Wide Worlds: The Spirit of St. Louis and 55 Days at Peking
“Wide Worlds” for Greenbriar purpose will recognize scope titles available to us for home view. Whether streamed, on
physical media, or broadcast at TCM, they all are accessible and for me at
least worth seeing upon a flat screen TV or projected at a wall to engulf like in
days when these attractions were new. “Count Your Blessings” surely applies here
as with titles under that Greenbriar heading elsewhere.
THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS (1957) --- Going anyplace
alone during childhood meant my mother again telling what happened to the
Lindbergh baby in 1932. A couple of kidnaps did take place in my town during the
early sixties, “Lineberry” the accused, a name I forevermore connect with child
snatching. Charles Lindbergh was secondarily the man who flew a plane non-stop from New
York to Paris in 1927. Who could convey excitement this event generated? All
who might have gone. My father was twenty, my mother ten, when it happened. Both
recalled where they were, what they were doing, when Lindy touched down. Youth en
masse went daffy for flying. There was a man I worked with selling dry goods in
the early eighties who built a plane that flew after Lindbergh example. A picture
of teenage him and dog companion in the cockpit, goggles and all, was proof
provided. Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s widow spent decades trying to clear her
husband of infamy for which he was electrocuted in 1936. Used to see her on TV
testifying before one committee or other. Lindbergh was vivid for me in ways he
apparently was not for 1957 viewership that shunned The Spirit of St. Louis, Billy
Wilder’s telling of the Lone Eagle saga that went down like a Titanic of
fact-based failures, no fault of the excellent picture it was, but what did public
indifference say of ingratitude for historic achievement and those who made it? Possible explanation, if not excuse … what’s the big deal of flying the Atlantic when jets
with passengers were doing so every day, and what about rockets poised for outer
space?
12 Comments:
I got kicked out of a church for quoting the poet, "'A man's reach should exceed his grasp.," I never got to, "'or what's a Heaven for?'" The minister and the congregation rose as one, shouted, "We won't have that here!" I was physically shown the door. I flagged a passing cab. The driver said, "What happened there?" After I told him he said, "My GOD, they are all losers." Sam Bronston reached beyond his grasp. So he missed with this one. Big deal. The ones he hit the mark with are awesome.
The Spirit Of St. Louis is summed up perfectly for me by pic of Jimmy asleep at the controls — that’s the effect it had on me. Outcome already known (spoiler: he makes it) and knowledge that hero was a nazi sympathizer and an antisemite definitely colored my response.
And even as a kid I thought Stewart far too old, though I generally liked his work. I understand why it tanked at the box office — it’s deadly dull.
I wonder why Wilder made this movie when he must have been aware of Lindbergh's (and his wife's) odious politics. I also wonder if he didn't hype the movie because he was afraid of people with long memories confronting him.
Noticed an error in the newspaper ad for "The Spirit of St. Louis". "Directed by Leland Hayward". Considering the fame of Billy Wilder, a somewhat surprising error to make.
I believe FDR called Lindberg. Nazi, Wilder must have known what his politics were.
The ad copy does give Billy Wilder the producer's credit, so his name's still visible.
All kinds of old-timey guys did great things, but if you look up close they were pretty creepy too. That's the way it goes, I guess - people aren't angels. (Oh what a surprise!)
Still.... dramatic and daring accomplishments should be celebrated, at least film producers tend to think so, but they don't really need to be celebrated warts and all; especially so, if the people presenting those as entertainments want to turn a profit while they are at it.
For film audiences sometimes - maybe even often - have trouble when there are too many shades of gray in a character being portrayed, they usually like it best when the hats that the actors wear on the big screen are either all black, or all white.
But it should also be remembered that people, not being fools, are well aware and know that the movies are "make-believe" - so they really do not expect that real people in the real world are ever quite so cut, dried and sorted.
They already know that nobody's perfect, and they don't need the movies to remind them of that fact - especially when it comes to their heroes.
Browsing through old newspapers for information on "Spirit of St. Louis," I noticed that in the years between its theatrical release (1957) and its TV debut via syndication (1963), "Spirit" appears to have played the children's matinee circuit pretty regularly. Frankly, at better than two hours, I can't imagine it holding the attention of a theater packed with children. Running a movie like this for a kiddie matinee could be dangerous, with soda pop, candy, popcorn and cartoons turning things into a free-for-all before the movie was half over.
I happen to have a DVD of "The Spirit of St. Louis" on the shelf, inherited from a late relative, so I thought I'd watch it after reading this article.
First thing I noticed was that the score had been "re-mastered" to a 5.1 format, and that they had done a good job of it, it sounded great.
Staying with how the film sounds, Jimmy Stewart has narration throughout; and that's a problem for me, as besides feeling narration is often used to fill out a weak movie ( movies should show rather than tell a story, I think), I find Stewart's warm, mellifluous voice soporific ( perhaps he was cast as 'everybody's dad' in the 1960s because that voice is one that any child would fall easily asleep to while listening to it tell a bedtime story). He had a million dollar voice, Stewart did.
Overall, if Wilder intended his audience to experience what the hero on screen was experiencing, to live the adventure along with Lindy as he flew, he succeeded - in that I too had to make heroic efforts to fight off sleep, just as Wilder showed the hero doing up on the screen.
The movie looks great, but it's odd that so much of it deals with either the lack of sleep, or the fighting off of sleep, portraying sleep as being dangerous and something to struggle with - while Jimmy Stewart's dulcet and velvety voice narrates warmly it's memories and struggles in the thrilling world of early aviation.
So...after the movie ended, I too felt like a hero for having done successfully what Lindy is portrayed as doing throughout this film - struggling against the onset of sleep. I enjoyed it, overall, but it's a strange film in many ways, with a difficult source story to tell via film; I suppose they did the best they could.
I suspect that for me personally, a different voice would have made the movie better, but what can you do? - this is Jimmy Stewart's movie.
I'm also at a loss as to think of which other movie star of the mid-1950s - Marlon Brando? James Dean? Jerry Lewis? Dean Martin? Robert Mitchum?- could have played this part as it is anyhow. I can think of none that really fit the role's requirements, especially while considering the amount of narration it requires. Maybe Robert Stack, I guess.
Never thought of SPIRIT in terms of inducing sleep, or trying to resist it. Thanks for some great insights, Filmfanman.
I suspected that Dan Mercer would be along to discuss Charles Lindbergh and THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS, and here he is ... (Part One)
James Stewart was not a bad choice to play Charles A. Lindbergh. He was tall, slender, and handsome, like Lindbergh, and he loved flying, largely because of the the effect Lindbergh's New York to Paris flight had had on him . His performance is very effective, given the conception of the character. Your suggestion, however, that Tab Hunter should have been given the part instead is an intriguing one and touches upon an aspect of Lindbergh's popularity that is rarely considered.
The criticism most often made of Stewart in the role is that he was too old, when the newspapers of the time invariably stressed Lindbergh's youth, delighting in referring to him as a "boy." No doubt this was done to show how different he was from some of his rivals, with their organizations and publicity machines, when he was seemingly alone and untouched by their commercial calculations, which reflected an aspect of the time which many found themselves increasingly disgusted by. Lindbergh was no novice, though. He held a commission in the Army Air Corps, was first in his class in training school, and had succeeded in the highly dangerous occupation of flying the mail. The flight to Paris was a feat of rational planning, brilliant flying, and absolute strength of will, for the physical trials demonstrated in the film were by no means exaggerated. There was another side to him as well, however, in that he was extremely reticent about sharing any aspect of his personal life, which was itself highly compartmentalized. Few people had any sort of relationship with him, let alone an intimate one, as he was probably closer to the machines he flew than to the people who watched him do it.
Far from dispelling his popularity, this distance and aloofness allowed the public to invest in him all they believed was good and decent, since there were no obvious contradictions to what they felt and so much as was publicly known only seemed to confirm what they imagined they saw in him. He was immune to the blandishments of celebrity, turning down a million dollars of movie and vaudeville offers; and, when he spoke, it was to extoll the new age of cooperation aviation would foster, thus suggesting that it had not been the prize money that had attracted him, but the realization of an ideal. In the victory parades held in New York and Washington, D.C., he was not dressed in the uniform of a U.S. Army captain, but in an ordinary business suit, demonstrating a commendable modesty against the backdrop of such celebrations In Paris, he appeared on the balcony of the U.S. Embassy holding both French and American flags and he said nothing unless it was to extoll the bravery of Nungesser and Coli, the French flyers who died in their own attempt to cross the Atlantic shortly before his own. As such, he became the idol of millions because he seemed to be the personification of their own ideals.
Part Two from Dan Mercer:
The screenplay and Stewart's performance attempted to humanize Lindbergh, with various bits of business intended to show that he was not so very different from us, if more ambitious and courageous. In addition, since Stewart was a movie star, there were inevitably associations between characteristics associated with him and this particular character he was playing. In trying to make Lindbergh more accessible, however, the film neglected the inaccessibility that had made him a phenomenon. The public's fascination was not because he was one of us, but because he seemed to transcend our limitations, to reveal something rather finer. He had become not merely someone who had succeeded in a particular task, however notable, but had revealed himself in the process to be like a hero come out of myth or legend. Casting someone like Tab Hunter, who was relatively unknown to the public but demonstrably young, with the aura of possibility that attends such youth, would have allowed a portrayal that more closely coincided with who Lindbergh was--or more importantly, who he appeared to be--and thus a film that might have captured the fantasy that so many gave themselves over to. Such a film, however, would have been very different from the one that was made and probably of a sort Lindbergh himself would not have approved of or allowed.
The film as made was not necessarily unpopular, it simply didn't do enough business to turn a profit, given the high production cost it required. I don't think that it would have proven to be any more popular with the changes made that would have been facilitated by the casting of a Tab Hunter. As others have noted, Lindbergh had become a controversial figure for having opposed the efforts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to involve the United States in what was then a European conflict. He believed that it was not in the country's interests to become involved in the war and that if we were, it would inevitably lead to a world war, with massive destruction and loss of life. Only the Soviet Union, he thought, would benefit from this. In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa in February, 1941, he identified the forces seeking our involvement as the Roosevelt administration, the British, and the Jews. While he acknowledged what the Jews had suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany, the very fact that he had distinguished their interests from those of the United States caused many to denounce him as an antisemite. President Roosevelt had already alluded to him as a "Copperhead," after the term used by President Lincoln for northerners who supported the Confederate cause; which is to say, a traitor. In response, Lindbergh resigned from his Army commission, which he regarded as the only honorable response he could make to such an accusation by his commander-in-chief. When the United States did enter the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh attempted to rejoin the military but was frozen out by the Roosevelt administration. Eventually, he became a consultant to the aircraft industry and performed much valuable work in the design and production of military aircraft. He also insinuated himself himself into field testing of aircraft in the Pacific theater of operations, performing around fifty combat missions, usually in hazardous ground attack roles, and shooting down one Japanese fighter.
The stigma he suffered for his opposition to the war gradually faded as his wartime service became better known. His book on the New York to Paris flight, "The Spirit of St. Louis," won the Pulitzer Prize and was a best seller for several months. The country had forgiven him and was willing to remember his great accomplishment, which ushered in a new age of communication. The idolatry which accompanied it, however, was long past.
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