What is the best aviation movie?

[enigma]

MAR beat me to it. The Great Waldo Pepper is one of the best aviation films, ever. Besides, Frank Price (God rest his soul) did a lot of the flying, most in his Bucker playing Ernst Kessler.

I had the pleasure of visiting with Frank over a five year period in the early ninetys and he always had time to talk. Frank deserves a tremendous amount of credit for getting the US into international aerobatic competition and won the world event sometime in the 50's. He was in Europe with absolutely no support. He showed me a picture made that day during an award ceremony and pointed out that the person holding the American flag was a member of an eastern bloc aero team. Frank had to sell the engine off of his plane in order to afford to get it shipped back to the states.

regards,
enigma

 

[mar]

Right ON!

Enigma--I clearly don't give you enough credit.

Though I understand your praise of Mr. Price I would've thought any movie that featured *both* Redford *and* Sarandon would've merited Two Big Thumbs Down from you.

Right on!

 

[Big Duke Six]

Best...

Though cheese content is high, Top Gun has to be up there.

Air America too.

Strategic Air Command, Twelve O'Clock High.

Anyone ever see Cloud Dancer? I think it was David Carradine, but a great B movie.

 

[Loafman]

That IMAX film "Wings of Courage" is worth a look if you like really well done 3D.

 

[bobbysamd]

Another good flick

Catch-22, although it wasn't really about flying airplanes.

 

[pilotyip]

best ones

"High and the Mighty", I wish I couild get a good clip of John Wayne slapping Robert Stack and import it to our CRM class as the last step in dealing with an stupid Captain. Gann's other good moive was "Island in the Sky", with John Wayne again, black and white, not much flying, but alot of looking into hte minds of the pilots. "12'O Clock High" is also a favorite becasue it is all almost factual. When Curtis LeLay perviewed the movie he said "The only thing that is not accurate in this moive is the sound of the machine guns, in flight you can not hear them" He had been there and done that. The "Bridges of Toki Ri" is really good if you were ever a reservist called up for active duty, you have to read between the lines of the movie to see the reality of the movie. Mitchner (sp?) was a reserve office when he wrote this book. The rest of thse flying movies mentioned in this thread have too much Hollywood in them, I mean they are watchable but not classics in the sense of the above mentioned.

 

[AA717driver]

Great...

Now I'm going to have to spend the first couple months of my furlough watching some of these movies I missed!

I guess HPA will have to wait... TC

 

[Timebuilder]

It figures that someone my age would mention The Blue Max with George Peppard. Frank Tallman, the leader of hollywood stunt flying in the 50's and 60's, did incredible work in that film.

Midway, Tora, Tora, Tora, Always, Airplane, Right Stuff, Catch 22 (the movie that taught me the danger of airplane propellers, long before that Indiana Jones sequence), 12 O'Clock High (the movie and the TV show), Strategic Air Command, Memphis Belle, and the Canadian movie that Airplane! was based upon.

 

[rfeathe1]

Nobodys mentioned WINGS from the 1930s (I think). Howard Hughes had his hand in that one.

 

[BlackCoffee]

Hot Shots, Fire Birds, or Blue Thunder. But you must read the books first!

 

[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).