The Sky Divers

Dale Mackey's short documentary film promotes MGM's "The Gypsy Moths" (1969), starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. The narrator's recognizable voice is frequent TV host Wink Martindale. Freefall skydiving is the subject of both this short and the feature film. In Kansas, director John Frankenheimer guides his production team. Obviously engaged, Mr. Lancaster praises Mr. Frankenheimer and his crew. Later, we see how Lancaster appears to be skydiving. Looking lovely, Ms. Kerr hasn't much to contribute...

Co-stars Gene Hackman, "from 'Bonnie and Clyde' fame," and Scott Wilson, "from 'In Cold Blood'' appear briefly. A good segment explains how the camera is attached to a helmet, for aerial photography. Frankenheimer gives us a synopsis of the story and a look at the filmmaking process; he states a preference for location shooting. A stuntman or extra breaks his collar bone, but finishes a scene with Lancaster. "The Gypsy Moths" is probably best remembered for its aerial photography, by Carl Boenish with Jay Gifford.

****** The Sky Divers (1969) Dale Mackey ~ Burt Lancaster, John Frankenheimer, Carl Boenish, Wink Martindale

THE SKY DIVERS is an entertaining short subject from MGM in color which gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes look at the making of THE GYPSY MOTHS starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, both of whom are shown on camera talking about the film experience. Burt also demonstrates his skill at some parachuting stunts he did for the first time, as required for his role.

The aerial photography of the free falling divers is wonderful to look at and how it was accomplished is demonstrated as we see some pre-production work done before filming with director John Frankenheimer and his team of experts planning the stunts.

Produced and directed by Dale Mackey, it's a short obviously used as a promotional piece by MGM to introduce movie-goers to their feature-length film.

This is a 'making of' film that coincided with the release of "Gypsy Moths"--a full-length film about skydivers directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster, Gene Hackman and Deborah Kerr. As for "Gypsy Moths", it's a mildly interesting film--not at all a must-see but a bit better than a time-passer. However, in an odd case, the making of film is actually better than the movie! This is because by far the best aspect of the original movie is the wonderful mid-air cinematography. Seeing the difficulties encountered and how they filmed the sky divers was actually pretty fascinating--particularly since they were stuck using the technology of the day--which is a far cry from more modern film equipment and computer technology. Interesting and well wroth seeing.

"The Sky Divers" is a short documentary film about the making of the 1969 movie, "The Gypsy Moths." Most of the content is film clips, cast and other interviews, production information and technical aspects that was all filmed at the time the feature film was being made. Some commenting on the work are director John Frankenheimer and actors Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr.

The most interesting aspects though are the segments about the jumping sequences, planning and thinking up stunts, and the technical work of the flyting bat routine and the packing of parachutes. The narrator of this short is Wink Martindale, and the jumping camera work is done by the two men who did most of it throughout the feature film, Carl Boenish and Jay Gifford.

The narrator introduces the skydivers, saying, "The courage and daring of seven men is responsible for the skydiving film," meaning "The Gypsy Moths." He introduces those men: Carl Boenish, electrical engineer; Mike Mills, surveyor; Garth Tigart, aerospace components inspector; Russel Benefield, Aerospace quality controller; Jay Gifford, chief metal craftsman; Jerry Bullard, law enforcement officer; and Dave Thompson, draftsman.

These men collectively made 1,300 jumps for the making of the movie. Their falling speeds ranged from 120 miles per hour in spread eagle descents to more than 150 miles per hour in dives, like bullets pointing straight toward the earth. One of the crew explained the wind factors that regulated jumps. "If we have gusts of wind... over 22 miles an hour, for (even) less than a five-minute period, we have a no-jump condition. But if it stays under 22 miles an hour for longer than five minutes, then we can jump." The reason, of course, is hazards and the chance of injury being dragged by a chute after landing. The documentary shows a couple of scenes of just such situations during the filming. They obviously are not in the movie. But one scene shows Dave Thompson landing when he broke his collar bone and still got up to help Lancaster collapse his chute.

Another scene shows Carl Boenish putting on the helmet with the camera and Jay Gifford behind him helping to sight it for the correct angle to film the jumps. And, in another short segment, Jerry Bullard says the biggest problem turned out to be regulating the rate of descent relative to that of the cameraman. They were challenged to be able to have the free fallers do their routines, while those wearing the cameras would be above, below or beside them to capture them on film. Besides the good technical explanations and snippets of their work, the documentary includes some historical clips of when bat-wing attempts at flying drew spectators in the 1920s and 1930s. None were ever successful, as the film shows a few flops.

None of the cast of the feature film actually did any of the skydiving. But Burt Lancaster did do paragliding three times for the cameras to get him landing in a chute. The film shows the first one of those when he stands with the chute filled out behind him and then trotting as the car pulls him into the air. For the movie filming, after he was aloft he would drop the line and then float to the ground. In this documentary, Lancaster says, "I've never done this before ... before we did the shot that you just saw.... I wanted to do it again immediately and we did it three times for the camera."

Lancaster says, "John Frankenheimer has collected around him some of the very best parachutists in the entire country." On the filming project, Deborah Kerr says, "Skydiving is so fantastic... I'm sure it will be something that will appeal to young and old and everybody because it's being shot in a way that nobody has ever seen a skydiver done before."

This is a very good, informative and interesting documentary. It's one of the best I've seen about the subject being explored and filmed for the making of a movie. The narrator, Wink Martindale, sums it up nicely. "There are many exciting firsts in 'The Gypsy Moths' as men go to incredible heights, just to see how far they can fall. There's natural drama in all the elements of skydiving, and there's equal drama in the lives of the men who are skydivers."

Carl Boenish was the premier aerial cinematographer for skydiving. He became one of the leading promoters of BASE jumping, and coined the term that refers to jumping from fixed heights on the earth - buildings, bridges, towers, cliffs. He made thousands of jumps in his lifetime but died on a tragic jump from a mountain in Norway in 1984, at age 43.

This short documentary is worthy of viewing for itself, with or without the feature film.