The Winds of Kitty Hawk

The only dramatic film on the Wright Brothers and their pioneering success with the aeroplane. This is a made for television movie shot in color. Production values are very good and the film is historically staged.

The first part of the movie, storywise, is well done & concerns the brothers early lives in their bicycle shop and their eventual foray into the problem of human flight. Notable scenes are ie: Their first journey to Kitty Hawk in 1900. Their befriending of the Kitty Hawk locals like the little boy Tom Tate who appears with his family in some of the Wrights' real life photographs. Young Tate & his father & uncles helped Wilbur & Orville with the gliders, lugging them over the sand dunes. Also showcased is the Wrights' sister Katharine, who shared their travails through the years. Katharine, the only girl in the Wright family, was also the only Wright sibling to go to college. And we see Bishop Wright, their father, a member of the United Bretheren Church offering advice & support to his sons.

But the film concerns itself mostly with Will & Orv's aeronautical experiments and ultimately their achievements. Samuel Langley is shown as a competitor of the Wrights in the race to invent the aeroplane.(In reality Orville many years later stated that he & Wilbur had nothing against Langley because Langley was trying to reach the same goal as they were and that Langley was more of a colleague than a competitor). The scenes where the brothers are shown flying at Kitty Hawk N.C. are well staged & believable but they were shot in southern Calif.

After the scenes of the 1903 flight the film starts to get inaccurate. Even before hand, Katharine is shown visiting her brothers at Kitty Hawk. This is incorrect for Katharine never went to KH...she always wrote to her brothers there, and they to her, as well as to their father.

When the brothers get back to Dayton, after their Dec 17 1903 triumph, they continue to improve the aeroplane in new designs in 1904 & 1905. Their flying area is shown to have mountains in the background(southern Cal). Dayton Ohio is quite flat and unobstructed which is why the brothers continued to fly there. Glenn Curtiss, another aviation pioneer, & Alexander Graham Bell are show to be almost villainous which is inaccurate. Though Curtiss and many others infringed the Wrights' wing warping patent(today's aileron control). Orville's crash at Fort Myer in 1908 is depicted as well as Wilbur's flight up the Hudson River in 1909. Also nicely filmed is how the brothers tried to sell their invention to the U.S. Gov't and were rejected by Secretary of War William H Taft & staff.

Other 'accurate' & well done parts of the film are the many different instances the brothers had to deal with reporters. Such as coming back from Kitty Hawk at Christmas 1903, or when Orville is flying at Ft Myer during the Army demonstrations. Also, very importantly, the lawyer the brothers hire to help them secure, as well as protect, their patents. Over all its a good feel of a film told with many isolated points of the brothers' lives. But like I said the first half of the movie is well done & accurate particularly the brothers doing wind tunnel experiments, arguing with one another, as well as the beautifully composed scenes of them flying their 1902 glider. But after the brothers' make the first aeroplane flight Dec 17 1903 the film starts to veer off into historical inaccuracies. .....8 1/2 out of 10 because production is so well shot.

I will not provide a complete review as others have done.

I am most impressed with the video footage of the early Wright aircraft flying. This is an excellent story of the Wrights and not soon to be recreated since many of the scenes were shot using a series of replicas of the Wright's gliders and aircraft and some were built and flown with the help of NASA. NASA released some of the details in the 1970s. Some of the replicas were tested in NASA wind tunnels. This film is the only place you can go for historically accurate video footage of Wright aircraft flying. This is a historically important film and should be reproduced on DVD.

A couple other notes; other have said that Michael Moriarty's portrayal of Wilbur Wright was 'wooden' or less than an award winning portrayal. Based on my extensive readings of Wilbur, the damage to his teeth and jaw during hockey games, his quiet and introspective nature, I am not at all certain that the portrayal is inaccurate at all. He was said to be stoic, quiet, and rarely smiled. I would like to see more on the accuracy of the portrayals of Alexander Graham Bell and Glen Curtis.

definitely a film worth seeing, though a little hokey and "movie cliché" in places (particularly specific lines of narration and dialogue). The visual aspects of the film, particularly the scenes featuring the characters flying the gliders are absolutely breathtaking, though the scene featuring the famous first powered flight is cut short for some reason as the plane is lifting off.

Because the film was made in the late 1970s, there are few visual effects shots (aside from the scene depicting Orville's crash, which is clearly a model). Consequently, many of the flying scenes feature real actors in very accurately designed prop gliders. This adds a sense of realism and gives the film a better sense of credibility.

I saw it as a young kid, and was inspired to learn more about the Wright Brothers and airplanes. Hopefully someone reading this will show it to their kid and they will have the same experience.

Here's another film that still hasn't come out on DVD that I would love to see in that format. Few people, I gather, have seen this in any format since my review is only the third on this website even though the movie was made almost 30 years ago.

It's not a great movie but it has a dream-like look and feel to it, which is why a good DVD transfer could give it justice. It's a nice, clean movie with no profanity or blood and an interesting story of the Wright Brothers struggling to build their first airplane and then keep their famous plans and ideas from being stolen by others. There is a lot of justified paranoia in here.

On the odd side, if I didn't know it was Michael Morarity, I would have thought this was some rookie actor who couldn't put any inflection into his lines, but maybe his "Wilbur Wright" character is supposed to be this ultra-key. Nonetheless, Moriarty sounded very wooden. The movie also drags a bit here and there, which might be one reason it's difficult to find and still not out on DVD. I'm still glad I own the VHS because, overall, it's a nice film and a worthy addition to any collection.

NOTE: I've been told Wilbur Wright was a very low-key guy, so Morarity acted that way on purpose.

Upon recently watching this movie for the first time, and although it may not be completely factual in representation, The Winds at Kitty Hawk gives historical depth to the Wright Brothers story and fulfillment of manned flight. Some people and places and times may have been changed for artistic license, and the movie acknowledges this at the start, but the story is very interesting, especially for anyone who loves history. This movie tells of the Wright Brothers story that we most likely never learned about in school; for example the issues they had with Alexander Graham Bell attempting to steal their invention and the eventual patent war, culminating in the Wright Brothers eventual winning outcome in 1914.

For a television movie from 1978, the quality wasn't the greatest, but that's expected. The acting wasn't great either, but the actors, their clothing and the settings and props looked very authentic to the time period. If you don't know much about the Wright Brothers before you see this movie, you'll walk away with an abundance of knowledge afterwards.