The Arrow

This is one of the best mini-series I have ever watched. It's portrayal of Crawford Gordon as a man who, as the Arrow project descends into chaos, becomes a heavy drinker, is amazing. Dan Aykroyd plays this part brilliantly.

It is the most accurate picture of the 1950's political climate and shows how much sway the President of the United States had over Canada at the time.

If you have the chance, you should watch this series, because it will change your view of the Cold War.

It's a shame that most people in the USA aren't aware of this great film, or this chapter of history, as this TV mini-series produced by the CBC (like most Canadian programming) never made it to our screens. Seeing Dan Aykroyd in this dramatic role shows how good an actor he really is, and that is more than his Saturday Night Live persona.

The DVD is chock-a-block with the 3 hour film, the documentaries 'There Never was an Arrow', 'The Legend of the Arrow', 'The Plane Truth', a Dan Aykroyd interview, photo and magazine gallery, and the pilot training manual!

My advise to other Americans: search for this gem and buy it!

This is a laudable attempt to portray the destruction of the Canadian aerospace industry by a scheming President Eisenhower and a clueless Prime Minister Diefenbaker. Unfortunately, that part isn't at all true. The Arrow was killed by cost overruns and the near-impossibility of developing a new plane, a new engine and a new radar system all at the same time. The geeky engineer character kind of annoyed me, too. The writers had him inventing about three things that were utterly crucial engineering and aerodynamics breakthroughs all by himself. Sorry, nobody's that good, not even the people who did that work in the first place. A lot of the people in the film are historical characters, some are composites. All in all, I really enjoyed this film, but the aviation geek in me gets irritated by factual errors.

This movie is quite a surprise. It tells a story I had no idea existed. It seems quite amazing it is a true story. It is as dramatic as a fictional story written to be dramatic. I missed the beginning of the movie but based on the description of the DVD I will buy a copy when I get the chance.

I don't know any of the actual history, so can't comment on that but I was completely hooked after the first few minutes of this movie. This is one of the few movies I've seen that made me interested enough in the subject matter to want to learn more about the real Arrow. This is a very serious movie with lots of technical information but is fascinating. It is also interesting because the development of the Arrow is completely unknown to most people, even people interested in planes and aerospace. Even though it focuses on technology, the movie is a character study in how the individuals developing the plane are affected by political and management decisions they have no part of. Note to Ackroyd comedy fans, this is not a comedy and although this may be some of the best acting Ackroyd has done this is definitely not his most sympathetic character.