The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

You won't be disappointed!

Such a frustrating disappointment

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I saw this upon first release at least twice, and so am not unbiased due to the appeal of nostalgia. That said, if you are looking for Stewart to show his mean streak (and he had a whopper, just look at Rear Window when he talks to his fiancée!) you have come to the right movie. He's stuck with his past becoming more appealing than his present and future, and what middle-aged person has not had that feeling? The plot moves along with a satisfying pace; the work that is being accomplished to make a derelict flyable is actually shown. The characters work, and argue, and have understandable power struggles. The stakes are life and death, after all. Be prepared for one shocking reveal, shocking deaths, and a reasonable look back by at least one of the survivors, as he sees from his rescue plane just what hell he has been living in for miserable days on end.

. . . who is NOT one of Hitler's best buddies, for a change. In fact, the main antagonist of Stewart's WWII veteran pilot character Frank Towns in THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX just happens to be a German, who misrepresents himself. Sniffing trouble, Towns fights this pesky Kraut every step of the way, since EVERYONE WOULD DIE if this was based on a TRUE story. However, greatly detracting from the effect of this tale is Hollywood's insistence that the Nazis, the Confederates, and the Commies are all simply misunderstood peoples with hearts of gold who can out-think true American heroes any day of the week. It is somewhat puzzling that Brig. Gen. James Stewart, a red-blooded Yankee war great in real life, would have consented to play the brow-beaten Frank Towns character here, let alone the Benedict Arnold of the Skies in his earlier pilot flick, THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS. Obviously, Mr. Stewart was a better fighter than a script reader. Either that, or the military's cheap pay scale forced him to take roles beyond his true character just for the sake of getting a paycheck.

This is a great movie, where plane crashes in desert, and, well, tough to say "spoiler" , since it is almost 50 yrs old and when the movie title says it all. Not to add that 90% of the movie is directed to this one, and ,as movie goes on, only possible outcome.This is like a Shakespeare play or something as sparse as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?" Initially one would call it a 'small' movie.... a few characters and a one set stage. But after watching it, seems like a much bigger stage.It's a good story that allows an amazing ensemble of great actors to strut their stuff. Well, maybe a couple didn't get a chance to fully develop, and one or two might have been a bit 'over the top', but the three keys players were outstanding.May catch hell for this, but I think one of Jimmy's best. What I didn't know till quite a bit after watching this movie for first time, was how much a Flyboy Jimmy was. It was in his DNA. When he said in the movie: "Time was you could take real pride, in just getting there, flying used to be fun Lou, it really was..." You knew that character he was playing and he were one and the same.

A plane crashes in the desert, and the only obvious possibilities of survival are to wait for rescue or to walk to civilization. The survivors know that neither option is likely to succeed, but their ability to agree with one another ends there. Whether you like the movie may depend partly on whether you agree with its "Lord of the Flies"-like premise that, outside of the constraints and comforts of polite society, humans are more likely to conflict with one another than to cooperate. In this film the cooperators, chiefly Richard Attenborough's alcoholic co-pilot and Christian Marquand's worldly doctor, are sympathetic characters whom I wished to see survive the ordeal. I hoped other characters would survive only on the condition that they first became more relatable. Perhaps being stranded in the desert is indeed a more soluble dilemma than the problem of being surrounded by detestable, combative people.