During the filming, Jimmy Stewart had a birthday and also marked his 70th film appearance with the lead role. The cast and crew made sure Stewart got a party and presents for his trouble.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Opening Credits I Love: Flight of the Phoenix
On this day, December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright powered a heavier-than-air airplane and made it fly. On December 15, 1965, Flight of the Phoenix (d. Robert Aldrich) premiered, starring a plane that hits the ground before the credits are even finished. And that opening credits sequence is among my favorites in the annals of movie history. The freeze-framing on each actor as his name appears on the screen, the anguished screams from the men as things fall on them, the heightened looks of concern on their faces harking back to the silent era and the musical score punching in a cue for each new action all work in concert to produce a kind of festival of cheese that came to be standard for most of the action movies of the era where the actors in character are shown (either at the start of the movie or its finish) rather than simply scrolling the names up the screen. At some point they stopped doing credits this way, right around the time Burt Reynolds turned credit rolls into blooper reels with the Cannonball Run movies, but I sure wish they'd bring them back.
During the filming, Jimmy Stewart had a birthday and also marked his 70th film appearance with the lead role. The cast and crew made sure Stewart got a party and presents for his trouble.
During the filming, Jimmy Stewart had a birthday and also marked his 70th film appearance with the lead role. The cast and crew made sure Stewart got a party and presents for his trouble.
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11 comments:
I saw the remake. I have this one at home, though. I think I'll go home and watch it so I can tell you how wrong you are.
Wrong about what? I didn't say anything about the movie except that I like the opening credits. I'm confused.
Wrong about the opening credits. DUH!
But how can someone be wrong saying they like something? Trust me, I like the opening credits. I'm not wrong about that. This is so weird.
No it's not, you're weird.
Yeah, I love this sequence, too. The only way this credits sequence could be more perfect is if they had actually killed William Aldrich a beat after his name comes up on screen. Wouldn't that have been hysterical?
It would've been. His scream is kind of like a little girl's so it would be fitting to just off him right then and there.
But that would be a good joke for a movie with the actors in freeze frame for the opening credits. The last one could be "Special Appearance by..." and then he or she is killed and you realize that that was the "special appearance."
Aldrich made a habit of playing with the opening credits on several of his films, so in that regard, Flight of the Phoenix is not unusual.
If you haven't seen it, check out Too Late the Hero for comparison.
Actually, no, I haven't seen that so I'll give it a look. Thanks.
I haven't seen Too Late the Hero in donkey's years. All I really remember is Caine's last line of dialogue. Which means another viewing is in order... maybe backed by Play Dirty for some serious Caine on Caine action.
A donkey's year. That's pretty long, right?
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