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The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

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33 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
Superb All-Guy Drama, 23 novembre 2004
Author: Ephraim Gadsby da USA

"The Flight of the Phoenix", based on the Elleston Trevor novel, has little more than one set and no costume changes; and the action is confined to the few yards around an airplane crashed in the desert. Yet its story is more gripping than most "action" movies.

An old airplane owned by an oil company crashes at the hands of a crusty old pilot (James Stewart) whose bitterness and fatalism are brought out when he's forced to admit the crash was due to pilot error. His half-alcoholic navigator has insured that the plane was off course, and cannot be discovered by rescue craft (if any); he's a nice guy and becomes the mediator between the rancorous passengers and crew, but he lacks self-confidence (Richard Attenborough in a finely understated performance). The passengers include a company accountant (Dan Duryea); a shell-shocked employee (Ernest Borgnine, by turns touching and silly) sent home in the company of his doctor (Christian Marquand); a straight-laced British officer (Peter Finch) and his mutinous sergeant (Ronald Fraser); several oil company employees, including one who is always making vicious jokes at the expense of the others (Ian Bannen); and a German "designer" (Hardy Kruger) who went to the oil fields to visit his brother.

Stranded in the desert with no hope of rescue, they debate various schemes for salvation, all of which fail, until Kruger tells the others he is an airplane designer and he has discovered a way to build a new plane from the spare parts of the old one. All it needs for a handful of unskilled men, living on a little water and no food but pressed dates, coping with unbearable heat during the day and unbearable cold at night, to transform themselves into aircraft manufacturers before they all succumb.

All performances are good. Some of the actors (George Kennedy, the always interesting Dan Duryea) are woefully underused -- perhaps large segments of their roles wound up on the cutting-room floor. The major tension is the confrontation between Stewart's old-school pilot and Kruger's technologically self-righteous engineer (at one point, Stewart's character makes the incredibly prescient remark that one day the little men with their slide-rules and computers will inherit the earth).

Even when they all decide they'd rather attempt building the new plane with hope than sit around watching each other die, new surprises spring up that compromise the whole thing.

The script and the acting are solid, especially James Stewart in a different and challenging role. The music is sometimes overwhelming, and stings give unnecessary emphasis to some lines. Also of interest is the listing in the credits of "The Love Theme" which seems like a silly thing to call it.

A superlative story of men living on the ragged edge of survival, working together but not necessarily getting along or surrendering their own values.

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23 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
A true "classic". Please, please don't miss this film., 2 gennaio 2004

Author: bigpeeler da St.Louis, Missouri

I have seen this film maybe, 20 times over the last 30 years. It's one of the rare movies that entertains each and every time. Seeing movies like Flight Of The Phoenix only reminds me just how bad "Hollywood" has gotten.

The plot. It is quite simple really. Survival. But how the writers, producers and directors mold the basic premise into a complex and compelling 2 hours of cinema is a delight.

To watch Stewart, Finch, Attenborough, Kruger and company work in this movie is to see the difference between actors of yesteryear and movie stars of today.

I am watching the movie as I type this and I'm watching Attenborough react to finding out Kruger's "secret". His laughter is both hilarious and pitiable. And the look of shock and confusion on Stewart's face says it all.

As you can tell, I love this movie. I cannot vote it or recommend it highly enough. You would be well served to find this on DVD. Enjoy and happy flying.

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28 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Tension and drama are the making of a classic., 1 febbraio 2001
Author: ilaurie da Houston, Renfrewshire

Where as many films with star casts have failed, this one does not.

This film oozes quality by the bucket load. It centres round the story of the survivors of a plane crash who attempt to build a plane out of the wreckage. The tension is apparent from the start with the heat of the desert alone almost driving the characters to madness.

The combination of brilliant script and excellent acting brings to the fore a brilliant film. Ian Bannen, in particular, gives gives both grit and relish in his possibily his greatest screen performance.

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20 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Good film about the use of resources., 21 gennaio 2000
Author: yenlo da Auburn, Me

Edwin Aldrin the second man to walk on the moon was asked once if he was in his spacecraft and his engine quit running and he was going to die in an hour how would he spend that last hour? He replied `I'd work on the engine.' This film essentially is about that same type situation. A cargo plane with passengers aboard goes down in the Arabian Desert and the survivors quickly come to the realization that they eventually will be found but probably by that time they will be dead. One of the passengers says he can build a flyable plane out the existing wreckage and they can save themselves. However he's never taken on a project quite this large before.

There are a number of little subplots with the characters to include a hard-nosed pilot, his booze guzzling co-pilot, a British Army sergeant who has a dislike for officers, A by the book British Army officer, A doctor, A mental patient, A cynical oil field worker, an accountant, and so forth. It's somewhat of an all star cast so it helps the picture. Although a little long the film is intriguing. The only damper on this movie is that Paul Mantz a superb pilot was killed in the making of it.

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19 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
A masterpiece from the good old days, 3 gennaio 2001

Author: Joe-385 da United States

I agree with most of the people here that this movie is an overlooked gem. It always comes to mind when I think of movie classics, but most people I've known have never seen it. If it comes on TV or you get the chance to rent it, definitely give it a look.

While the movie stands alone as a great suspense and survival movie with great dialogue and a greater cast, it also has some aspects that give it deeper significance. A couple of people have commented on the "old school seat-of-the-pants flying" vs. "mathematical engineering" conflict in the movie, and this is certainly a big part of it.

Another conflict, subtler but just as important, has gone completely unmentioned here. That's the issue of the crew's mistrust of Kruger for being German. This movie is pretty important for the way it excellently touches on the tension many people still felt by the sixties on working side by side with the former enemy in the new postwar world. It's not an accident that the three main characters that have to come together to survive are American, English and German. "Flight of the Phoenix" is one movie that is timeless in its direct appeal but should be taken in context of the time in which it was produced in order to be fully appreciated.

Taking these conflicts together, the overall message is clear. In the brave new world, unless we put aside old divisions and value input from everyone, no one gets out alive.

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17 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
An enjoyable performance driven spin on the disaster movie genre, 3 agosto 2003
Author: bob the moo da Birmingham, UK

Returning from an oil field with a plane full of crew etc going on leave, Frank Towns' plane enters a sandstorm over the Sahara desert and crashes. As various attempts at rescue or escape fail one passenger, Dorfmann suggests his plan to rebuild the plane as a smaller version and attempt to fly out, leaving the bulk of the damage craft behind. However tensions mount as personalities conflict as all the men face death.

I had only ever heard of this film before I finally got round to watching it last night on television. I was aware of the basic plot and had assumed it was more recent that it actually was. I watched it assuming that it was made in the early seventies when the disaster movie genre was just starting to take off (sorry – accidental pun). However this was made prior to this and is probably a much better film for it – in the seventies the film would have required more spectacle, so the crash would have been much more dramatic and horrifying. As it is now, the film is more about the men under stress than it is about anything else.

This is brought out well and the majority of the drama and tension within the film is as much from these conflicts as it is from the pressure to escape the desert. The film is longer than I expected it to be but it pretty much sustains itself for that length. The main reason for the film working so well is the cast, which has it's fair share of famous faces but also has more than it's fair share of good performances.

Stewart is really strong in the lead (although, in fairness, there is no one main character) and becomes increasingly grizzled as the film goes on. His character is not without flaws even if he does come out of this well. Attenborough is also good but is less evident in the film than some of the others. Krüger has the least pleasant of the roles given that he plays a tough German. He manages to make the character likeable while still going about his task with a strict organised German air to him. Finch is good and is well supported by Fraser. The support cast includes strong performances from Borgnine, Bannen, Kennedy, Marquand and the director's own son is thrown in for colour!

Overall this is much better than the disaster-type movie I had expected as it is a film where the plane crash isn't a blaze of spectacle and the death scenes aren't played out for full effect. Instead it is a tension adventure story that is driven by some great performances by a cast full of well known actors.

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17 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Jimmy Stewart as good as ever, 29 settembre 2004
Author: iandcooper da Cheltenham, England

The pilot character "Frank Towers" played by the wonderful (life) Jimmy Stewart is typical of the era it portrayed. Many ex-service pilots found work in the civilian aviation world - their training, paid for by Governments, was a cheap way of crewing aircraft. This film portrays such a pilot - taught to fly "by the seat of his pants" demonstrates the risks of such a policy.

"Frank Towers" flies on regardless of his navigator's (Dickie Attenborough) concerns, into a cloud of locusts. The engines air-intakes clog up and the outcome is inevitable.

Hardy Kruger's performance as "Hienrich Dorfmunn" is a classic. As an model-aircraft designer, "Frank" fails to accept the parallel between models and "real" aircraft calling them "toys". His arrogance almost scuppers the plan to build a flyable contraption made from the wreckage of the crashed aircraft.

The labour for this endeavour comes from the motley group of passengers whom include Earnest Borgnine as a simpleton, Peter Finch as a British Army officer with Ronald Fraser as his reluctant sargeant. Ian Bannen as "ratbags" plays the cynical Scot. Dickie Attenborugh's "Lew Moran" becomes the arbitor in a complex chronology of events which collectively conspire to prevent success.

Stunt pilot Paul Mantz to whom the film is dedicated, died during its making. Clearly the aircraft with skis on sand was a non-starter, and "wheels" miraculously appeared during the take-off scene. This takes nothing away from the story and it is certainly gripping stuff.

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15 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Great character studies in a survival context., 28 febbraio 2005

Author: bobprell da Australia

These comments are partly inspired by other comments and the message boards. This film presents a hypothetical survival situation and does a great job of showing how innovation and persistence bring the survivors through. Strengths and weaknesses are plausibly portrayed in characters who have depth and a mix of vices and virtues. That Sgt Watson does not suffer for his sin is just the sort of thing that makes this an adult movie. That's what "real life" is like. Often people who do the wrong thing seem to go unpunished, or worse, to actually benefit. You could get a whole other novel out of the Sgt's subsequent life. There was a real survivor story a few years back where a trimaran, the "Rose-Noelle" capsized, and the crew existed on the overturned craft for many weeks. There were tensions between people. Each individual seemed to be weak in some ways and strong in others - eg one guy was very despondent and was often treated with contempt by 2 others, but he was also far more patient at fishing, he caught a lot more than anyone else. The skipper/owner kept up his leadership role and the others resented him being hard on them (I thought no harder than was needed). When the trimaran eventually ran ashore, and they were picked up by emergency services, at least 2 of the crew immediately separated themselves from the skipper and never contacted him afterward, according to his book. When these two wrote their own book, they stated that they had taken food from the common store when they weren't being watched. I was flabbergasted that they would admit such a thing without feeling any guilt. They didn't express any anyway.

In the 70s I read a self-improvement book about so-called "non-eroneous" people who would never worry about what other people thought about them or what they did. I now believe the old saying that "Only very competent men, or very beautiful women, or very rich people of either gender can afford to be totally forthright all the time." Hardy Kruger's character was a wonderful example of the "non-erroneous" person. His view was that he worked harder, he planned everything, he was essential to the project, so it was OK for him to take more water than the others. He openly admitted it when confronted by the pilot (James Stewart). However he changed his behaviour because he saw that he had to get people on-side if the project was to succeed. That a model aircraft engineers skills were as good as a full-size engineers was self-evident to him.

He was not without his faults however. During the engine-starting sequence, he rather lost his nerve. He was not able to trust the best man for the task (the pilot), to do the task, without trying to interfere. Hardy Kruger is one of my favorite actors, very versatile, he always managed to please even when cast in utter tripe like Hatari!

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Robert Aldrich gave considerable force in his depiction of human moral weakness…, 5 agosto 2005

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) da Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A twin-engine propeller airplane, carrying a group of oil company people to a Saharan outpost, crashes in the African desert…

On board, a handful of disparate characters: a jovial pessimist, a noble doctor, a 'frantic' fellow, a distrustful bitter pilot, determined to contradict most suggested plans; a British military officer who reacts in the only way he knows; an insubordinate sergeant who refuses to take any risk; an eccentric airplane designer proposing a seemingly impossible goal… and a nervy navigator who tries to hold the group together…

The marooned survivors (with no hopes of being found or rescued) realize their best hope is the 'impossible': to accept the task of building a smaller plane, a "Phoenix," from the wreckage of the old…

The depiction of the construction is fascinating as much of the true characters of the men (facing the savagely violent environment) come out under the threat of thirst, hunger, and exposure… The degree of their weakness, consternation, arrogance, selfishness, and cowardice is successfully described…

Aldrich tries to build a film filled with self-sacrifice, crazed arguments, and, above all else, a slow descent into foolish acts by all… He keeps us in constant suspense, wondering if the rebuild plane will get successfully off the ground?

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14 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best survival films ever, 9 dicembre 2004

Author: brian-j-huffman da Minneapolis/St. Paul Metro

I use snippets from this film in a project management class. It is hard to imagine how the casting could have been any better. Jimmy Stewart plays the part of the aging pilot with an adventurous past so well not only because he was a terrific actor, but because he really was an aging pilot with a an adventurous past. Richart Attenborrow (spelling?) is wonderful as the diplomatic copilot that stands between Stewart and the engineer played by Kruger.

The dialogue was some of the best I've ever heard. "Mr. Townes you behave as though stupidity were a virtue..." You have to love it.

I'm almost sorry to see this movie being remade since it was done so well, but I'll still line up for the new one just to see if the magic can be made to work twice.

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