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The Hindenburg | Year: 1975 Classification: Action/Adventure Directed: - Robert Wise Actors/Actresses: - George C. Scott - Anne Bancroft It's a disaster all right I know this isn't considered a "great" or even "good" film, but because of my intense interest in the real disaster I have a bit of a soft spot in my heart for it. The crash at Lakehurst New Jersey in 1937 ended the era of lighter-than-air travel. Not having seen the film in many years, I decided to rent it when it appeared on DVD. Sad to say, the movie is even worse than I remembered. I'm a big fan of director Robert Wise, special effects guru Albert Whitlock, actor George C. Scott and many of the other people who worked on the picture, but this is a cookbook recipe of How Not To Make A Movie. The tone is far too serious and portentious. Typical of '70s soap opera-y disaster flicks, there are too many characters with too many problems that really aren't problems at all (or at least, not interesting ones). There are many red herrings, and after a while, like with the boy who cried wolf, we stop paying attention. Hacking away a few of these "subplots" would have made the film leaner and more interesting. (You could leave all of Burgess Meredith and Rene Auberjonois' scenes in the cutting room.) In films like these, the supporting actors tend to be either up-and-coming or fading fast, and most of those here are the latter. Anne Bancroft is underused as the Countess--they can't seem to decide whether to give Ritter a love interest or not. Roy Thinnes is as plausible as a Gestapo agent as Brad Pitt is as a friend of the Dali Lama. And it seems to me they tried to give William Atherton a "devilish" quality that falls flat, probably because Atherton, for all his good looks, has all the charisma of buttered bread. The American officials at Lakehurst and Washington are straight from Central Casting--gruff-but-lovable lugs who just want to see the "flying gas kettle" land safely. (Did the film have to mention one more time that the ship was filled with deadly and explosive hydrogen? Did anyone going into the theater *not* already know that?) About the only mildly interesting supporting cast members are the German captains--Richard Dysart as Earnst Lehman and Charles Durning as Max Pruss have a few mildly memorable moments. Also slightly amusing is Robert Clary as a flaky German acrobat, in part because there was indeed such a character on board the real ship, who was initially the prime suspect in the disaster. (He was quickly cleared.) Which brings us to George Patton--err, I mean George C. Scott. He seems to be thinking about his golf game most of the time--his performance is phoned in, as were many of his performances after Patton. But what bothers me more is the real spine of the story really doesn't emerge till the move is about 75 percent over. I think the film would have been better if they'd junked most of the silly passenger subplots and concentrated on Ritter being torn between service to and love for his country and the fact that the Nazis are becoming big-time pains in the shorts. As it is, we've long figured out what's going to hap An excellent disaster movie, NOT a disastrous movie! Critics simply didnt favour this film, main points of contention being the soap-opera style acting, variable special effects, and an overdrawn and therefore anticlimactic conclusion. Certainly there is some truth in the first of these criticisms, and its puzzling why Robert Wise allowed or even encouraged it. Yet I do not feel the film sinks as a result, notably due to George C. Scotts rock solid (as usual) performance. There are a handful of actors who carry a film, or seem incapable of giving a below- par performance, Mr. Scott falls into both these categories. This is not to say he is the only reason for watching, far from it. The music score is impressive, the Oscar-winning special effects fine and probably deserving of this acolade, and the tragic finale harrowing, moving, and therefore very effective. Not a classic, but severely underrated, this film only just fails to hit my Top Twenty all-time favourite movies. Excational use of Matte Paintings. Most of the special effects in this movie were models and matte paintings done by Albert Witlock, who was an oscar winning artists of paintings and whose work appears (sometimes uncredited) in various movies. Hindenburg was I think his best work. Before CGI, there were matte paintings, and many of them were very good, just like this picture was.. Buy The Hindenburg at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Hindenburg Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Hindenburg This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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