Movie Details
| Title: | The Great Waldo Pepper | |
| Director: | George Roy Hill | |
| Year: | 1975 | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 03.26.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 03.26.23 | Internet | The second half of a Robert Redford / William Goldman double feature. This one has the added juice of being directed by George Roy Hill. When I endeavored to watch "the classics" during the latter half of my college tenure and the limbo years that followed, I of course watched Butch and Sundance as well as The Sting. I didn't know it was him who directed the Chevy Chase comedy Funny Farm and didn't see Slap Shot until a few years later, but found his work in the Newman/Redford movies to be mostly great. Something about this one though... I think I was always more of a Newman fan than Redford and the title sounded odd so I didn't bother to track it down. Perhaps if Newman had agreed to do it (as mentioned in the imdb trivia) it would've had a different fate with the box office and my viewing. But I'm glad I didn't see it then because it means I get to see it for the first time now. As mentioned in my notes for Don Siegel's The Lineup, I feel like I've seen enough movies to where most of the ones I watch for the first time are a little lesser known. I'm sure i haven't seen ALL the movies that are considered great, but I do think I've seen a large percentage of the ones that fit my interest. So when a movie like this comes along, much like The Hot Rock, I'm happy to find a couple good scenes or elements but most often wind up saying stuff like "it was decent" or "i liked it well enough." With all that in mind, I'm happy to report that I fucking LOVED this movie. The world of 1920s barnstorming is probably more interesting to me now than 20 years ago. I found it interesting that all these flying aces were war pilots, and in some cases even Germans flying in the US to make a living, so there's like a professional respect mixed with old enmity going on. But really... the biggest draw of this movie was the aerial photography. These old biplanes were great for showing pilot's faces and Roy (again, according to the imdb trivia) was a navy pilot so he flew the damn things and put his actors right up there with him. Like you can see Redford and Bo Svenson (this came out the same year as Part 2 Walking Tall did) walking on the wings and whatnot. I'm sure there's a deft mix of movie magic for a lot of the close-ups (i don't imagine they'd take the plane up just to get a shot of Bo's leg pushing through the wing), but a lot of the shots are clearly the actors up in the air. I mean, that's the only thing the new Top Gun has going for it, and this outdoes that in spades while also having a good story! Eat your heart out, Tom! Ok, There is one scene. It definitely looks like Susan Sarandon or a double got out on the wing once wearing nothing but a silk slip, but even at 720p it's clearly a mannequin strapped to the wing for the majority of her shots. That's the one time I really broke immersion, but at the same time you can see it's really Redford out there reaching for it which is dazzling. A handful of sequences had me, like, leaning forward. They are very well choreographed, very well shot. The sequence with the open loop, there's a shot mounted to the plane showing the ground coming up that is just fantastic, and it looks like Edward Herrman (Dianne Wiest's boyfriend in The Lost Boys) is doing those loops. And the ending of that scene is SO effective! I read the imdb trivia too damn early and got spoiled and was STILL surprised. At the end of the movie, when Redford and his scene partner take off their parachutes and the girl asked "What's that mean?" I actually said out loud "It means we're gonna see some shit!" I was invested. So... falling somewhere between Paper Moon and Top Gun, this movie really delivered for me. I haven't seen Roy Hill's entire ouevre but judging by his "Story by" credit I'd say this was a close one for him and it really shows. It manages to display what the early wonder of flight must have been like and pay tribute to these barnstormers (all of which didn't live past their early thirties if you do the math in the intro). Great movie. |
