I began my watchlist with Europeans exploring North America and now America is trying to explore and conquer space. The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe’s great book (I’ve read it) and directed by Philip Kaufman, details the beginnings of the space race, from the breaking of the sound barrier to the launching of space craft that can orbit Earth multiple times. Specifically the protagonists are test pilots from various branches of the US military who made up Project Mercury, the first run of missions conducted by the newly created NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). With the communistic Soviet Union launching a probe into space, Americans grew concerned over what would happen if they effectively conquered space. Using the know-how of German rocket scientists and decades of aircraft development, the government got to work putting Americans in space. Over three hours long, The Right Stuff unfortunately flopped, but remains a highly regarded piece of work to this day.
I
remember rewatching the movie long ago after reading the book and thought it
wonderfully reflected Wolfe’s prose. I was thus surprised to later learn that
Wolfe actually disliked the movie and felt it diverged too much from what he
was going for. I guess he has a point. While Wolfe writes with a colorful wit,
the movie does delve much further into comedy at several points. The most
glaring example is when two lower-level officials suggest to President Dwight
Eisenhower and others types of people they believe can be shot into space, such
as circus performers and deep-sea divers. They pretty much suggest everyone
except test pilots, whom Eisenhower angrily demands to the chagrin of the other
officials in the room. Surprisingly such people were suggested, but not in such
a goofy manner.
On
the topic of humor, there’s a bit of a satirical edge to much of it.
Interestingly it never really goes into cynical or full-on comedic territory,
and the movie is still celebratory. After all, astronauts finally breaking out
into space are cool. The more biting satire is directed at the press and a
plethora of politicians and officials trying to generate their own reputation
and fortunes off of the astronauts. The press in particular is accompanied by a
locust-like sound, as they won’t stop bugging the Mercury Seven and, worse,
their wives trying to have a peaceful time at home.
Chuck Yager (Sam Shepard) spends time
with his wife Glennis (Barbara Hershey)
Though
Kaufman’s movie charts the beginning of America’s space program, none of the
astronauts actually appear until almost half an hour in. The opening
protagonist is Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard), who is one of many test pilots at
the Muroc Army Air Field. This was a dangerous job, as the pilots had to really
test the limits of new planes. In 1947, Yeager suffered two broken ribs during
a horse riding accident, but managed to hide his injury and break the sound
barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket jet. When the space program is launched a decade
later, declines to try out for the Mercury program, as like many other pilots
he realizes that he wouldn’t actually be in control for most of the flight
thanks to the design of the spacecraft. He appears now and then to make
comments, then gets another big scene at the end. While the astronauts get a
big party full of politicians, dancers, and piles of food, he goes out on his
own to fly a Lockheed jet. In the most badass moment of the film, he pushes it
all the way to the edge of space, then is forced to eject. He is then seen
walking nonchalantly with burns all over his body while the crashed Lockheed
blazes in the background. Though he was unable to break into space since
airplane controls fail at too-high altitudes, he still displayed the titular
Right Stuff better than any astronaut. He notably escapes any of the embarrassments and press insanity the other pilots experience. Chuck Yeager is considered one of the
greatest pilots of all time for a reason.
Now
on to the actual space race. As in real life the Americans are at first constantly
beaten out by the Russians. The Soviet Union was first able to send Sputnik
into space in 1957 and later on sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, up while NASA was still testing the waters with chimpanzees. Not mentioned and often
forgotten is that the Soviets were also the first to get a manmade object, the
rocket Luna 2, onto the moon, but with no people. The American response is
framed by humorous scenes where officials, headed by a cantankerous Lyndon B.
Johnson (Donald Moffat), try to decide how to catch up and then get ahead of
the enemy. As NASA operated from Texas, Lyndon Johnson had a heavy role getting
legislation and funding to support it, first as a congressman during the
Eisenhower era and then as vice-president under President John F. Kennedy.
Despite his real-life help getting NASA quickly operational, he’s portrayed
rather negatively in the film, trying to catch the publicity glow of the
astronauts and reacting badly when he’s prevented from seeing John Glenn’s wife
Annie (played by Zooey Deschanel’s mother Mary Jo Deschanel) during his big
rocket trip. Because of her stutter, she didn’t want to be exposed like that.
While Johnson could be crude and temperamental, he did not react to the
rejected meeting with such a lack of grace.
The German scientists are also played as comedic foils. They often butt heads with the astronauts, as they are more interested in scientific function while the astronauts want to make it more like a proper piloting mission. Perhaps it’s because of this that the filmmakers chose not to actually use Wernher von Braun, instead having Scott Beach played an unnamed man who looks suspiciously like him. By the way, the montage of failed rocket launches is taken straight from Wolfe’s book and reflected reality. America was so engrossed in getting into space that the test launches were televised, creating the sense that America’s space program was inept. Actually, the fact that they failed was normal because of all the numerous little things you need to get right to have a functioning space shuttle. Shout-out to the bit where the top of the rocket flies off with a popping cork sound. Witnesses say that it literally sounded like that.
Left to Right: Alan Shepard (Scott Glen), Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Gus Grissom (Fred Ward), Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen), and John Glenn (Ed Harris)
The
Mercury Seven are not equally given the limelight, even in such a long film.
Gordon “Gordo” Cooper (a young Dennis Quaid) seems to be the overall
representative, appearing earlier than the other astronauts and finally having
his first space flight at the end. Like the others, Gordo has to keep up a
wholesome, All-American persona because of the constant publicity (even though
it’s suggested he has personal issues and is prone to spending time with women
other than his wife). Quaid does a great job giving Gordo a constant, not-often
sincere smile as he plays along and finds amusement in the fact that the
astronauts are hailed as heroes well before any of them even make into space.
Donald “Deke” Slayton (Scott Paulin) often appears alongside Gordo joining in
on the ironies of their situation.
The
first American to go into space was Alan Shepard, so naturally he gets
considerable screentime. Reflecting Tom Wolfe’s book, Scott Glen plays Shepard
as a highly competitive, thrill-seeking test pilot who’s undaunted by the
dangers of going into space, though he does get victimized by some toilet humor
early on (such as the famous real-life urination he undertook while delays kept
him trapped in a rocket). Interestingly, the movie only shows the launch of the
shuttle and not Shepard’s actual time in space. Either this was because of a
need to keep the budget in check or it was decided that the actual wonder of
orbiting the earth should be saved for the climatic flight later on.
Also
not shown is the time Virgil “Gus” Grissom spent in space. Played by Fred Ward,
Grissom did not receive the glory of the rest of the Mercury Seven because the
hatch in the capsule blew after it landed on the surface of the ocean. Water
entered the capsule, drowning it, and cameras caught Grissom flailing, creating
the impression that he had panicked in reaction to the bobbing of the waves and
then begged for help when he ended up in the water. As in the book, Grissom’s
mishap is often accompanied by the term “Screw the pooch.” The movie doesn’t
get into it, but Grissom was later absolved of blowing the hatch. To do it, the
astronaut would have needed to punch the right panel, which was theorized would
have left bruises on his hand. Grissom had no such bruises, and after his first
flight fellow astronaut Walter Schirra made a point of blowing the hatch
himself. True enough, Schirra got bruises from the action. On that mention,
“Wally” Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), have to
serve more as supporting players, though in real life Carpenter did really well
in the stressful series of initial conditioning tests (a rather funny section
of the film).
Gus Grissom looks ignoble as he's lifted out of the ocean.
Ed
Harris plays John Glenn, who was a decorated pilot, astronaut, and then
Democrat senator. Glenn’s personal integrity is really played up here. His
first appearance is him on a game show with a boy scout, showing how he is
already an all-American hero in contrast to the other astronaut characters.
Unlike the others, he doesn’t have to pretend and wear a fake smile. He doesn’t
swear, is never tempted to cheat on his wife, and often reins in his
compatriots as they now represent America as a nation. In a moment of unplanned
timing, the movie came out just as Glenn was making a bid for the Democratic
presidential nomination. Members of Glenn’s staff tried to tap into the movie
to enhance their candidate’s appeal. This move backfired. First of all, it
focused on Glenn the astronaut rather than Glenn the politician. Secondly, many
people began to suspect that Kaufman and Glenn were in cahoots and that The Right Stuff was actually a
propaganda piece for the latter. This contributed to the movie’s problems at
the box office and Glenn’s failed presidential aspirations.
The Friendship 7 orbits the night side of earth.
Back
to the movie proper, Glenn piloted the Friendship
7, which had a particularly significant mission. It was to actually orbit
the earth over a long period of time. Shepard and Grissom didn’t actually orbit
the planet, while Gagarin had. After this flight, the Americans had truly
caught up to the Soviets and would end up surpassing them as time went on, with
the landing on the Moon being a particular milestone (and done just twelve
years after NASA got started!). Aside from the historical significance, there
was a present danger involved as something went awry with Glenn’s heat shield.
This is the only time in the movie where we get an extended sequence actually
showing a space flight, and the moment is enhanced by uses of Gustav Holst’s Planets suite.
This
is the first and probably only time that a supernatural occurrence may literally show up on my watchlist. Glenn confused mission control when he reported
something like fireflies dancing outside his ship. Initial concerns were that
they were bits of the ship flaking off, portending doom for Glenn’s capsule, or
that Glenn himself was hallucinating. The movie offers the potentially incredible
explanation that Australian Aborigines performed magic that sent specks from a
fire out into space to support the astronaut. In real life, NASA’s current
explanation was that ice crystals on Friendship
7 heated up and flaked off the hull of the ship.
On
the subject of the ship and space scenes, Kaufman utilized quite a few
realistic models for the spacecraft, as well as the Lockheed when it falls from
the sky. One innovation was the use of fog machines and literal insecticide to
create the real-life misty upper atmosphere through which the models would fly.
Kaufman also wanted the camera to shake, to show the real stress that test
pilots and ascending astronauts felt. Vibrators and drills were attached to the
cameras and turned on, creating the chaotic POV of the pilots and the shakiness
the astronauts felt as they were blasted into the sky. In some cases the
cameramen would just do the shaking themselves, with one reportedly getting a
black eye by accident.
This movie popularized the big team walk that would crop up in many a movie from Armageddon to Tombstone to Monsters Inc.
The Right Stuff has a lot in it
that I didn’t delve into, mostly funny little scenes and filmmaking flourishes.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it even if I spoiled most of the big
points. It gets into all the details of how America began to conquer space and
injects a lot of personality and humor to make sure you don’t tune out during
its three hours plus runtime.
Rating: 8/10
