There are some nice scenes of flight in the giant German zeppelin, The Hindenburg. The 1930s were a period of experimentation with zeppelins for various purposes. Smaller versions, called blimps, are still used to spot drug smugglers and illegal immigrants by TV cameras.
They seem like a nice way to get from one place to another by air, don't they? The travel slowly, placidly even, and low enough so that you can savor all the features of the landscape you're flying over.
The problem was that they kept falling apart in storms, collapsing for unexplained reasons, or blowing up, like the Hindenburg. In this case the problem was the gas used to provide buoyancy. Hydrogen gas is the lightest element there is, and the first to be created after the Big Bang. After 1937 it was replaced by helium, the second lightest element with an atomic number of 2, and inert.
There's a Big Bang in this movie too but it's not caused by God but rather by a bomb hidden aboard the zeppelin by an anti-Nazi character (Atherton), assisted by George C. Scott. The point is to destroy spectacularly the pride of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, there is a delay in landing and the bomb goes off prematurely, before the passengers and crew can dis-zeppelin. But, not to worry. The two monstrous little kids who must always be among the passengers of jeopardized flying machines survive. So does the stupid dog. (I think) George C. Scott doesn't make it and it's too bad because his intentions are of the best, he's polite and generous, and he plays the role of the disillusioned Nazi in a subdued fashion. Atherton doesn't make it either but I'm not sure he really wanted to. "The Countess" played by Anne Bancroft survives, her kickshaws intact, and that's good because she's an intelligent and striking actress, now that she's gotten past her early roles as a sexpot or gorilla bait. What a wide and welcoming smile she has, and sexy too.
So it's May, 1937, and the bloated thing arrives at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and bursts into flame just as it's being moored. The cinematic presentation must have given director Robert Wise a problem. Video footage of the explosion and collapse is widely available. Everybody has seen it. That makes it difficult to create in model form, and there are no CGIs in 1975. So Wise chops the newsreel footage up into sections, some magnified, of this magnificent disaster. Each section of newsreel lasts a few seconds and stops on a freeze frame. Then, for a minute or so, we cut to the passengers that we've come to know, scrambling desperately for their lives amid the flaming, falling wreckage. Then back to another few seconds of the original news footage. Then back to the passengers for a minute or so. What took only about a minute of real time is stretched out to about ten minutes on the screen.
The Nazi vs. anti-Nazi plot is to be expected. The other back stories are routine, including the shell of a romance between Scott and Bancroft. More interesting are the scenes inside the airship -- the cat walks, the gas balloons, a dangerous extra-vehicle trip to repair a rip in the outer canvas. And then there are the picturesque ice bergs near Newfoundland, the smokestacks of New York City, and snotty remarks about New Jersey, where I was born, being a land of moonshiners. I'm here to tell you that there were no moonshiners in New Jersey in 1937, just truck farmers growing tomatoes and other vegetables to be sold to the corrupt and "sophisiticated" urbanites of New York City. I suspect the Hindenburg chose to blow up where it did because Manhattan was simply not GOOD enough for it to happen there. Better for it to provide an unforgettable spectacle for those God-fearing sons of the soil living in the Garden State.
They seem like a nice way to get from one place to another by air, don't they? The travel slowly, placidly even, and low enough so that you can savor all the features of the landscape you're flying over.
The problem was that they kept falling apart in storms, collapsing for unexplained reasons, or blowing up, like the Hindenburg. In this case the problem was the gas used to provide buoyancy. Hydrogen gas is the lightest element there is, and the first to be created after the Big Bang. After 1937 it was replaced by helium, the second lightest element with an atomic number of 2, and inert.
There's a Big Bang in this movie too but it's not caused by God but rather by a bomb hidden aboard the zeppelin by an anti-Nazi character (Atherton), assisted by George C. Scott. The point is to destroy spectacularly the pride of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, there is a delay in landing and the bomb goes off prematurely, before the passengers and crew can dis-zeppelin. But, not to worry. The two monstrous little kids who must always be among the passengers of jeopardized flying machines survive. So does the stupid dog. (I think) George C. Scott doesn't make it and it's too bad because his intentions are of the best, he's polite and generous, and he plays the role of the disillusioned Nazi in a subdued fashion. Atherton doesn't make it either but I'm not sure he really wanted to. "The Countess" played by Anne Bancroft survives, her kickshaws intact, and that's good because she's an intelligent and striking actress, now that she's gotten past her early roles as a sexpot or gorilla bait. What a wide and welcoming smile she has, and sexy too.
So it's May, 1937, and the bloated thing arrives at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and bursts into flame just as it's being moored. The cinematic presentation must have given director Robert Wise a problem. Video footage of the explosion and collapse is widely available. Everybody has seen it. That makes it difficult to create in model form, and there are no CGIs in 1975. So Wise chops the newsreel footage up into sections, some magnified, of this magnificent disaster. Each section of newsreel lasts a few seconds and stops on a freeze frame. Then, for a minute or so, we cut to the passengers that we've come to know, scrambling desperately for their lives amid the flaming, falling wreckage. Then back to another few seconds of the original news footage. Then back to the passengers for a minute or so. What took only about a minute of real time is stretched out to about ten minutes on the screen.
The Nazi vs. anti-Nazi plot is to be expected. The other back stories are routine, including the shell of a romance between Scott and Bancroft. More interesting are the scenes inside the airship -- the cat walks, the gas balloons, a dangerous extra-vehicle trip to repair a rip in the outer canvas. And then there are the picturesque ice bergs near Newfoundland, the smokestacks of New York City, and snotty remarks about New Jersey, where I was born, being a land of moonshiners. I'm here to tell you that there were no moonshiners in New Jersey in 1937, just truck farmers growing tomatoes and other vegetables to be sold to the corrupt and "sophisiticated" urbanites of New York City. I suspect the Hindenburg chose to blow up where it did because Manhattan was simply not GOOD enough for it to happen there. Better for it to provide an unforgettable spectacle for those God-fearing sons of the soil living in the Garden State.