been marked for death in other, more traditional stories, made it through to the end. The film runs nearly 2 ½ hours, and some would consider that too long, but I really didn't notice as the time was used well developing the characters and creating a sense of empathy for their plight, and ultimately a genuine concern for their well being and a desire to see them succeed in their impossible task.

Presented here is a beautiful widescreen anamorphic picture, with the choice of either Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, Dolby Digital 1.0 audio tracks, both of which sound clear and crisp. There's little in the way of special features, as all that's included are three versions of theatrical trailers for the film, one in English, another in Spanish, and a third in Portuguese. I've noticed there's a remake scheduled for release later this year, starring Dennis Quaid, Giovanni Ribisi, Hugh Laurie, and someone named Sticky Fingaz (I'm serious...that's his name...I later found out he was a member of the hip hop group Oynx, and has since appeared in quite a few films). All I can say is they've got their work cut out for them...

Cookieman108


Rating:
Summary: Unique, Very Atypical American Film
Review: The typical "American" type of story is about the rugged
individualist who overcomes all obstacles to come out
on top at the end. This film turns this on its head.
In this story, those who think in those terms fail, while
those who subordinate themselves to the "miserable Kraut"
(as Capt Townes as played by former bomber pilot Jimmy
Stewart calles Mr Dorfman) end up succeeding. I believe
that the model for aeronautical engineer Dorfman (played
brilliantly by Hardy Krueger) was (in)famous German/American
rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun, who, at the time this
film was made, was at the height of his fame as one of the
leaders of the American space program which was in the midst
of the Apollo program's race to the Moon. Von Braun, who
in the 1950's had reinvented himself as a patriotic American,
had previously been a captain in the dreaded Nazi SS while
he worked on the infamous German V-2 rocket during the Second
World War. Our film's Heinrich Dorfman shows the same
fanatical devotion to his beloved technological project while
at the same time showing indifference to human suffering
around him (although the writers do show him express an unexpected touch of humanity as he helps a weak man).
One can argue with the writers if they are trying to tell
the viewer that sometimes one has to learn to cooperate
with people who have a checkered past in order to achieve
a worthy goal, but in any event this film is magnificent
entertainment, one of my very favorites. I would recommend
that anyone who is interested in the remake which is coming out now, save his money and just see this original version.

Rating:
Summary: My all-time favorite movie
Review: First, thanks to Steve for the info on the DVD missing some important scenes. I'll buy the VHS and transfer it to DVD. (I can't believe they'd cut anything from this awesome movie.) That aside, the lesson of courage and cowardice in this movie, coupled with the concept of building a -flying wing- has made it my all-time favorite ever since I was a little girl (yeah, some girls like mechanical stuff, too). By the way, there's a 2004 version coming to theatres in October. There's no way they'll ever make it as good as the original, but I'm glad a new generation will be able to enjoy it.