The Flight of the Phoenix

Jimmy Stewart, Peter Finch   d/ Robert Aldrich

From 1965. This was one of the last big films made during the tail end of the studio era. This could have been made twenty years earlier...the incessant cue music was a giveaway.

Those creaky elements aside this was a successful psychological drama. An Aramco plane crashes in the desert and the struggle for survival strips away the veneer of civilization and reveals the prejudice and hatred lying just below. Stewart, a real bomber pilot in WW2, plays a crusty, sour retro whose training, experience and instincts would lead all to ruin. His continuous conflict with the rational, modern German form the crux of the film.

It works. The film is over two hours long and never feels it...so engrossing is the story. This is one that holds up very well.

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