The Great Waldo Pepper

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The Great Waldo Pepper
Theatrical release poster by Gary Meyer
Directed byGeorge Roy Hill
Written byGeorge Roy Hill
William Goldman
Produced byGeorge Roy Hill
StarringRobert Redford
Bo Svenson
Margot Kidder
Bo Brundin
Susan Sarandon
CinematographyRobert Surtees
Edited byWilliam H. Reynolds
Music byHenry Mancini
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • March 13, 1975 (1975-03-13)
Running time
107 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5 million
Box office$20,642,922[1]
Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper, standing by the nose of a Standard J-1 biplane used in the movie.
A Standard J-1 with "The Great Waldo Pepper" paint scheme

The Great Waldo Pepper is a 1975 American

pilot who missed the opportunity to fly in combat, and examines his sense of postwar dislocation in 1920s America. The cast includes Margot Kidder, Bo Svenson, Edward Herrmann and Susan Sarandon. The Great Waldo Pepper depicts barnstorming during the 1920s and the accidents that led to aviation regulations by the Air Commerce Act
.

Plot

1926: World War I veteran Waldo Pepper feels he has missed out on the glory of aerial combat after being made a flight instructor. After the war, Waldo had taken up barnstorming to make a living. He soon tangles with rival barnstormer (and fellow war veteran) Axel Olsson.

Antagonistic at first, Waldo and Axel become partners and try out various

outside loop
, and Ezra feels Waldo can do it with the monoplane.

In the meantime, Waldo rejoins Axel. The two eventually get a job flying for a traveling

Air Commerce
division of the federal government, Newt Potts, a man from Waldo's wartime past.

Soon after, at the Muncie Fair, another tragedy occurs with the Dillhoefer Circus when Ezra (flying in place of the grounded Waldo) attempts the outside loop in the monoplane. He crashes on his third attempt, and the crowd rushes out of the stands to see the wreckage. One of the spectators carelessly flicks a cigarette into gas leaking from the aircraft, igniting it. Helpless against the flames, Waldo kills Ezra with a piece of lumber to spare him the agony of being burned alive. Because no one helped Waldo try to save him, Waldo goes on a rampage, jumps in one of Dillhoefer's aircraft and begins buzzing the crowd away from the wreckage. He ends up crashing into a carnival area, which leads to his permanent grounding.

Waldo goes to

Fokker Dr. I
replica in the film.

During filming of a famous wartime duel, Waldo in a

playing chicken
and colliding with each other. Eventually, Waldo damages Kessler's aircraft so badly that it is no longer airworthy, and Kessler surrenders to Waldo. Waldo and Kessler then salute each other and fly their separate ways, Waldo unable to land without crashing due to damaged landing gear. As the sound fades, the last shot of the film is of a page in a photo album. One of the pictures is of Waldo, and beneath it is a caption that reads, "Waldo Pepper. 1895–1931."

Cast

  • Robert Redford as Waldo Pepper
  • Bo Svenson as Axel Olsson
  • Bo Brundin as Ernst Kessler
  • Susan Sarandon as Mary Beth McIlhenny
  • Geoffrey Lewis as Newt Potts
  • Edward Herrmann as Ezra Stiles
  • Philip Bruns
    as Doc Dillhoefer
  • Roderick Cook as Werfel
  • Kelly Jean Peters as Patsy
  • Margot Kidder as Maude Stiles
  • Scott Newman as Duke
  • James S. Appleby as Ace
  • Patrick W. Henderson as Scooter
  • James N. Harrell
    as the unnamed farmer (Scooter's father)
  • Elma Aicklen as the unnamed farmer's wife (Scooter's mother)
  • Deborah Knapp as the unnamed farmer's daughter (Scooter's sister)
  • John A. Zee as the unnamed director of the
    Old West
    saloon set
  • John Reilly as the unnamed star in the western movie
  • Jack Manning as the unnamed director of the Spanish movie set
  • Joe Billings as the unnamed policeman
  • Robert W. Winn as the unnamed theater manager
  • Lawrence P. Casey as the unnamed German actor portraying Kessler
  • Greg Martin as the unnamed assistant director
  • Frank Price as Kessler when flying[2]

History

Waldo Pepper was inspired by a combination of real-life barnstormers, such as

Speed Holman (1898-1931), and Earl Daugherty (1887-1928), whose photos appear in the opening credits. Like Pepper, all three pilots died in flying accidents.[3]

Locklear, similarly to Pepper, was a Hollywood stunt pilot. In 1920, he received the first aviation law violation for “reckless aerial driving” while flying over Los Angeles.[3] A daring aviator, military veteran and budding film star, Locklear is reputed to be the main inspiration for the character of Pepper. Locklear died when his aircraft crashed on August 2, 1920 during a nighttime film shoot for the Fox Studios feature, The Skywayman.[4]

The character of Ernst Kessler's depiction as disillusioned, bitter and a heavy drinker is based on the real German fighter pilot and stunt pilot Ernst Udet.[5] He was the second-highest scoring German pilot of World War I, and flew as a film and air show stunt pilot between the World Wars.[3]

Production

The Great Waldo Pepper was a "passion project" for director George Roy Hill, who was himself a pilot. He and William Goldman had what Goldman described as "a huge falling out" during the middle of Goldman's writing the screenplay. Nevertheless, they managed to complete the project.[6]

Curtiss JN-4 biplanes. A number of de Havilland Tiger Moth biplanes, modified to look like Curtiss JN-4s, were used for the crash scenes.[citation needed
]

The Great Waldo Pepper was filmed in

U.S. Marine Corps cargo pilot in World War II, made sure stars Bo Svenson and Robert Redford did each sequence with no parachutes or safety harnesses. He wanted them to feel what it was like to fly vintage aircraft. Fortunately, no one was hurt during the air scenes.[citation needed
]

Reception

Box office

The film earned $9.4 million at the box office in the U.S. during its year of initial release.[8]

Critical

The Great Waldo Pepper opened to mixed to good reviews, with the biggest praise going to the film's aerial sequences. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "'The Great Waldo Pepper' is a most appealing movie. Its moods don't quite mesh and its aerial sequences are so vivid— sometimes literally breathtaking— that they upstage the human drama, but the total effect is healthily romantic."[9]

Leonard Maltin noted that the film disappointed at the box office, and, although compared to earlier efforts such as The Sting (1973), it was director George Roy Hill's "more personal" account that "... wavers uncomfortably between slapstick and drama."[10]

The aerial sequences staged by Frank Tallman included the climactic fight between Waldo Pepper and Kessler. The scene featuring a replica Sopwith Camel and a replica Fokker Triplane, was loosely patterned after a real dogfight between German ace Werner Voss and a flight of aircraft led by British ace James McCudden.[11][Note 1]

Former silent screen actress Viola Dana was an honored guest at the premiere of The Great Waldo Pepper.[12] In 1920, Dana had begun a relationship with Ormer "Lock" Locklear.[Note 2]

Due to the attention to period details and the use of actual aircraft in the flying scenes, The Great Waldo Pepper is well-regarded among aviation films, receiving a "four-star" rating by film and aviation historians Jack Hardwick and Ed Schnepf.[13] The film remains connected to the perception of modern barnstorming. In 2021, a Smithsonian Magazine article wrote that barnstorming "is tangled up with real aviation history, dubious tall tales, nostalgia, and old movies such as The Great Waldo Pepper."[14]

Released in a number of home media formats, there are no extra features in the latest DVD.[citation needed]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ The aircraft used in The Great Waldo Pepper were displayed at Tallman's Movieland of the Air Museum until it was closed after his death.
  2. ^ Although married, Locklear had been dating Dana, and on the night before his death, in a premonition, gave her some of his personal effects. Dana witnessed the 1920 crash and would not fly again for 25 years.[4]

Citations

  1. ^ "The Great Waldo Pepper, Box Office Information." Box Office Mojo. Retrieved: August 31, 2014.
  2. ^ The Chicago Air and Water Show: A History of Wings above the Waves By Gerry Souter, Janet Souter
  3. ^ a b c Dennis K. Johnson (1 Dec 2019). "The Great Waldo Pepper: Film Depicts a Daring Aviator Who Wasn't, and Some Who Were". aopa.org. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Retrieved 20 Sep 2023.
  4. ^ a b Farmer 1984, p. 23.
  5. ^ de Haro 2012, p. X.
  6. ^ Goldman 2000, p. 266.
  7. ^ "Zuehl, Texas." Texas Escapes Online Magazine. Retrieved: August 31, 2014.
  8. ^ FIRST ANNUAL 'GROSSES GLOSS' Byron, Stuart. Film Comment; New York Vol. 12, Iss. 2, (Mar/Apr 1976): 30-31.
  9. ^ Canby, Vincent. "The Great Waldo Pepper (1975); Redford is Waldo Pepper, jaunty pilot." The New York Times, March 14, 1975.
  10. ^ Maltin 2009, p. 555.
  11. ^ "Overview: 'The_Great_Waldo_Pepper'." Internet Movie Plane Database. Retrieved: August 31, 2014.
  12. ^ Anderson, Nancy. "Viola Dana Loved the Real Waldo Pepper". Greeley Daily Tribune, April 28, 1975, p. 23. Retrieved: October 23, 2014.
  13. ^ Hardwick and Schnepf 1989, p. 57.
  14. ^ John Fleischman (August 2021). "The Barnstormer". smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 20 Sep 2023.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Great Waldo Pepper.
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