What is the best aviation movie?

[ratings:all]

hughes

i hear they're making a movie about howard hughes' life, called 'the aviator'. but its gonna be a chick flick-leonardo di-crap-rio is gonna play hughes. i think gwen stefani is in it too, but its probably gonna suck.

 

[TonyC]

... and the Canadian movie that Airplane! was based upon.

I thought Airplane was a parody of Airport. In fact, I think you'll "get" more of the jokes if you watch Airplane immediately after watching Airport.

 

[Timebuilder]

Robert Hays stars in this hilarious, hugely successful parody of the disaster film genre. The three writer-directors, Jim Abrahams, David and Jerry Zucker took the film Zero Hour (1957) as the basis from which every movie cliche and comic gag could be spoofed.

Watching Zero Hour (sorry I forgot the name earlier) gives you a wild feeling of deja vu all the way through, as the writers lifted the ENTIRE plotline and added jokes that make Airplane! the film we love to quote.

http://www.amctv.com/show/detail/0,,8367-1-EST,00.html

 

[bandit110]

The opening scens of "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks is chilling.

 

[bigr]

Don't miss "Its a Mad Mad Mad World". The stunt flying in the twin beech is unbelievable. They actually fly the twin beech thru a billboard, thru a hanger...etc. You probably won't see stunt flying like that again in this age of computer animation. The stunt flying was done by Paul Mantz I believe, he was killed a year later filming "The Flight of the Phoenix".

I'll second "Twelve O'Clock High". It was way ahead of its time, maybe still is. It shows how the stress of war actually broke some men...unheard of back then.

Although not really aviation related, another Gregory Peck movie to see is "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit". About a New York business man in the 1950's comming to terms with his experience in WW 2 (great flashback war scenes).

 

[Timebuilder]

Don't miss "Its a Mad Mad Mad World". The stunt flying in the twin beech is unbelievable. They actually fly the twin beech thru a billboard, thru a hanger...etc. You probably won't see stunt flying like that again in this age of computer animation. The stunt flying was done by Paul Mantz I believe, he was killed a year later filming "The Flight of the Phoenix".

I can't tell you who went through the billboard, but it was Frank Tallman that smashed through the hanger with the glass doors.

 

[Timebuilder]

A little poking around found this...

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/e...rs_and_Daredevils/movie_stunt_pilots/EX26.htm

Paul Mantz is undoubtedly the most famous stunt flier in Hollywood history. Mantz earned more than $10 million during his career. Shortly after washing out of Army Flight School in 1927 for buzzing a railroad car, Mantz moved to California and started his own charter air service. He originally found it difficult to break into movies because he was not a member of AMPP. To get union officials to notice him, he set a new world record of 46 consecutive outside loops in July 1930. Soon after, he became a union member. Although Mantz performed many stunts, he specialized in flying through buildings. In 1932, he guided a Stearman plane through a 45-foot-wide aircraft hangar for the film Air Mail. Notably, in a different facet of his aviation career, Mantz won the Bendix Trophy Race three times between 1946 and 1948.


By the late 1950s, although Mantz was still Hollywood's leading individual stunt pilot, he decided to join forces with another outstanding stunt flier named Frank Tallman. Together, the two men formed Tallmantz Aviation in 1961, a new stunt flying operation. Tallman did some of his most outstanding individual stunt work for the 1963 movie It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World. Some of his stunts included taxing through a plate glass window and flying a plane though an aircraft hanger. The most elaborate trick he performed for the film was flying an airplane through a billboard.

Mantz and Tallman's collaboration did not last long. In 1965, the two men were working on the movie Flight of the Phoenix when Tallman, who was supposed to fly a landing sequence in the Arizona desert, shattered his kneecap during a fall at home, and Mantz took his place. On July 8, Mantz was performing the landing when one of his aircraft's wheels hit a small, sun-baked, mound of sand and caused him to lose control. The aircraft "nosed in" killing Mantz instantly. Tallman, heartbroken by the accident, blamed himself for Mantz's death.

A few days after Mantz's crash, Tallman faced his own individual tragedy when doctors amputated his leg because of a massive infection that had resulted from his broken kneecap. Despite the loss of his leg and his close friend, Tallman retaught himself how to fly using only one leg and returned to stunting. In subsequent years he worked on such films as The Blue Max, Catch 22, The Great Waldo Pepper, and Capricorn One. On April 15, 1978, Tallman, age 58, lost his life during a routine flight when he failed to clear a ridge near Palm Springs, California, due to poor visibility.

Many other Hollywood aviators have established their own unique stunts over the years. Some have specialized in parachute stunts. Others, like Jim Gavin, have become experts at performing helicopter tricks. And still others have worked with such unique devices as "rocketbelts." Undoubtedly, there will be many more stunt pilots who will go even farther than these performers, and each will owe a debt to their predecessors. Thanks to the pioneering aviators of the movie industry, future stunt fliers will have a strong union, strict safety guidelines, and guaranteed wage scales that will help them succeed in the movie business and movie goers will continue to be treated to many more aerial thrills.

--David H. Onkst

Sources and further reading:

Dwiggins, Don. Hollywood Pilot: The Biography of Paul Mantz. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967.

Farmer, James H. Broken Wings: Hollywood's Air Crashes. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1984.

________. Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, Inc., 1984.

Glines, Carroll V. Roscoe Turner: Aviation's Master Showman. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995

Grace, Dick. Crash Pilot. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1956.

________. I Am Still Alive!. New York: Rand McNally and Company, 1931.

________. Squadron of Death: The True Adventures of A Movie Plane-Crasher. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. 1929.

Greenwood, Jim and Maxine. Stunt Flying in the Movies. Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, Inc., 1982.

Kessler, Lauren. The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes. New York: Random House, 2000.

O'Neil, Paul. Barnstormers and Speed Kings. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1981.

Ronnie, Art. Locklear: the Man Who Walked on Wings. South Brunswick, UK: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1973

Schultz, Barbara Hunter. Pancho: The Biography of Florence Lowe Barnes. Lancaster, Cal.: Little Buttes Publishing Co., 1996.

Skogsberg, Bertil. Wings on the Screen: A Pictorial History of Air Movies. San Diego: A.S. Barnes & Company, Inc., 1981.

Wynne, H. Hugh. The Motion Picture Stunt Pilots, and Hollywood's Classic Aviation Movies. Missoula, Mont.: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1987.

McClain, Stan. "A History of Hollywood's Aerial Cinematography." http://www.stan-mcclain.com/airhist.htm

"Dick Grace," 486th Bomb Group. http://www.486th.org/Photos/crew/DGrace.htm

"Paul Mantz: King of the Hollywood Pilots." http://www.cineramaadventure.com/mantz.htm

"The Pilots." http://www.rocketmaninc.com/pilots.htm

"Tallmantz Aviation Collection." Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. http://www.Oscars.org/mhl/sc/tallmantz_173.html

 

[TonyC]

Re: A little poking around found this...

Some of his stunts included taxing through a plate glass window and flying a plane though an aircraft hanger.

All those references, and they still can't spell this aviation word correctly.

Did he fly through some type of device designed to suspend an airplane from a ceiling or structure? NO. He flew it through a special type of building used to protect airplanes from the elements - - an airplane garage, if you will. We call that a HANGAR.



Sorry... the trycto... tricto... tri... whatever that stuff in turkey is.. is kickin' in, and my pet peeves seem to be getting the best of me.

Happy Turkey Day !

EDIT: OH, and the other one. Was he imposing a toll or service charge while he was passing through the plate glass window? No, he was maneuvering his airplane on the ground, a term which we all know as taxiing. (not TAXING - - should we envision a tax collector waving a wire coat hanger?) How do writers like this make a living?

 

[Timebuilder]

It's tryptophan, and I know what you mean about errors by writers.

I'm reading a VO book, and I'm getting ready to call the publisher and offer to proofread the book for the next printing. I have over 50 errors so far. Way too many for a professional piece.

 

[Skaz]

Firebirds ?
not bad, but I'd go with Flight of the intruder in 3rd place, Topgun in 2nd and The Right Stuff NUMBER ONE!

...but then I remember, Firefox, Bat 21, Iron Eagle (no, wait that was cr@p), AIR AMERICA !, Airplane ...etc