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The Right Stuff
Glen here…
Well people…like it or not, today’s the big day.
Today, John Glenn goes back into space - becoming the oldest man ever to ride the rocket. The publicity and press coverage afforded this event is paralleled only by the opening of a major Hollywood movie, or Presidential cigar "smoking".
And somehow, lost in all the pre-launch fervor, THE RIGHT STUFF has been all but forgotten. Many people have never seen THE RIGHT STUFF, many people might not even know how THE RIGHT STUFF relates to Thursday’s ascent from Kennedy Space Center. In short, THE RIGHT STUFF is basically two tales; the story of Chuck Yeager, the maverick fighter pilot who first broke the sound barrier, and
the story of "seven Americans, gentlemen all" - the Mercury Seven. The Mercury Seven were the first Americans to go into space. One of these seven men was John Glenn.
Before its release, industry anticipation for THE RIGHT STUFF was quite high. There were reports of
film executives leaving advanced screenings to use nearby pay phones, calling back to their bosses and imploring them to move the release date of their own projects so their grosses would not be compromised
by THE RIGHT STUFF’s inevitable success.
This success was not to happen. Perhaps the film was too long. Perhaps the timing for the film simply was not right. But no matter how you cut it, THE RIGHT STUFF did not "hit". In fact, The Ladd Company…which produced the film…ultimately used the astronomical profits of its POLICE ACADEMY
property to help cover the cost of THE RIGHT STUFF. The film was paid off, did okay at the Oscars, and immediately forgotten. Writer / director Philip Kaufman went on to direct films like THE UNWATCHABLE LIGHTNESS….(errrrrrrr)…..THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING and RISING SUN. Many of the film’s extraordinary cast went on to other more economically successful projects.
And the film?
THE RIGHT STUFF was among Warner Bros’ first DVD issues. It is also among the first DVDs I purchased to play on my new DVD player. This film profoundly influenced me when I saw it theatrically. It moved me, inspired me, made me *understand* why someone would sit on top of tons of explosive liquids and hurl themselves into an unforgiving vacuum - in a tin can not much bigger than a refrigerator. This film moved me…brought a lump to my throat…and made me deeply appreciate, to use the film’s catch phrase, "how the future began…" And it made me want to make movies.
In THE RIGHT STUFF (based on an amazingly insightful novel by Tom Wolfe), director Kaufman has deftly fabricated a bizarre and irreverent look at the events surrounding the formation and development of the Mercury space program. There’s a strong streak of patriotism in THE RIGHT STUFF, but it’s a bizarre sort of patriotism. A sort of "we should really be proud of what we’ve done, but let’s not take ourselves too seriously" sort of patriotism. THE RIGHT STUFF is frequently over-the-top, intentionally lampooning the internal workings of government, squiring the press mercilessly, and closely examining what makes a hero a "hero" -and whether or not heroes are fabrications we make for ourselves when we need something to believe in, or really exist.
A sense of bravado and machismo runs throughout the film. But here, the competitive "in your face" nature of the test pilots drafted to become "astronauts" is far more agreeable, charming, and compelling than a film like TOP GUN could ever hope to be. In part, this is accomplished by having the wives of the pilots / astronauts so pointedly acknowledge the ludicrousness of their behavior, and the actors so skillfully interweaving a sense of genuine community into their competitive edge.
Caleb Deschanel’s photography is smooth and creamy, never calling attention to itself and always drawing the view in. Bill Conti’s score is sometimes stately, sometimes surreal as the musical motif in THE RIGHT STUFF moves from heroic (the march of the astronauts), to soaring (Yeager’s victory flight after breaking the sound barrier), to native (a strong Aboriginal flavor accompanies the sequences in which Australian Outback natives dance around a sparkling bonfire on Earth as John Glenn’s orbiting space capsule is surrounded by luminous particles).
Performances are good across the board, although some of them prompted controversy over "improper" or "unfair" characterizations (some of TRS's general accuracy has also been called into question, by the way). The film’s cast includes Ed Harris as John Glenn ("I just thank god I live in a country where the best and the finest in a man can be brought out!"), Dennis Quaid as Gordo Cooper ("the sun’s coming through the window now…lord what a heavenly light.") , Fred Ward as Gus Grissom ("Star Voyager Gus Grissom? I kinda like the sound of that."), Donald Moffat as Lyndon Johnson ("I for one do not intend to go to sleep by the light of a communist moon!"), Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard ("as long as a man uses good sense, what a man does with his zipper or his wick is his own business"), and Lance Henriksen as Wally Shirra, Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer also have a few moments as the bedraggled recruiters responsible for finding the astronauts-to-be ("they say they have The Right Stuff").
Also in the cast: Barbara Hershey and Sam Shepard - making one of the most believable and natural screen couples to come around in a long time (despite their all-too-brief screen time). Shepard is a powerful presence as Yeager ("It takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission - especially when it’s on TV"). One moment he’s the hero who broke the sound barrier, the next moment he’s all-but-forgotten as the space program he helped spawn simply passes him by. You can see that this weighs on his character, but you can also see the acceptance and resilience he carries inside, which prevents him from reacting too strongly to the way of things.
Mary Joe Deschanel is charming and touching as stuttering Annie Glenn, wife of John Glenn. At the time, not too many people understood Mrs. Glenn’s speech impediment, and mistook her silence and lack of communication as aloofness or discourtesy. Scott Paulin, Kathy Baker, Pamela Reed, Veronica Cartwright, Eric Sevareid, Chuck Yeager, and the very cool Levon Helm are also around in various capacities. I’m missing a ton of people here, that’s because this cast is *immense*. If I’ve omitted someone, it’s not because they weren’t good. It’s simply too daunting a task to include all the talent who helped put this thing on the screen.
And a special acknowledgment to Royal Dano, whose omnipresent "minister" looms like a shadow over all the proceedings. He’s the guy who conducts funeral services for the fallen pilots - we know that, the characters know that. His presence is both humorous and disquieting. While a man of god, he’s played as something of a Grim Reaper, or symbol of death. A powerful reminder that….beneath all the fun and banter…lies a decidedly serious element of danger.
So, as America’s eyes are once again *briefly* focused on the heavens…and before we all forget the immediate thrill of the moment and return to our every day routines…think about watching THE RIGHT STUFF.
It is long, but it doesn’t *feel* long. Its visual effects…and there are many of them…are quite interesting. Sometimes they are impressionistic & almost psychedelic (the weird globs of color and motion which iconify Earth in many of the space sequences), sometimes they are so seamlessly integrated into stock footage that even the sharpest eyes might have trouble detecting the reality from re-creation. It’s smart, it’s funny. It’s a bitter-sweet look at America, and the ideas which drive her. It is a painless refresher course about one of the most courageous adventures our nation has ever undertaken.
In THE RIGHT STUFF, you will not be lectured about the importance of space travel, you may even find the film surprisingly non-aggressive as far as drawing definitive lines about the value and necessity of hurling man into the great void. It’s simply a story about a lot of interesting and odd people, doing a nearly impossible thing. This movie is - in many ways - a testament to mankind’s spirit of adventure, and its innate strive to accomplish seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
THE RIGHT STUFF suggests that the frontier we *most* need to conquer isn’t the great blackness surrounding the little blue world we call home. The film seems to imply that the space we most need to explore and master is *any* part of ourselves which dissuades us from being the best we can be.
Warner’s DVD of THE RIGHT STUFF is presented in the film’s original aspect ratio (1:85:1). This particular transfer is the best emulation of the film’s original theatrical "look" I have come across.
The disc features remastered 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, the rear channels were a little soft on *my* system. Supplemental material includes production notes (I actually learned a few things), cast bios of many of the principal players, a section of pilot and astronaut "lingo" (some of the flyer-jive used throughout the film), and a theatrical trailer. This trailer was interesting, I had never seen a full-length trailer for this film before. The trailer sucked. Not only did the trailer suck, it sucked badly. No wonder there wasn’t any interest when this film was released. Damn.
Also of note in the design of the disc’s supplemental section? The incorporation of a few "wallpaper" (background) images, comprised of shots excised from the final edit of the film.
And to Mr. Glenn, and the crew of Space Shuttle Discovery? The words of Barbara Hershey’s Glennis Yeager come to mind. Something she said to her husband Chuck just before he went off to ride the X-1:
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Lovely word on what is one of my favorite movies. It still amazes me how often I can watch and still love this movie (despite it's 190+ minutes running time).
This movie has such a quirky sense of humour about it such wonderful visuals (such as Yeager's attempt to break a height record intercut with the erotic dancer at the Lyndon's Texas fest ). Anyway I do believe you have inspired me to watch it one more time :-) -
Above and beyond 'The Right Stuff' being a great movie, which it is, all of this excitement about John Glenn going back into space is ridiculous when you realize how and why he's going.
His little trip on the shuttle has nothing to do with 'research on aging'. It has everything to do with the fact that he acted as a defense attorney for Clinton, Gore, and the Democratic party in the Senate's investigation of campaign finance 'irregularities'.
John Glenn, as minority leader on the commitee, filabustered, complained, whined, cajoled, and argued against anything that would move the investigation forward. In the past he has never been this partisan... but this time he had something to 'play dirty' for... a trip on the shuttle.
Clinton promised Glenn that he would replace the existing trained astronaut on this mission if he would cover for him, Gore, and their Chinese and Malaysian cronies.
John Glenn delivered his part of the deal, now Clinton is delivering his part.
It makes me sick.
If there was any justice, Chuck Yeager would be going into orbit on this shuttle mission, NOT John Glenn. If you've seen 'The Right Stuff', you'd know what poetic justice that would have been for Yeager, the REAL test-pilot, not just 'spam-in-the-can'.
Ray Ciscon -
I too enjoy this movie immensely. I love the scope, from the deserts of Edwards AFB, to the rocket platforms in Russia. But in the Oct. 26 issue of Newseek, there is a large article about John Glenn, now and back in the day. In a paragraph detailing his training for today's launch, he is quoted telling his co-astronauts about the Right Stuff as "That's not how it was. I'll _tell_ you how it was..." But the article doesn't really go into depth as to where the movie/book went astray from reality. Nonetheless, it's still enjoyable to watch.
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Immensely enjoyed your post Ray Ciscon. I thought you'd be interested in knowing there will be a tv special where Oliver Stone will air his views on the TWA flight and the :::ahem::: missile that brought it down...
Glenn, eloquent as ever. I was wondering if the RIGHT STUFF DVD was worth the purchase, and after reading your feature the answer seems to be a resounding YES! -
In an interview with Glenn from a few years ago, he stated that the Wolfe novel was well-researched and fairly accurate, but that the film adaptation took considerable "dramatic license" with the material, particularly in its characterizations of the astronauts(it's still one of my favorite films.) It might be of interest to regular readers of this site to know that Right Stuff writer/director Kaufman is credited with co-creating Indiana Jones and co-writing the story for Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's too bad he didnt' contribute an audio commentary to the DVD of The Right Stuff, as he has already done so for the DVD of his Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake and the laserdisc of Unbearalbe Lightness of Being(everyone I know either hates this movie or thinks it's a masterpiece.)
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I figured that one of the big 3 or 4 (if you count Fox) would have shown TRS this week. The last few days I have been looking for it in the guide. I think that they missed a huge opportunity for ratings by not showing it Tuesday night prior to Glen's launch. I was really dissapointed that it was not on. When will those network guys ever learn...
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I don't know if this trip is a payback or not and to tell you the truth I really don't care...However I do agree with Ray that yeager should be the one going into space, yeager was the one that got looked over because, he "didn't have a college degree", boo-hoo...Yeager was a flying genius, a WW2 ace(they don't hand those out) and one of the men who helped pinooer the space program...anyways this has nothing to do with The Right Stuff...an awesome movie which should have been showen on TV this week...MAYBE they'll show it next week, when the shuttle comes down...
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You couldn't have said it better! "The Right Stuff" is a fantastic movie. I'm a lucky man in his mid-30's, who's wife is 11 years younger. After enjoying "Apollo 13" and "From The Earth To The Moon" so much, I had to pull out my copy of TRS for her and show her how we got up to those points in the space program. She very much enjoyed this film she'd never heard of before, including the early performances of some of her favorite actors (esp. Goldblum, small as it was).
I have to agree that Chuck Yeager deserves to go up in a STS flight if he wants to. For that matter, ANY of the early pioneers deserve to go up if they voice the wish, in my mind. Not just the surviving Mercury Seven and Next Nine, but Yeager and...I can't recall his name for sure, but I think it was Scott Hamilton? who in TRS was trading off on the air speed record with Yeager for the longest time. If he's still alive he deserves the trip, too. I wish Deke Slayton could finally realize his dream of escape velocity...the man did everything EXCEPT fly in a tin can. John Glenn's original 15 minutes? Deke would have settled for THAT!
They are heroes, every one. In my mind, there is room on every shuttle mission from here on out to give them a "joy ride" if they want it. They shouldn't have to "prove their worth" by participat ing in experiments...it's nice that Glenn is, but he shouldn't have to.
As "The Right Stuff" showed us, these men already earned the right. They HAVE the stuff! I can't thank the filmmakers enough for teaching me that. Although I grew up in Houston and visited NASA several times, I didn't begin to understand until this film told me their story. Dramatic liscence I'm sure, but it still hit the mark. Thanks for the time on the soapbox. DAVE -
Don't get me wrong, "The Right Stuff" is one of the keenest movies of all time. But as a far as being accurate, forget about it.
The film captures the feeling of the era in a way that I doubt any other work could ever improve on.
And it is one of the finest cast films I've ever encountered. Not only from the stand point of finding actors who looked like the people they played but also one of the finest collection of acting talent.
From a long time space and avation geek point of view the film makes you want to rush out, dive into a high powered jet and boom for orbit..
But from a history point of view, I cringe! The book is bad enough in its glaring errors of history but the film takes the errors and compounds them 100 fold.
Get people excited in the era by watching the film but please encourage them to read up a little, many fine autobiographies of the people protrayed in the film exist. (Okay, its the educator in me, sue me).
Till then, "Lend me a stick of Beeman's will ya? I'll pay you back." -
Actually, just a bit of a correction here. David Lambert (obviously a fan of the Space Program) made mention of Deke Slayton never "reaching escape velocity." Actually, Slayton did make into space aboard Apollo/Soyuz, the first joint U.S./ Russian space mission. He had been grounded with a heart murmur for several years, but by swearing off smoking, exercising like hell, and gobbling vitamins, the problem eventually went away. NASA re-certified him to fly, and he went up on the very last Apollo mission. Just thought you'd like to know.
And just to add my two cents, The Right Stuff sure is a great book and movie, accurate or not. Hey, The Untouchables was great, too, but it had about as much to do with the truth as The Warren Report. -
I just had to throw in a few comments about my favorite movie of all time, and the film that, like Glenn, made me want to become a filmmaker. Most of the criticism leveled at Wolfe's book, and the film, basically fall under a difference of perspective. Wolfe was more than accurate in his reportage, and the film generally stuck close to it (although, it did condense a few events just to adhere to the unities of storytelling.) There was, and still is, a definite tendency to portray these men as boy scouts. That's misguided. They were men. Brave men. Hell, crazy men. Just because the were a little wild with the "wick" doesn't mean I admire them any less.
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I too think that the Right Stuff is a great film. I bought it the night I bought my DVD player (I already owned the videotape) and I watch it about every other month or so. It really gives people you weren't familar with the early days of the space program, what it was like, even if the accuracy is a bit off.
As for Glenn going up now, I agree Yeager should have been given the chance instead. Yeager was on the CNN broadcast before the launch and was talking to Cronkite, they asked him if he wanted to go, he said no, 'give the seat to a young astronaut that we can use for the next 15 years instead of me, or Glenn' was pretty much what he said. I bet however that several years ago, his attitude was different. -
I loved this movie very much. I remember how it moved me also. I think it was better than Apollo 13. Although Ron Howard did a very nice job with it. I'd like to see more movies lke it. The whole race for space thing. I also enjoyed "From the Earth to the Moon" I'd like to make a fictional movie about a trip to Mars. And I don't mean "Rocketman". More documentary like "The Right Stuff" with a touch of "Apollo 13" suspence.
Ya I think I'll start writing it. -
OK.... I'm glad to hear from other people who love this movie. All these years I've figured it was some kind of aberation, that such a quality film could have so little following. I remember like maybe 15 years ago.... I was about 9 and this movie was on TV... and I was entranced! All these heroes I had read about were suddenly larger than life, on the screen! My parents tried to get me to bed, but I kept watching it (and watching and watching... the TV length is 4 hours, I think!).
Years later when we got a VCR, I got to watch the whole thing, without commercials and not falling asleep during the final hour. A few years after that VHS tapes finally got cheap enough to buy, and I got a copy to watch and lend to friends. It's still one of my favorites. I must admit I enjoyed the movie better than the book, but then, I'm obviously biased towards it. I highly reccommend reading Yeager's autobiography to understand better the man at the heart of this story.
I also beseech people to go to Kennedy Space Centre and take not just the Space Shuttle/Station tour (used to be the 'Red' tour) but also the older tour, the one that goes through the original firing room for the Redstone flights, the launching pads for the Mercury projects, the original mission control rooms, the testing ranges and Gemini launch pads (this was the 'Blue" tour). I asked our tour guide. He said (about 2 years ago) that around 80% of the tourists at KSC DON'T TAKE THIS TOUR! This is where the real history was made... and it scares you to think of people betting their lives and their nation's pride on such primitive, simple, and basic technologies.
Finally, another thought...
I've felt that The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 are excellent companion pieces in the history of space. The HBO series is AMAZING (a perfect example of why cable is a good thing... is this availible on video?). My big concern since Apollo 13 came out though, is what to do to go onwards?
My solution to complete the history of space... Mars!
As someone wrote earlier, we need an epic on the exploration and colonization of Mars... Kim Stanley Robinson has written this already (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars). Either a 10+ hours adaption or an entirely new epic needs to be made. Maybe it will fire people's imagination towards a goal again.
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There are several movies that have dazzled me in one way or another, but when I get put on the spot to name just one favorite, this is it. It's one of my favorite books, too. In fact, I was lying on the couch reading it with the TV on when a commercial caught my attention. It was a trailer for the film. I saw it on opening day on a huge screen with the book still fresh in my mind. There's an early scene where Betty Grissom (Veronica Cartwright) tells some of the other wives that someday the Air Force will reward her for the sacrifices she's endured for Gus's career. I could hear a few scattered laughs in the theater from people who knew what was coming. I rave about this movie to anyone willing to listen, but I also know that all the circumstances came together just right for me when I saw it.
I've always been a little disappointed that this movie wasn't more successful ("Terms of Endearment" as Best Picture, puh-lease), but I do hear it mentioned now and then, and I feel like my taste is vindicated. I remember Siskel & Ebert selecting their best movies of the 1980s, one picked "The Right Stuff" second, the other had it third.
And for those of you hoping to see it on TV, check the listings for the History Channel. They do a series called "Movies in Time" (I think), and "The Right Stuff" has been shown there. Along with the commercial breaks, they have a couple NASA historians commenting on the events of the movie. When discussing the historical accuracy, they agreed that things didn't happen exactly the same way in real life, but they should have.
My hope is that this will come to a revival theater in my area so I can see it on a big screen. It's been way too long.
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