The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) - film review

Frank Towns is piloting a small plane laden with passengers and cargo across the Sahara Desert when a sandstorm brews up, knocking the aircraft off course by several hundred miles and bringing it down.  Although the plane is wrecked beyond repair, only two of the men on board are killed.  The survivors include Towns, navigator Lew Moran, a few British soldiers, some oil workers and a studious German named Heinrich Dorfmann.   Towns is confident that a rescue party will be sent to pick them up but the others are sceptical.  As the water begins to run out, Dorfmann makes a fantastic suggestion: they should try to build a new plane out of the wreckage of the old one.  Town is incredulous but agrees to Dorfmann’s proposal when he realises that the activity will take the men’s mind off their impending doom...

Robert Aldrich directed this gritty survival movie with the same flair, precision and attention to detail that characterise his other great films.  The situation – an odd assortment of people struggling to survive a nightmarish ordeal against the odds – is one that has been often portrayed in cinema, but rarely with the dramatic intensity, depth of characterisation and nerve-wracking tension that The Flight of the Phoenix offers.  Stunning performances from a superb international cast (headed by an impeccable James Stewart in an uncharacteristically grouchy role) make this a gripping character-based drama in which the excitement stems from the conflict within the group as individuals react to their fate and indulge in futile power struggles.   

What is perhaps most surprising about The Flight of the Phoenix is how relentlessly bleak it is.  There is some humour (mostly of the blackly comedic variety) to relieve the tension, but for the most part the mood is about as dark as a dramatic thriller can be.  Do the men survive or do they all perish?  Aldrich keeps us in suspense right to the very end, by which point our nerves are well and truly frayed.  Watching this film is a gruelling but strangely enjoyable experience.  Its 2004 remake barely passes muster when compared with the original.

On a sad note, the stunt pilot Paul Mantz died during the location shooting of the film in the Arizona desert.  Mantz was piloting the small plane (the one assembled from the wreckage) when its skids caught on a small hill, resulting in a crash that killed him instantly and injured the stuntman Bobby Rose.   The credits to this film include an appropriate tribute to Mantz: "a fine man and a brilliant flyer [who] gave his life in the making of this film".

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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