L'aquila solitaria

This is as close to a one-man show as you're ever going to see on film as Jimmy Stewart dominates the picture while all others just have bit roles.

I found it interesting because I find Charles Lindberg's feat amazing and worth watching. I also enjoyed the widescreen picture. I'm surprised it's not available on DVD. The most amazing part of Lindberg's feat, from what I discovered watching the movie, was that he went 30 hours without sleep before he even took off! To stay awake for the entire trip to Paris after that was incredible.

To keep the viewers' interest, the film flashes back a number of times to Lindberg's earlier days and most of that is pretty interesting. Yes, there are some lulls in here and the movie could have been shortened from its 138 minutes but Stewart does a nice job of entertaining us, as he usually did.

I do have one question, one complaint and one suggestion. My question is, "Why is there no mention of his wife, Anne Morrow?" Odd, they totally left her out of this. She was famous in her own right.

My complaint is the emphasis - it's brought up twice in case you missed it the first time - on Lindberg not believing in prayer, only the things he could see. Pagan Hollywood just has to get their agenda in, and much of it began in the 1950s when moral restrictions began to slowly ease. This is just one more example.

They also left out what happened right after the flight, thus making the film more of a story about the voyage than of Lindberg's aviation career. Too bad, because, as many of you might know, his son's kidnapping is one of the biggest stories of that era. My suggestion then is that a full biography, with the emphasis on this flight across the Atlantic, might have been a better way to go. I think you would see that with a re-make, along with a faster- moving film.

I have watched this film several times over the years and always find it an entertaining experience. As a retired airline pilot, I am interested in most aviation movies and this is one of the better ones. I know that Lindbergh was only 25 years old at the time of his historic solo flight to Paris and that James Stewart was almost 50 when making this movie but I can overlook that fact because Stewart has always been one of my all-time favorite actors and does one of his usual outstanding performances as the "lone eagle".

There is a good mixture of comedy and drama throughout the film and a good use of flashbacks. It also helps that James Stewart was a pilot in real life both in the military and civilian life.

Someone once said to me that there are only four basic movie plots: the first, boy meets girl: the second, man against apparently insuperable odds: the others.....I can't remember. Although I am not by nature agoraphobic, I guess when it comes to cinema I prefer the cosily domestic to wide open spaces. Every so often, however, I find myself responding to man battling it out against the elements, particularly if the point is being made that, without the sheer determination of an individual to grapple with prejudice and ignorance, civilization would not gain a pace or two forward. Billy Wilder's epic of human endeavour, "The Spirit of St. Louis", is just such an instance. It is heaps better than most in this category mainly through the excellent central performance by James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh, the first successful transatlantic flyer. True, Stewart was twice the age of the man he was portraying but he brilliantly manages the demeanour of a much younger person and has the advantage of being one of the very few actors able to convey the determined obsessive fanaticism that Lindbergh must have possessed. One can admire Wilder's skill in sustaining audience interest throughout what is essentially a one character and a one scene film but he achieves it through interspersing the present from the night before the takeoff, with flashbacks that retell the background to the mission, each a little story in itself, some quite tense such as Lindbergh's adventurous flight during a blizzard when he was a flying mail courier and others rather droll such as giving a flying lesson to a priest who is the most incompetent would-be aviator ever. The main journey once it gets going is mainly smooth and something of a leisurely travelogue with nice views over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland on the way. Far more dramatic is the takeoff during foul weather from a rain drenched runway in which Stewart grapples with his tiny aircraft narrowly clearing pylons and a clump of trees. The miracle that so flimsy a machine could make it not only for a few miles but across a vast ocean is reinforced by the hazardous implications of this wonderfully atmospheric sequence in a way that make the journey and the arrival in Paris quite uplifting.

When people think of the great Billy Wilder films they often forget to mention this one. A great picture that tells the story of the flight, certain events in Lindbergh's life, how he came to make the flight, the design and building of the plane, his association with the people who helped make it happen and even some of the trademark Billy Wilder humor. Visit your local fish market get some Sanddabs (if they have them, they're a California fish) fry em up and sit back and enjoy a great movie about one of the great accomplishments of this century with one of the greatest actors of this century in the lead role. The wide screen version is tops.

It's 1927. Charles 'Slim' Lindburgh (James Stewart) is flying the trans-Atlantic non-stop solo. As he tries to get some restless shut eye, he recalls his earlier job flying intrepid mail runs. He struggles to pull the flight together facing many obstacles and doubts.

James Stewart is once again an affable regular guy. It's what makes the character compelling. He isn't superhuman as much as a human with perseverance. He's older than the actual Lindburgh during the flight. The movie itself is a bit long at over two hours. It works fine until the plane takes off for the journey. The mirror is probably the best moment and the movie kind of coast from then on. The inner monologue is a good idea but it may be overused. The movie somewhat runs out of fuel but it has a gentle landing. It's nevertheless nice to see the plane.