The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)

The Worst Film Ever

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

*Spoiler/plot- The Great Waldo Pepper, 1975. Follows the life post WW1 of a pilot trying to get work barnstorming and in the film business. He meets up with other aviators and has many adventures in the USA.*Special Stars- Robert Redford, Bo Svenson, Bo Brundin, Susan Sarandon, Margot Kidder, Geoffrey Lewis, Edward Herrmann.*Theme- Aviation is a heady career.*Trivia/location/goofs- This film is based on some real-life early 'barn-stormers'. The location for the WW1 filming set was an alfalfa farm right off the road that leads from the town of Piru Ca to the nearby lake of that name. Wing walking was done by the lead actors without safety equipment. Some camera shadows are seen during the wing walking.*Emotion- A throughly great and entertaining film on all levels. It could be another classic favorite film from the director, George Roy Hill. The casting and plot keep the viewer interested and the pacing of the film is enjoyable. A top notch feature film about interesting characters and adventures.

As someone who loves the notion of flight as adventure to the extent of having been in a microlight, hot-air balloon, helicopter, twin-seater single - propeller aircraft, best of all a twin-prop civilian charter flight over the Grand Canyon, and lover of the devil-may-care spirit of 1920's America, this particular movie celebrating a barnstorming "flying-circus" troop was always going to be right down my street, or should that be flight-path... Throw in heavyweight participants hot from "Butch Cassidy..." and "The Sting", like director George Roy Hill, screenplay writer William Goldman ("Butch Cassidy" only) and of course Robert Redford in the lead and you just know this one is going to straighten up and fly left.The film title and introductory scenes where we first see Redford's "Pepper" character are however deceptive. These entertaining almost playful scenes where we witness Pepper's good-natured rivalry with fellow-flier Bo Svennson not only for the patronage of the target awe-struck thrill-seeking populace of little-town Americans but also for, of course "the girl", Susan Sarandon in an early role, have a touch of whimsy, even sentimentality as Pepper takes a hero-worshipping young tyke up for a spin.However the film grows more serious as it continues, as we are made aware that in the end this is a business and that to make money and outdo rival companies for daring, the Barnum-type owner/entrepreneur Dilhoeffer (well played by Philip Bruns) exhorts Pepper and his confederates to ever more dangerous stunts with nary a thought for the consequences (health and safety doesn't get a look in here!). The outcome is predictable as first of all, Sarandon and later Pepper's friend, boffin-type aircraft designer Stiles die horribly in stunts which go disastrously wrong, leading the film to its ultimate and overriding motif about the "otherness" of people like Pepper, gifted with a rare talent but with a bent for living on the edge, outside everyday society.Such people are of course rarely long for this world, as is tacitly underscored at the end where we learn of Pepper's death at a young age from a commemorative picture on a wall but are overall left with a great admiration for all those risk-taking individuals from those times, unforgettable photographic images of whom (you know the ones I mean, wing-walking or even playing tennis on bi-planes, workmen casually eating sandwiches on girders atop the under-construction Empire State Building etc) can still draw gasps of admiration from people like me living our ordinary, mundane earth-bound lives.The cinematography is fantastic, thirty years before "The Aviator", the air stunts are brilliantly pulled off and photographed. Redford is at his winning best as the "out-there" Pepper and he's well supported by his band of high-flying misfits. Part of me was repelled however by the seeming disregard for the deaths of Mary Beth and Stiles by Dilhoeffer, Pepper etc not to mention the rubbernecking general public and believe a little more humanity could have come through in the writing.On the whole though this is a charming, greatly entertaining movie, not without its darker side and for me belongs in the same air-borne formation with "Only Angels Have Wings" and "The Aviator" as a classic movie celebrating the lives of those fascinated by and/or who make their living in the skies above. Mere days after Captain Sullenberger's near miraculous emergency descent into the Hudson river, amen to that!

I'm sorry to hear that this film is not as respected as I had assumed. This is a great film on so many levels and I highly recommend it. I saw it aged 13 and it absolutely thrilled me. Waldo's friend's death in a crash and fire may correctly need a PG warning but the film will still give most kids a love of flying. For the next 10 years I knew I would be a fighter pilot! There are obvious comparisons with The Blue Max, made 9 years earlier. I like the civilian side to this film. Susan Sharendon's sudden exit was a real shocker, which took me months to get over. In conclusion, I think that this was the first film that I watched, thinking I am an adult enjoying an adult story. It made me feel great and I've had a fascination with film ever since. All thanks to Waldo!

Being a Big Robert Redford fan for years, I have seen this movie numerous times and just got the DVD of it. It makes you stop and think of the chances these young took back in the dirty 1930's to fly these machines. My dad use to tell us about how these small towns (he was from Nebraska too, just like the movie)had these air shows. One time he saw a dare devil, like the one in the movie, crash and burn to death in from of hundreds of people. They just don't make movies like the one Redford did, any more! I have a fear of heights and every time I saw that girl on the wings standing there, my heart will drop and my palms get sweaty!