the audience applauded

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

An Exercise In Nonsense

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I sometimes forget how much we miss Jimmy Stewart. He is the glue that holds this film together. It has everything one could want in an adventure/survival film. You have a group of desperate men, facing death by dehydration, water supplies almost nil. These people have a multitude of personality traits that are bound to clash. Of course there is the saint and the sinner. There is also the mysterious guy who hatches the plot to take apart a plane and rebuild it as a much smaller flying machine. Because he claims to be an aeronautical designer, everyone listens to him until he reveals that he has only worked with model planes. What starts out as hope begins to dwindle, even though he assures them that the science of aeronautics applies to all flying machines. Stewart is not perfect, but he has the bull-headedness and the respect of most of the crew members and when it comes to desperation, he is going to make it work or die trying. There is a terrific scene at the end where they must decide whether to use one of the only starter cartridge to clean the carbon out, limiting the possibility of starting the engine. It will have you on the edge of your seat. I first saw this in 1965 and remember it like it was yesterday.

When I see popular films remade and then expect them to be as good or better than the original;then you realize that the original couldn't have been improved on and the remake was forgettable.This is the case of 1965's "Flight of the Phoenix". Simple plot of diverse characters aboard an Oil Company owned airplane caught up in a sandstorm that forces them to crash in the desert.My favorite character is the arrogant German Model Plane designer DORFMANN who comes up with the plan of turning the Twin engine aircraft into a single engine plane that will fly the remaining survivors back home.His arrogance and superior feeling over the other stranded passengers made you have a Love/Hate relationship with him.Even Stewart's character who really couldn't stand the man, knew he was their only real hope of survival so he had to humble himself to the wishes of Dorfmann...The film's cinematography was spectacular despite being just desert and a wrecked airplane.The diverse passenger characters all gave good performances especially the mentally challenged BORGNINE character "Trucker Cobb"...The only disappoint of the film is the ending.Veteran Aerial Stunt Pilot Paul Mantz who had done Aerial stunt work in movies going back to the 30's;was fatally injured toward the end of shooting and crashed the remade Phoenix Airplane. The last shot you see of the plane is in the air after passing over an oil crew below.You never see the plane landing because it had been destroyed upon Mantz's Crash.The final scene is the survivors walking/running to the water spring they had passed over...Although it was never really brought out Mantz was a known Drinker and had flown stunts under the influence more than once.No one really knows if it was pilot error or aircraft malfunction or Mantz may have even had a heart attack. However he still goes down in history as one of the Greatest aviator stunt pilots in Cinema History.EXCELLENT FILM!...s.m.

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.

It is not just because of Robert Aldrich Directing that this movie is a must see. James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, George Kennedy, and a fine cast have a lot to do with it. The solid material and script the film is based on has a lot to say for the film.This plane crash film tells the story of humans surviving and then trying to pick themselves up after a plane crash in the desert. Stewart plays the pilot and the hero but in an Aldrich type of scenario he is the anti-hero. He admits his error causes the plane to crash. As it is obviously an old plane there is some conjecture to it all being his fault but he takes the blame anyhow.The cast and direction here are excellent. It is great that Turner Classic Movies has started running this as I have to admit this is a film I had not seen. The film is a bit long though when you consider rebuilding a wrecked plane, you have to factor that in. The movie avoids the drag of length with sold performances and a good script.