Flight of the Phoenix

A few weeks ago I watched Flight of the Phoenix, a 1965 adventure movie based on the novel of the same name. I found the movie to be very strong, extremely underrated on the whole and with Jimmy Stewart as the star, a fantastic movie.

The movie begins with Frank Towns flying a cargo plane across the top of Africa to land in Benghazi, Libya. Towns played by Jimmy Stewart is a veteran pilot, grizzled and a bit surly, one gets the sense there is a backstory for the man. His navigator is the Richard Attenborough played Lew Moran. Getting caught in a sandstorm Towns is forced to crash land in the middle of nowhere. Much worse having attempted to evade the storm they are one hundred miles off course and so not in the path of any would be searchers.

With one man severely injured and two dead Towns is racked with grief. The survivors are a motley lot. Oil field workers, British soldiers, and others involved in the oil industry including an accountant and a company Doctor. Also among the survivors is a rude, arrogant, German aeronautics engineer. Eventually he approaches Towns by saying he can create an aircraft out of the viable remains of the plane that crashed.

As time passes and the water and supplies run dangerously low Towns, who had been against any cannibalization of his aircraft thinking it could not be done, agrees to the plan. He is convinced by Moran that even if it will not work the survivors need to believe in something while they await being found.

The movie follows a fairly predictable path from there. Personality conflicts, the loss of a man here and there until eventually the plane is ready. With a limited amount of starter cartridges to fire the plane there is a real danger all the work will come to naught. On the eve of the test Towns and Moran discover that their German engineer is aero engineer of model aircraft. Incredulous they realize they have no choice but to keep their own counsel and move forward. This is a last attempt at survival.

It will not be giving anything away to say that of course eventually they are successful, Jimmy Stewart does not often die in his movies, but the movie does do a good job of building suspense and introducing us to characters that are credible and worthy of our care and investment.

The movie is filmed wonderfully, the desert scenes, the endless blue skies. The grizzled, unshaven, sweaty survivors leave no doubt of where they are and have been, this is no pleasure cruise. A wonderfully filmed and executed movie. Perfect for a long snowy Saturday afternoon.