That’s precisely what is wrong – he has remembered everything and learned nothing!
Today on Classic Movie Review, we are taking on The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). I have always enjoyed this movie, but watching it now, knowing more about the actors makes the movie enjoyable at a higher level. By this, I mean knowing that the pilot James Stewart was an Air Force general with World War II experience, Dan Duryea, a master bad guy from Film Noir, played the role of a timid accountant, George Kennedy, who played a master mechanic in Airport (1977) casually working on the desert built plane, and Hardy Krüger, a former Hitler Youth, and face of many German soldiers in films such as Taxi for Tobruk (1961) and A Bridge Too Far (1977), playing an anti-Nazi German (as he actually was). I don’t know how they missed him for The Longest Day (1962).
On the bright side, I have received a lot of contacts this month. On the dark side, a lot of it is because of some actors’ deaths. Gene K. contacted me about William Holden and his senseless death. Secretariat, Terry W, and Alexandre contacted me about In the Heat of the Night (1967). Sidney Poitier will be sadly missed. David R. contacted me about the untimely death of Gilbert Gottfried. I thought he was a great comedian, but I don’t think I will review Hot to Trot (1988). Finally, Robert H. told me about a John Huston autobiography titled “An Open Book” 1980. I very much look forward to reading this book.
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) has an unexpectantly low 7.5 rating on iMDB.com[1]. On Rottentomatoes.com, the film is rated a little better, with 86 percent on the Tomatometer and 81 percent audience approval[2].
In a February 1, 1966 review, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowthers said:
“All through this too long picture about a planeload of men who are downed in the wastes of the Sahara by a crippling accident, the viewer finds himself snorting at the successive stupidities of the men and at the oversights of reason and likelihood in the script. Never mind that the dazed and shocked survivors are initially disorganized and reluctant to accept a leader after the plane has flattened on the sand. This is dramatically valid and psychologically conceivable, even though one of the survivors is the pilot, played by the ever-tough James Stewart, and another is a British army captain, played by Peter Finch. Never mind, either, that the captain insists on starting out on foot to seek aid after a few days, even though this seems a reckless thing to do. His impatience with the listlessness and bickering of his fellows is understandable. And never mind, finally, that the method of salvation is a piece of mechanical contrivance that taxes credulity—the painful and piecemeal construction of a smaller plane out of working parts of the downed craft, which the survivors use to fly from their seeming burial place in the desert. The phoenix arises from the ashes, you see. What is extremely aggravating and erosive of belief is the constant overlooking of factors that would normally prevail, and the neglect of devices for survival that would occur to the rawest amateur—which these fellows aren’t, incidentally. They are flyers, oil-field workers, scientists—precisely the sort of people you would expect to know what to do. Not a move is made, for instance, to repair the plane’s broken radio and get off a signal. They haul out tools and build another plane. But they don’t devote a bit of ingenuity to fixing the radio. They don’t lay out a large ground signal that might be seen by a searching plane, and no search planes fly over. If a search is being made, as it normally would, no mention is made of it, and no attempt is made to find out whether there is one by means of a transistor radio. These fellows seem blandly indifferent to what should be their most strong and constant hope. At one point, they shoot a crippled camel that has been left by a passing Arab band. Then they forget to butcher it and eat it, even though they’ve been eating nothing but dried dates for days. They keep electric lights burning brightly in the cabin of the downed plane, even though the electricity has to come through storage batteries, which require distilled water to stay alive—just as men do. And water is one of the scarcest things they have.
But with the drama being mainly a tepid and tedious dispute between the pilot and a German plane designer who insists upon building the make-shift plane, and then the low and painful business of knocking it together, it is hardly a situation to hold one in rigid suspense. And with the characters all being fellows of limited fascination, at best, who accumulate nothing as time passes except horrible sun blisters and beards, the attraction of being with them in their ordeal is minuscule.”[3]
Actors – The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Returning
James Stewart is tailor-made for the role of crusty veteran pilot Frank Towns. This first-rate actor and Air Force pilot was first covered in the Frank Capra-directed Christmas film – It’s A Wonderful Life (1946).
Veteran Film Noir actor Dan Duryea played mild-mannered accountant Standish. Duryea was first covered in the Humphrey Bogart war film Sahara (1943), which was set in the general location of this film.
George Kennedy played driller Bellamy. He doesn’t do a lot in this film, but I like to think this is where he became a master aviation mechanic for his role in Airport (1977). Kennedy was first covered in the John Wayne war film In Harm’s Way (1965).
Ernest Borgnine played Trucker Cobb, a man that has had a nervous breakdown and is being sent home. The more I watch Borgnine, the more I see that he really is a top ten performer. Borgnine was first covered in the tights and fights film The Vikings (1958).
New
Hardy Krüger played aviation engineer Heinrich Dorfmann. Krüger was born in Berlin in 1928. Not the best time to be at that location. At 13, Krüger joined the Hitler Youth. I’m not really sure it was optional. In 1944, he was in a Nazi propaganda film translated as Young Eagles (1944). At 16, he was drafted into the German Army.
Following the war, Krüger made a handful of German films and English language films. In 1957, he began making British films. Krüger was cast in the John Wayne safari romp Hatari! (1962) as his first American film. Of course, the following year, Krüger had a prominent role in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
Krüger made movies regularly and ran a lodge in Tanzania. His movies include The Battle of Neretva (1969), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Spy Who Never Was (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), a film I dependably rank one or two on my list of favorites, and The Wild Geese (1978) where he was great a racist Afrikaner. Krüger retired from movies in the 1980s and died in 2022.
Peter Finch played driven British Army officer Captain Harris. Finch was born in London in 1916. At the age of ten, Finch moved to Australia. Finch worked odd jobs until he stumbled into theater work. Finch made several films in Australia. Laurence Olivier noticed the young actor and contracted with him to work in England on the stage.
Finch eventually switched to movies and was working steadily from 1938. Some of his movies include The Rats of Tobruk (1944), Kidnapped (1951), Elephant Walk (1954), The Warriors (1955), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), First Men in the Moon (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), and Network (1976).
Finch posthumously won the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Network (1976). Finch gave us the line in this last role, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Finch died in 1977 from a heart attack after appearing on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”
Richard Attenborough played the drinking navigator Lew Moran. Attenborough was born in England in 1923. His mother was active in theater, and his father was a university president. Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester before being accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 17.
Attenborough’s first film was an uncredited role In Which We Serve (1942). During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force. Some of his films include Brighton Rock (1948), Dunkirk (1958), The Great Escape (1963), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Sand Pebbles (1966) as the hopelessly in love Frenchy, Doctor Dolittle (1967), Ten Little Indians (1974), Rosebud (1975), The Chess Players (1977), a bit in A Bridge Too Far (1977) which he also directed, and after The Human Factor (1979) with director Otto Preminger, Attenborough stopped acting.
After a time, he recanted to play the role of dinosaur manufacturer Hammond in Jurassic Park (1993), Kriss Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), Hamlet (1996), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and Elizabeth (1998).
Attenborough directed 12 films; Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), Young Winston (1972), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Magic (1978), Gandhi (1982), A Chorus Line (1985), Cry Freedom (1987), Chaplin (1992), Shadowlands (1993), In Love and War (1996), Grey Owl (1999), and Closing the Ring (2007).
When Attenborough’s career ended, he had two Oscars, Best Picture and Best Director for Gandhi (1982), four BAFTA’s, and three Golden Globes. Attenborough died in 2014.
Story – The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
A twin-engined C-82 Packet cargo plane lifts off from Jaghbub, which is located near the Egyptian border and is destined for the seaport of Benghazi in Libya. The plane is marked with Arabco stickers, a fictitious international oil company. Including the pilot and navigator, 14 men and one small monkey are on board.
As the fight proceeds, we are slowly introduced to most of the men. The plane’s grizzled pilot is Frank Towns (James Stewart). He has been flying so long that planes didn’t have wings when he began, and for flying, you had to steal feathers from a bird.
This is a common trope in aviation movies as the pilot in command is from the old days and can fly anything. They are not soft like these new pilots. I guess they have the right stuff, as we should learn about on the 300th podcast episode.
Lew Moran (Richard Attenborough), the navigator, is in the back inspecting control cables. Lew speaks with one of the three Red Shirts, Gabriele (Gabriele Tinti), who is desperate to get home and deal with a problem his wife is facing.
In the cockpit, Towns notes that the radio is inoperative, and the voltage regulators don’t work either. This should have been noticed during the pre-flight check.
The other passengers are Standish (Dan Duryea), a timid company accountant; Bellamy (George Kennedy), a worker; Trucker Cobb (Ernest Borgnine), who has had a mental breakdown, German Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Krüger), who is an engineer that had been visiting his brother, Captain Harris (Peter Finch) a British Army officer, the totally worthless Sergeant Watson (Ronald Fraser), French Dr. Renaud (Christian Marquand), a Scot called Ratbags Crow (Ian Bannen) who acts just like the name, Carlos (Alex Montoya) who has a pet monkey, and the two other red shirts Tasso (Peter Bravos) and Bill (William Aldrich).
Lew is a great navigator, but he has become too fond of the grape. Frank leaves him flying the plane while he goes back to check the cable. The plane is loaded with oil well heads and barrels.
When Frank returns to the cockpit, there is a bad sandstorm in the direction they are flying. Bad sandstorm kind of underplays the storm. This is like the storm The Mummy (1999) made or the one that lasted a year and buried the Ark of the Covenant. Frank decides not to try for the alternate airport and is unhappy when Lew takes a drink.
Frank and Lew also see that the storm is behind them, so they can’t make the alternate. Frank wants to try and climb over the storm. As some passengers interact, the plane is swallowed by the sandstorm. The right engine konks out very quickly. Frank decides to land with wheels down so they can take off later. Before they can land, the left engine goes out as well.
The credits roll.
Frank gets the plane to the ground, but the gear stored in the back breaks loose and causes death and destruction.
The passengers run away from the plane as they think it will blow up. The three red shirts are trapped in the back. Tasso and Bill are dead. Gabriele’s legs are crushed, and he will probably die soon.
The survivors bury the two dead men a short distance from the crash. Captain Harris begins helping organize water and flares. Crow doesn’t like Heinrich, and there seems to be some residual anger from World War II. Cobb has cross-words with Dr. Renaud. Frank believes the cause of the crash was pilot error.
Captain Harris and Dr. Renaud believe they can stretch the water out to 11 days if they don’t work. Standish wants to use some water for bathing and is roundly mocked. They have an ample supply of dried dates, so they won’t starve. Crow mentions eating the monkey.
They are over a hundred miles off their course, but Frank thinks they will be found. Cobb has a transistor radio, and Frank tries to find news about the search. Frank gets into a rile with Heinrich.
The group hangs around the camp and deals with the wind and sand. Lew is changing as he gives his booze to Gabriele. Gabriele is worried about his wife. The group slowly separates into two cliques, those that think they will be found and those that know they will die.
By day five, Heinrich is adapting to the heat and working on some type of plan. When Heinrich burns his fingertips on some hot metal, he touches the tips to his earlobe. This is a trick to take away the pain of a slight finger burn. It really works.
A jet passes over at a high altitude, but the survivors’ smoke pots and signaling are not noticed. As Bosley Crowther said, they could have laid out an arrow on the ground or even used a mirror as a reflector.
Captain Harris decides he will take Sergeant Watson and walk across the desert for help. Lew and Frank do everything they can to discourage him. Suppose he is one degree off in his celestial navigation. In that case, he could walk by the Eiffel Tower in broad daylight without seeing it.
Now, I walked six-tenths of a mile, in the night, at Great Sand Dunes, and I will vouch that they have no chance of surviving the march. Captain Harris will not take no for an answer.
Heinrich announces to Lew and Frank that they can rebuild the wrecked plane and fly it out. Frank thinks Heinrich is joking, and he leaves mad. Cobb starts giving his gear away as he plans to leave with Captain Harris. Frank finds out that Cobb has not talked to Captain Harris.
Sergeant Watson fakes a sprained ankle so he won’t have to go on the trip. Cobb finds out that he can’t go, and he attacks Captain Harris. The others have to restrain the screaming madman.
Carlos gives his monkey to Bellamy as he has decided to join the trek. After five days, it would be time to eat the monkey with no meat.
Heinrich tells Lew that he’s an aircraft designer. Dr. Renaud calms Cobb by telling him he will recover from his mental exhaustion. Captain Harris and Carlos head out. They say they will need a smoke signal for three days. After that, it will not be needed.
Sergeant Watson sees tracks leading away from the crash. He runs back to tell them Cobb has left to follow the Captain. Frank sees that the Sergeant is not injured. Frank decided to go after Cobb alone.
Frank follows the trail and eventually finds Cobb. But, it is too late. Cobb has died from the heat, writing his name in the sand as the last act.
Heinrich begins to show Lew how the plane’s rebuilding could be accomplished. Lew says Frank is the pilot that can get anything off the ground. Heinrich calculates human life as a variable, and Lew gets offended.
Later, as the men are drinking their ration, a heat-worn Frank makes it back to the crash site. That night Frank tells Lew they have no chance of being saved. Lew tells about the airplane plan.
Heinrich explains his plan to the group. In short, the plan is to pull the right wing over the airplane and attach it to the left wing and engine. The riders will be behind farings on the wings, and the plane will have skids instead of wheels. Again Heinrich calculates human life in his equation. This sits badly with the others. Frank gives every reason why the plan will not work, but Heinrich is not deterred.
Heinrich plans for the work to begin that night. He has created a hand-power electrical crank system. Dr. Renaud and Lew convince Frank that it would be good for the men to have something to do with their remaining time.
Under Heinrich’s direction, the men begin the work. It is good that most are strong oil workers with lots of experience with tools. Time passes, and Heinrich builds a water still. Again, something that could have been done on day one. Crow brings up World War II when talking with Heinrich. Frank is the most passive-aggressive worker ever.
From the top of the wrecked airplane, Sergeant Watson sees something on the edge of their crash site. He goes to investigate and finds Captain Harris. However, he doesn’t tell anyone. Harris appears to be near death.
The group manages to get the right wing pulled to the left side of the wreck. Sergeant Watson goes to sleep without helping Captain Harris. Henrich continues to work. Henrich goes to his still and finds Captain Harris. Miraculously, the man is still alive.
Standish checks on the two sick men resting in the wreckage. The monkey goes crazy. Captain Harris wakes to find that Gabriele has killed himself, believing his sick wife has died. Most of the men want to give up after the suicide, but Henrich insists they stay on schedule.
Franks says that someone is stealing water, and if he finds out who did it, he will kill him. Heinrich confesses that he took extra water because he worked more hours than the others. Heinrich says now they will all work the same hours.
Lew rages on Frank about not believing in Henrich. Frank fires back that if Lew had not been drinking, he would have checked the weather and known about the sandstorm. Lew goes back to the wreck and begins working so the other men will follow. Lew and Frank reconcile.
Slowly, the new plane comes together. It is all done through engineering, brute strength, and willpower. When Captain Harris tries to return to work before he is ready, Henrich shows a compassionate side. The others are impressed.
Frank is worried that they are using too much water. Captain Harris is being kind to Sergeant Watson, and Watson thinks he knows about the faked injury. The group manages to get the two wings attached to the engine. They still haven’t eaten the monkey.
Standish paints “The Phoenix” on the craft’s body. Of course, it is named after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes. Captain Harris hears something and finds a group of Bedouins and their ships of the desert camping on the other side of the dune. Lew says that the Bedouins are killers. Henrich wants to leave them alone.
Captain Harris says he will take Sergeant Watson with him to contact the Arabs. His plan is to come in from another direction so the Arabs can’t find the crash site if they are hostile. Sergeant Watson refuses to go to the Arabs. Watson refuses to be disarmed. Harris won’t let Frank go with him as he feels they will need a pilot for flying the plane. Dr. Renaud volunteers to go with Harris.
In the morning, the survivors see that the camp is empty except for a camel. Frank takes Watson’s gun. Frank and Lew head down and find that the camel is lame, and both Harris and Renaud have had their throats cut. Frank uses up the bullets to kill the camel rather than using it for food.
Back at the crash site, Watson is happy that Harris is dead. Frank knocks him to the ground. Later Watson has a mirage of a belly dancer (Barrie Chase), and she is the only female in the movie.
Frank insists that they test the engine. Henrich wants to wait and makes a case that they only have seven total starter cartridges. Frank orders the men to help, and Henrich throws a massive wrench at him. Henrich goes on strike. Later Frank realizes he has been wrong. Lew convinces Henrich to go back to work.
Henrich addresses the group and makes Frank say that Henrich is the authority.
Lew and Frank go to talk to Henrich about some control cables. While there, Frank sees a magazine and finds out that Henrich is a model airplane designer. Lew and Frank can’t believe that Henrich has never made a full-size airplane. Lew and Frank decide to keep this information from the rest of the crew. Lew has a mini-breakdown.
Lew and Frank tell Henrich he should not tell the others that he is a toymaker. Henrich is not deterred, saying a model has to fly without a pilot and is a superior design. Henrich goes into the history of aircraft design.
The next day, they begin the process of cranking the single-engine on their craft. Frank gets into the modified flying position with the last seven starter cartridges. Cartridges one and two spin the propellor, but it doesn’t start. The same thing happens with the third, but it turns a little longer. The fourth is no better. Frank uses cartridge five with the ignition off to clean out the cylinders. It starts on the sixth try. With the plane running, Frank is now back in charge. He looks at the graves of the men who died on the trip.
The men use tow lines to guide the running craft to a flat area for takeoff. With the aid of the engine, they get the craft to the takeoff point. The men are loaded onto the wings behind farings, and Franks gets the craft into the air.
They fly over the crash site and make it back to the safety of a drilling site. The men on the ground can’t believe what they see flying over. Frank lands the plane. All the men are safe. The monkey survived.
Lew has given up drinking. Frank comments to Henrich about early flying models to say that Henrich was right.
Conclusion – The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Based on my six-tenths of a mile night walk at Great Sand Dunes, I am saying there is no way they could have built this plane. They would be too weak after a day in the heat.
iMPDB.org[4] identifies the plane from the movie’s beginning as a twin-engined C-82 Packet cargo plane. Following World War II, the C-82 was developed into the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar[5]. The flying version of the reconstructed plane was built for the movie and is known as the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1. A non-flying model was built from a Fairchild R4Q-1 Flying Boxcar. Long shots of the flying Phoenix were made using a North American O-47.
During the filming of this movie, stunt pilot Paul Mantz was killed in a plane crash[6]. There is a tribute to him at the end of the film. The Civil Aeronautics Board determined that Mantz was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash[7].
This movie was filmed two decades after the end of World War II, but the residual hate over the war was at the forefront. Early on, Heinrich was very aloof and calculating with human lives. He is clearly channeling the Nazi ideology of disregard for human life. His central conflict was with Frank, the natural person to be in control after the accident. The screenwriter and director seem to have gone out of their way to avoid conflicts between Captain Harris of the British Army and Henrich. Although the laborers were still angry about the war.
As I said in the introduction, there are a lot of aviation movies where there is a veteran pilot that knows everything about flying the old way. The navigator often has a problem with drinking. The first movie that comes to mind is The High and the Mighty (1954) with John Wayne.
There are now mostly debunked claims that Amelia Earnhart navigator Fred Noonan was a drinker, which contributed to their being lost at sea[8].
World-Famous Short Summary – Double check the weather
Beware the moors.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059183/
[2] The Flight of the Phoenix – Rotten Tomatoes
[3] From the Ashes:’Flight of the Phoenix’ The New York Times
[4] The Flight of the Phoenix – The Internet Movie Plane Database (impdb.org)
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_C-119_Flying_Boxcar
[6] The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 film) – Wikipedia
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/11/archives/stunt-pilots-crash-linked-to-drinking.html
[8] Fred Noonan – Wikipedia
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