The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

Robert Aldrich

Writers:

Lukas Heller (screenplay)
Trevor Dudley Smith (novel)

Release Date:

15 December 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Tagline:

One of the most startling twists of fate you have ever experienced in a motion picture!

Plot:

After a plane crash in the Sahara, one of the survivors says he's an airplane designer and they can make a flyable plane from the wreckage.

Plot Keywords:

Airplane | Sahara | Cargo Plane | Sandstorm | Dehydration

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 5 nominations

Cast

James Stewart	...	Frank Towns
Richard Attenborough	...	Lew Moran
Peter Finch	...	Captain Harris
Hardy Krüger	...	Heinrich Dorfmann (as Hardy Kruger)
Ernest Borgnine	...	Trucker Cobb
Ian Bannen	...	Crow
Ronald Fraser	...	Sergeant Watson
Christian Marquand	...	Dr. Renaud
Dan Duryea	...	Standish
George Kennedy	...	Bellamy
Gabriele Tinti	...	Gabriel
Alex Montoya	...	Carlos
Peter Bravos	...	Tasso
William Aldrich	...	Bill
Barrie Chase	...	Farida

Runtime:

142 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #21017) | West Germany:12 (f) | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 (re-rating) | Norway:16 (original rating) | Sweden:15 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Buttercup Valley, California, USA

Company:

Associates & Aldrich Company, The

Trivia:

At least one of the aircraft used once flew for the US Marine Corps. The passenger information board inside the fuselage shows VMR-253, a USMC transport squadron, and R4Q-1, the military type designation, and the military serial, BuNo, 126580.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Early in the movie, while Cobb is taking a walk in the dunes around the crash site, the camera looks back at the downed aircraft and shows the Port (left) tail boom broken in half. In every other part of the movie, the Starboard (right) tail boom is broken in half.

Quotes:

Frank Towns: Your theory's fine, but you get this mister... that engine's rated at two thousand horsepower and if I was ever fool enough to let it get started up it'd shake your patched-up pile of junk into a thousand pieces, and cut us up into mincemeat with the propeller.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The Odd Couple: The Fight of the Felix (#1.2)" (1970)

Soundtrack:

Senza Fine

Superb All-Guy Drama

"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.