The Spirit of St. Louis by Billy Wilder (1957)
6 July 2008This recently played on cable in a gorgeous new Hi-Definition Transfer and my fiancee and I watched it and absolutely loved it. I am already a sucker for flying films, but this one has the bonus of being true, and so much of the film relies on the performance of James Stewart who you really believe would have pulled this off. This couldn’t have been cast better, especially considering Stewart’s World War 2 History as a flying ace. Not only that but I remember the actual plane from going to Washington D.C. to stay with my grandmother as a child, so this film really means something. If you haven’t seen it, see it, if you have see it again, especially if you can see it in HD. It is amazing that anyone could consider flying a plane like this with no window, relying only instrumentation. What a story! And the fact that Stewart so wanted to do it, that at 47 he dieted to look more like Lindbergh who was 25 when he made the flight.
This film tells the story of Charles Augustus “Slim” Lindbergh (James Stewart), and starts with him trying to sleep the night before his historic flight with people partying in other hotel rooms, and then we flash back to his history as a pilot. We see the young Lindbergh buying a Jenny and taking off in his first solo flight, becoming a barnstormer, where he was friends with Harlan A. “Bud” Gurney (Murray Hamilton) working doing flying acrobatics, and later joined the army. After that Lindbergh become a contract Air Mail Pilot, where he came up with an idea of how to fly across the Atlantic on his own to beat the challenge of flying to New York to Paris.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
Lindbergh attempts to purchase a Bellanca Aircraft form the Columbia Aircraft Company, but they won’t sell it to him, so he goes and gets financial support from the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. They hooked him up with Ryan Airlines in San Diego, and Lindbergh went to help. The plane was officially called the Ryan NYP and was designed by Donald A. Hall (Arthur Space) and had only side and up views with a periscope looking forward. It was single engine with big fuel tanks for better range.
People kept trying for the $25,000 prize, and being lost or killed.
Finally Lindbergh went for it, and started the flight, but not having slept the night before he was exhausted, and had to deal with ice storms, falling asleep and getting of course, and just trying to navigate, but he manages it, and comes into Paris a hero, and the field is stormed.
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Stewart may have been too old for the role, but he did an amazing job, and I don’t think anyone else could have done any better.
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