Along with reminiscences of his early days in aviation, the film's storyline largely focuses on Lindbergh's lengthy preparation for, and accomplishment of, his history-making transatlantic flight in the purpose-built Spirit of St. Louis high-wing monoplane. His takeoff begins at Roosevelt Field and ends 33 hours later on May 21, 1927 when he lands safely at Le Bourget Field in Paris. The film ends with actual newsreel footage of Lindbergh's ticker tape parade in New York.
Plot
On May 19, 1927, after waiting a week for the rain to stop on Long Island, New York, pilot Charles A. "Slim" Lindbergh tries to sleep in a hotel near Roosevelt Field before his transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. His friend Frank Mahoney guards his hotel-room door from reporters. Unable to sleep, Lindbergh reminisces about his time as an airmail pilot.
In a flashback sequence, Lindbergh lands his old de Havilland biplane at a small airfield to refuel on the way to Chicago. Despite bad weather, he takes off, unaware that heavy snow has closed the Chicago landing field. Lindbergh is forced to bail out in a storm after running out of fuel. Recovering mail from his crashed DH-4, he continues to Chicago by train. A suspender salesman tells him that two airmen just died competing for the Orteig Prize for the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris. [N 1]
Lindbergh calls Columbia Aircraft Corporation in New York from a small diner at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field. Quoted a price of $15,000 ($250,000 today) for a Bellanca high-wing monoplane, Lindbergh lobbies St. Louis financiers with a plan to fly the Atlantic in 40 hours in a stripped-down, single-engine aircraft. The backers are excited by Lindbergh's vision and dub the venture Spirit of St. Louis.
When the Bellanca deal falls apart because Columbia insists on selecting the pilot, Lindbergh approaches Ryan Airlines, a small manufacturer in San Diego, California. Frank Mahoney, the company's owner and president, promises to build a suitable monoplane in just 90 days. With Ryan's chief engineer Donald Hall, a design takes shape. To decrease weight, Lindbergh refuses to install a radio or other heavy equipment, even a parachute, and plans to navigate by "dead reckoning". With no autopilot function available, Lindbergh will not be able to sleep during the flight. With the deadline pressing, Ryan workers agree to work around the clock, completing the monoplane in just 62 days.
Lindbergh flies The Spirit of St. Louis to New York, stopping at Lambert Field (St. Louis Lambert International Airport) on the way to show the aircraft to his investors. He prepares for the flight at Roosevelt Field, ensuring that 450 gallons of fuel is on board for the long flight. In the cramped cockpit, which does not allow direct forward view, the magnetic compass must fit above his head; a young woman offers her compact mirror, which is attached with chewing gum so that Lindbergh can read the compass. Mahoney secretly slips a Saint Christopher medal into a bag of sandwiches on board.
As the weather clears, The Spirit of St. Louis trundles down the muddy runway and barely clears electric lines and treetops. An American newspaper's headline reads: "Lindy Is Off!" Every hour, Lindbergh switches fuel tanks to keep the airplane's weight balanced. As he flies over Cape Cod, Lindbergh realizes that he has not slept in 28 hours. He recalls past times when he had slept on railroad tracks, short bunk beds, and under a windmill. When he begins to doze, he is awakened by a fly. Over Nova Scotia, he sees a motorcyclist below, remembering his own Harley-Davidson motorcycle that he had once traded as partial payment for his first aircraft, a World War I war-surplus Curtiss Jenny.
Over the seemingly endless Atlantic, Lindbergh remembers barnstorming across the Midwest in a flying circus. After 18 hours, ice forms on the wings and engine, and the aircraft begins losing altitude. Lindbergh changes course and the ice breaks off in the warmer air; the engine, which had stopped, is restarted. Back on course, his compasses begin malfunctioning, forcing him to navigate by the stars. By dawn, he falls asleep, and the monoplane slowly descends in a wide spiral toward the ocean. Sunlight reflecting off the compact's mirror finally awakens him in time to regain flight control.
Seeing a seagull, Lindbergh realizes that he is close to land. He tries without success to hail a fisherman below. Sighting land, he determines that he has reached Dingle Bay, Ireland. Pulling out a sandwich from a paper bag, Lindbergh discovers the hidden Saint Christopher medal and hangs it on the instrument panel. Crossing the English Channel and the coast of France, Lindbergh follows the Seine up to Paris as darkness falls.
Finally seeing the city lights ahead of him, Lindbergh approaches Le Bourget Airfield in the dark, becoming disoriented by panning spotlights aimed into the sky. He glimpses strange movements and lights below, in reality huge crowds of people and traffic in and around Le Bourget. Confused by this chaos, Lindbergh begins his landing approach, quickly becoming panicked. As he goes lower, he whispers "Oh, God, help me!"
Landing safely and bringing The Spirit of St. Louis to a full stop, Lindbergh is rushed by hordes of people while sitting in the plane. As flash powder ignites and photos are taken, Lindbergh is carried triumphantly on people's shoulders toward a hangar. An exhausted Lindbergh eventually realizes that the crowds, numbering 200,000, are cheering for him and his achievement. On returning to New York City, Lindbergh, having now become a national hero, is given a huge ticker tape parade, with four million people lining the parade route.
Jimmy Stewart with the aircraft replica used in the film
When production began in August 1955, Jack Warner offered the role of Lindbergh to John Kerr, who turned it down.[7][N 2][8] Numerous sources indicate that Stewart was lobbying Warner Bros. executives for the role as early as 1954.[7] Stewart did not take a salary for the role in return for a share of the gross.[3] At age 47 when the film was shot, Stewart underwent a strenuous diet and regimen to more closely resemble the 25-year-old Lindbergh of 1927. Stewart (with hair dyed blond) was ultimately cast as Lindbergh, but his age was pointedly an issue in post-production reviews.[9]
Stewart had a lifelong passion for aviation and Lindbergh's story. Later in his life, he recalled Lindbergh's famous flight as among the most significant events of his youth, one that led him to seek a career as an aviator.[10] Like Lindbergh, Stewart had been an USAAF pilot, and both eventually retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve at the grade of brigadier general.[11]
To accurately depict the transatlantic flight, three replicas, at a cost of $1.3 million (equal to $14.2 million today), were made of the Spirit of St. Louis for the various filming units stateside, in Europe and in the studio.[12] Stewart purchased a similar Ryan Brougham that was modified under Lindbergh's supervision. In 1959, Stewart donated the aircraft to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.[13] The second replica was donated to the San Diego Aerospace Museum but was destroyed in 1978 when a fire gutted the Electric Building in Balboa Park that housed the museum.[14] The third replica is displayed in the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.[15]
During pre-production in August 1955, a small film crew was sent to New York to shoot footage at Roosevelt Field on Long Island and later to film aerial sequences over the Appalachian Mountains in Nova Scotia and at St. John's, Newfoundland, recreating the initial stages of the transatlantic flight. Principal photography began on September 2, 1955, with filming taking place at L'aérodrome de Guyancourt, near Versailles, which would stand in for Le Bourget. Difficulties with Stewart's schedule led to the abandonment of aerial sequences that had been planned with Stewart actually flying one of the replicas over European locales. Ultimately, staged scenes using a mock-up on a sound stage had to suffice. The film's schedule was disrupted throughout the fall and only resumed in November when Stewart had completed two other films. The original 64-day schedule ballooned into a 115-day marathon, as weather and Stewart's unavailability hampered the production, with final sequences shot in March 1956.[19] The film eventually cost $7,000,000.[3]
Aaron Spelling appears as Mr. Fearless in an uncredited role that marks an early foray into acting.
Reception
The film garnered mixed reviews, with Bosley Crowther at The New York Times praising the "... exciting and suspenseful episodes" while noting that Stewart's performance as Lindbergh did not convey the human side well:
"We see very little of his basic nature, his home life or what makes him tick. As Mr. Stewart plays him, with his usual diffidence, he is mainly a type. That's too bad, for after all these years of waiting, it would be interesting if we could see what it was about the fellow that made him uniquely destined for his historic role.[20]
However, the film was commended for its special effects and Stewart's performance. Time in its 1957 review describes the actor's success in conveying on screen the public's perception of Lindbergh's feat three decades earlier:
Stewart, for all his professional, 48-year-old boyishness, succeeds almost continuously in suggesting what all the world sensed at the time: that Lindbergh's flight was not the mere physical adventure of a rash young 'flying fool' but rather a journey of the spirit, in which, as in the pattern of all progress, one brave man proved himself for all mankind as the paraclete of a new possibility.[21]
The film opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on February 21, 1957[1] and helped set a Broadway record gross of $829,500 for Washington's Birthday week with its gross of $160,000 (also a record for Washington's Birthday).[2]
Overall, early results had not been promising, and when put into general release on April 20, 1957,[1]The Spirit of St. Louis was a box-office failure.[citation needed]
In recent years, the film has regained some of its luster, and a modern reevaluation has centered on the screenplay's characterization of Lindbergh and the methodical depiction of the preparations for the momentous flight. The Smithsonian Institution periodically screens the film as part of its "classic" series, and the DVD re-release in 2006, with remixed and digitized elements and a small number of special features, has evoked commentary such as "captivating" and "suspenseful".[22]
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator and military officer. On May 20–21, 1927, he made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles (5,800 km), flying alone for 33.5 hours. His aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was designed and built by the Ryan Airline Company specifically to compete for the Orteig Prize for the first flight between the two cities. Although not the first transatlantic flight, it was the first solo transatlantic flight and the longest at the time by nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km). It became known as one of the most consequential flights in history and ushered in a new era of air transportation between parts of the globe.
The Orteig Prize was a reward of $25,000 offered in 1919 by New York City hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first Allied aviator, or aviators, to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice versa. Several famous aviators made unsuccessful attempts at the New York–Paris flight before the relatively unknown American Charles Lindbergh won the prize in 1927 in his aircraft Spirit of St. Louis.
The Spirit of St. Louis is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
Raymond Orteig was a French American hotel owner in New York City in the early 20th century. He is best known for setting up the $25,000 Orteig Prize in 1919 for the first non-stop transatlantic flight between New York City and Paris, which was claimed by Charles Lindbergh eight years later in 1927.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1927:
Douglas Corrigan was an American aviator, nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight in July from Long Beach, California, to New York City, he then flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to Ireland, although his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach.
The Spirit of St. Louis is an autobiographical account by Charles Lindbergh about the events leading up to and including his 1927 solo trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, a custom-built, single engine, single-seat monoplane. The book was published on September 14, 1953, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Erik Robbins Lindbergh is an American aviator, adventurer, and artist. He is the grandson of pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly non-stop and solo between New York and Paris in 1927. In 2002, Erik Lindbergh honored the 75th anniversary of his grandfather's historic flight by retracing the journey in a single-engine Lancair aircraft. The journey was documented by the History Channel, raised over one million dollars for three charities, garnered half a billion media impressions for the X PRIZE Foundation and helped to jump-start the private Spaceflight industry. The flight prompted a call from United States President George W. Bush for inspiring the country after the tragedy of September 11.
Roosevelt Field is a former airport, located in Westbury, Long Island, New York. Originally called the Hempstead Plains Aerodrome, or sometimes Hempstead Plains field or the Garden City Aerodrome, it was a training field for the Air Service, United States Army during World War I.
Bertrand Blanchard Acosta was a record-setting aviator and test pilot. He and Clarence D. Chamberlin set an endurance record of 51 hours, 11 minutes, and 25 seconds in the air. He later flew in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Squadron. He was known as the "bad boy of the air". He received numerous fines and suspensions for flying stunts such as flying under bridges or flying too close to buildings.
The Cradle of Aviation Museum is an aerospace museum located in Uniondale, New York on Long Island, established to commemorate Long Island's part in the history of aviation. It is located on land once part of Mitchel Air Force Base which, together with nearby Roosevelt Field and other airfields on the Hempstead Plains, was the site of many historic flights. So many seminal flights had occurred in the area that, by the mid-1920s, the cluster of airfields was already dubbed the "Cradle of Aviation", the origin of the museum's name.
Clarence Duncan Chamberlin was an American pioneer of aviation, being the second man to pilot a fixed-wing aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to the European mainland, while carrying the first transatlantic passenger.
Charles Albert Levine was the first passenger aboard a transatlantic flight. He was ready to cross the Atlantic to claim the Orteig prize but a court battle over who was going to be in the airplane allowed Charles Lindbergh to leave first.
Donald Albert Hall was an American pioneering aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer who is most famous for having designed the Spirit of St. Louis.
L'Oiseau Blanc was a French Levasseur PL.8 biplane that disappeared in 1927 during an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York City to compete for the Orteig Prize. French World War I aviation heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli took off from Paris on 8 May 1927 and were last seen over Ireland. Less than two weeks later, Charles Lindbergh successfully made the New York–Paris journey and claimed the prize in the Spirit of St. Louis.
The Ryan Brougham was a small single-engine airliner produced in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Its design was reminiscent of the M-1 mailplane first produced by Ryan in 1926, and like it, was a high-wing, strut-braced monoplane of conventional design.
The Wright-Bellanca WB-2, was a high wing monoplane aircraft designed by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, initially for Wright Aeronautical then later Columbia Aircraft Corp.
Lloyd Wilson Bertaud was an American aviator. Bertaud was selected to be the copilot in the WB-2 Columbia attempting the transatlantic crossing for the Orteig Prize in 1927. Aircraft owner Charles A. Levine wanted to fly in his place, and an injunction by Bertaud against Levine prevented the flight. Aviator Charles Lindbergh won the prize.
The Lindbergh Boom (1927–1929) is a period of rapid interest in aviation following the awarding of the Orteig Prize to Charles Lindbergh for his 1927 non-stop solo transatlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis. The Lindbergh Boom occurred during the interwar period between World War I and World War II, where aviation development was fueled by commercial interests rather than wartime necessity. During this period, dozens of companies were formed to create airlines, and aircraft for a new age in aviation. Many of the fledgling companies funded by stock went under as quick as they started as the stock that capitalized them plummeted in value following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The Great Depression dried up the market for new aircraft, causing many aircraft companies to go into bankruptcy or get consolidated by larger entities. Air racing, record attempts, and barnstorming remained popular, as aviators tried to recapture the prizes and publicity of Lindbergh's Transatlantic flight.
"WE" is an autobiographical account by Charles A. Lindbergh (1902–1974) about his life and the events leading up to and including his May 1927 New York to Paris solo trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, a custom-built, single engine, single-seat Ryan monoplane. It was first published on July 27, 1927 by G.P. Putnam's Sons in New York.
References
Notes
↑ The Orteig Prize offered by Paris hotelier Raymond Orteig could be claimed by aviators completing the flight in either direction.[5]
↑ An urban myth has developed involving James Dean. After completing the film Giant in mid-1955, Dean was allegedly offered the role to portray Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis, but the actor died in an auto accident on September 30, 1955, before the production's filming could begin. At the time of his death, Dean was 25, the same age as Lindbergh when he made his historic flight.[7]
↑ On a bet from Stewart, the director Wilder flew on top of a biplane for a wingwalker stunt.[18]
↑ The Spirit of St. Louis (DVD). Los Angeles, California: Warner Bros. 2006.
Bibliography
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Bryan, Ford Richardson. Henry's Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and his Museum. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996. ISBN978-0-81432-642-8.
Eliot, Mark. Jimmy Stewart: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2006. ISBN1-4000-5221-1.
Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies." The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
Jones, Ken D., Arthur F. McClure and Alfred E. Twomey. The Films of James Stewart. New York: Castle Books, 1970.
Kaercher, Dan, ed. Best of the Midwest: Rediscovering America's Heartland (Insiders ' Guide). Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot, First edition, 2005. ISBN978-0-7627-3699-7.
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