Amelia Earhart: The Final Flight

It would be impossible to make a biographical film of Ms. Earhart then or now without some included elements of myth. Noting them would be not so much a criticism as an observation.

Re: comments about her pilot skill shortcomings, I think the issue was well served by the takeoff accident depiction. I agree that her busy schedule seemed to have precluded enough up to date stick time.

The cinematography was above the made for TV standard throughout. The aerial shot of the lonely taxi and lineup to the last takeoff was one of the most visually evocative scenes in the history of film.

It will be interesting to compare this modest effort to the impending release. Diane Keaton vs Hilary Swank, no comment from me. Rutger Hauer Vs Christopher Eccleston. Bruce Dern vs Richard Gere will be interesting. I like them both but would lean towards Dern, all else being equal. But it won't be. The tale will be told in the battle of the writers. Given the tone and level of the work today, I will bet on this film. The trailer makes the new version seem a bit florid, but it is just a trailer.

This movie was decent for a TV Movie, it was well directed and fairly well casted (Although the casting of Dern as Putnam could have been better), and handled the era quite nicely.

I liked how it explored the angle of Amelia gathering information about Japanese movements - if you consider the condition the country was in at the time of the real Earhart flight, you'd understand that it very well could not be a myth. It included Noonans alcohol problem (A little known, yet on the record fact) as well as Amelias stubbornness to carry extra equipment.

One thing I did not like about this movie is the "afterwards" angle. It ended with them raising their altitude in some final acceptance scene into the sunset - Amelia was stubborn, she wouldn't have accepted the fact that she may very well be DEAD in an hour that easily.

Also, I think it would have been prudent to tell the viewers that not only would a Lockeed C-35 Electra (The plane she was flying) float with empty fuel tanks, but also that there were several islands in the vicinity of Amelias last transmissions... the (real) main theory is that she crashed on one of these islands and was later executed by pacific Japanese troops... the plane was then burned (Almost confirmed by pieces of a C-35 found on one of the islands) Overall it was an amusing movie. I thought it was overacted in some parts, and the drama was stereotypical and drawn out, but it was worth the two hours to watch it.

Made-for-TV movie about Amelia Earhart that paints an unflattering picture of the famed aviatrix. It stars Diane Keaton and, as another reviewer before me noted, she is not the right fit for this role. It's basically Diane Keaton being Diane Keaton (or Annie Hall). The controversy with this version of Earhart's story is how much she is portrayed as an incompetent and petulant woman who is barely able to get the plane off the ground. Her personal life is not spared either, as her relationship with her husband (Bruce Dern) is portrayed as a passionless business arrangement. I appreciate they didn't romanticize Amelia too much but maybe they went a bit too far in the other direction. The Amelia shown here had no business piloting an airplane.

It's a television movie so it was obviously never going to be dynamite, but it kept my interest throughout so I can't complain too much. You don't see much on TV today that would even go half as far as this in attempting to match the period clothing and cars, etc., let alone use an actual plane. It would be all CGI today and since it's made-for-TV, it would be terrible CGI. I should point out that, despite the attempts at getting the period setting right, they aren't entirely successful there. Also there are a few instances where they use words and phrases that I don't believe were common in the 1930s. Still, it's a decent time-passer despite its many flaws. I think most people will at least find it watchable, although Earhart buffs might be infuriated by it at times. I enjoyed it more than that terrible movie with Hillary Swank, that's for sure.

This movie has some value to introduce viewers to who Amelia Earhart and GP Putman were and how they marketed Amelia like laundry soap to a public hungry for a hero during the depression. It also accurately portrayed Amelia as a less then stellar pilot - absolutely brave but not technically proficient, and lackadaisical about radio communications (without which she will not find the speck of land in the Pacific where she needs to land).

Where it falls apart is the myths portrayed as facts in the movie. The spying on the Japanese islands theme has been discredited for years - not only is there a lack of evidence, the simple fact is that the only time Amelia Earhart was flying over Japanese controlled islands would have been during the flight from New Guinea to Howland Island when it would have been dark, she would have been too high to really see anything, and she was quite busy flying the plane under a very tight fuel management protocol and not looking out the window.

Her navigator Fred Noonan could have sued the makers of this movie for slander if he was still around. Noonan pioneered long distance aerial navigation over the Pacific Ocean working for Pan Am on the famous China Clippers, and was widely recognized as the best in the business. His drinking is a widely known story, that only has one written reference - a comment by a journalist in a private letter to a friend. Noonan learned his skills as a merchant seaman and as most sailors probably went on a bender during some shore leaves, but was known to be a consummate professional when working.

The movie shows Earhart and Noonan as constantly bickering during the flight - by all accounts (including Earhart's own press releases filed during the flight and newsreels shot during the flight) they got along very well.

Add to all of this are the little details like their constantly grimy appearance during the flight (they were basically flying an airliner and the actual newsreel shows them emerging from the plane clean and dapper at Lae) a completely made up engine failure during the round the world flight, and images of them camping by the plane in remote airstrips (they stayed in the best hotels available on each of their stops) and you have a tragic story made far more tragic by all of the inaccuracies.

This movie despite its shortcomings got me started researching the life of Fred Noonan nearly ten years ago. Rutger Hauer looks nothing like Fred who was tall and thin yet the movie although stereotyped is fairly accurate. It is true that Fred did indeed have a drinking problem for which he was fired but evidence shows that much of this was due to the immense strain he was under rather than a wilful character defect.It could be said that he was the worlds first commercial aerial navigator. He was nothing short of brilliant. He is shown as a likable character and this was so in real life. The video cover could have done without the image of him in a grimy shirt,cigarette in mouth, poring over a chart with a bottle of booze. Untrue. He was sartorial dresser who worried about the cleanliness of his clothes and the cigarette ash would have burned a hole in his precious chart.

One scene shows him laying back in the plane reading a magazine. For years I thought 'No way!' until recently I found out that he is reputed to have done just that in the Clipper planes which he navigated on their pioneering flights across the Pacific.Only it was thrillers rather than holiday brochures! This movie is well worth seeing. Its not brilliant art but is more factual than much of the stuff that is written about and discussed in Earhart circles. For those into the disappearance, Elgen Long's book, is in my opinion the best and most informative. But there IS also considerable 'evidence' for the theory that they may have been captured by the Japanese. In addition its not impossible that they might have perished on Niku.

Jackie Ferrari