jc-osms As someone who loves the notion of flight as adventure to the extent of having been in a microlight, hot-air balloon, helicopter, twin-seater single - propeller aircraft, best of all a twin-prop civilian charter flight over the Grand Canyon, and lover of the devil-may-care spirit of 1920's America, this particular movie celebrating a barnstorming "flying-circus" troop was always going to be right down my street, or should that be flight-path... Throw in heavyweight participants hot from "Butch Cassidy..." and "The Sting", like director George Roy Hill, screenplay writer William Goldman ("Butch Cassidy" only) and of course Robert Redford in the lead and you just know this one is going to straighten up and fly left.The film title and introductory scenes where we first see Redford's "Pepper" character are however deceptive. These entertaining almost playful scenes where we witness Pepper's good-natured rivalry with fellow-flier Bo Svennson not only for the patronage of the target awe-struck thrill-seeking populace of little-town Americans but also for, of course "the girl", Susan Sarandon in an early role, have a touch of whimsy, even sentimentality as Pepper takes a hero-worshipping young tyke up for a spin.However the film grows more serious as it continues, as we are made aware that in the end this is a business and that to make money and outdo rival companies for daring, the Barnum-type owner/entrepreneur Dilhoeffer (well played by Philip Bruns) exhorts Pepper and his confederates to ever more dangerous stunts with nary a thought for the consequences (health and safety doesn't get a look in here!). The outcome is predictable as first of all, Sarandon and later Pepper's friend, boffin-type aircraft designer Stiles die horribly in stunts which go disastrously wrong, leading the film to its ultimate and overriding motif about the "otherness" of people like Pepper, gifted with a rare talent but with a bent for living on the edge, outside everyday society.Such people are of course rarely long for this world, as is tacitly underscored at the end where we learn of Pepper's death at a young age from a commemorative picture on a wall but are overall left with a great admiration for all those risk-taking individuals from those times, unforgettable photographic images of whom (you know the ones I mean, wing-walking or even playing tennis on bi-planes, workmen casually eating sandwiches on girders atop the under-construction Empire State Building etc) can still draw gasps of admiration from people like me living our ordinary, mundane earth-bound lives.The cinematography is fantastic, thirty years before "The Aviator", the air stunts are brilliantly pulled off and photographed. Redford is at his winning best as the "out-there" Pepper and he's well supported by his band of high-flying misfits. Part of me was repelled however by the seeming disregard for the deaths of Mary Beth and Stiles by Dilhoeffer, Pepper etc not to mention the rubbernecking general public and believe a little more humanity could have come through in the writing.On the whole though this is a charming, greatly entertaining movie, not without its darker side and for me belongs in the same air-borne formation with "Only Angels Have Wings" and "The Aviator" as a classic movie celebrating the lives of those fascinated by and/or who make their living in the skies above. Mere days after Captain Sullenberger's near miraculous emergency descent into the Hudson river, amen to that!

James Hitchcock Now that flying seems such a mundane, everyday way of getting people from A to B, it is strange to recall that there was a time, not so long ago, when it seemed far more magical. In the twenties and thirties aviation represented what space travel came to represent during my childhood in the sixties and seventies- mankind's most thrilling new adventure. The aviator-poet John Magee was able to write in his sonnet "High Flight" that while flying he had "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" and "put out my hand, and touched the face of God"."The Great Waldo Pepper" is a film which, like the more recent "The Aviator", captures some of the excitement of those days. It is set in the world of the "barnstormers", troupes of pilots who would perform stunts to entertain the crowds. This was a popular form of entertainment in the 1920s, and many of the barnstormers were former fighter pilots from the First World War; the troupes became known as "flying circuses", after the squadron commanded by Manfred von Richthofen, Germany's greatest ace. At first their stunts were relatively simple ones, but as time went on the crowds became more demanding and the pilots were expected to perform increasingly dangerous manoeuvres, sometimes verging on the suicidal. The proprietor of the "flying circus" featured in the film puts it simply. "I'm not selling good flying. I'm selling sudden death." The film charts the exploits of the title character and his two great rivals, Axel Olsson (an American but presumably originally from Scandinavia, to judge from his accent) and Ernst Kessler (a German loosely based upon another real-life flying ace, Ernst Udet). Pepper's rivalry with these two men stems from the fact that they both had distinguished combat records during the war, whereas he served in the American forces but was employed as an instructor and never saw active service. (His rivalry with Olsson, however, does not prevent them from becoming close friends).At the beginning of the 1920s flying was an almost entirely unregulated activity, but during the decade it became more commercialised as the first airlines and air mail services were launched and tighter regulations were introduced in the interests of public safety. After a young woman is killed in a dangerous stunt that goes wrong, Pepper loses his pilot's licence and is forced to abandon barnstorming. He is, however, unwilling to give up flying altogether, and travels to Hollywood where he becomes a stunt pilot under an assumed name. He learns that Kessler and he are both working on the same film, a wartime aviation drama, and that they are due to re-enact a famous dogfight between British and German planes. Somehow, they manage to turn their film sequence into a real-life duel.The film was directed by George Roy Hill and starred Robert Redford, who had previously worked with Hill in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting". (Unlike those two films, however, this one does not co-star Paul Newman). One of Redford's greatest assets as an actor was his amiable, boyish charm, and that is much in evidence in this film, especially during the more comic first half. He plays Pepper as charming and debonair, with an insouciant, devil-may-care attitude, in contrast to the more level-headed Olsson and the gloomy, saturnine Kessler. Kessler has fallen on hard times after Germany's defeat; his pessimistic attitude is due to the fact that he was a hero in wartime but has become a nobody in peacetime. (Something similar happened to the real Udet, who went on to join the Nazis and ended up committing suicide). His character comes more to the fore in the second half of the film which is notably darker than the light-hearted early scenes.There are excellent performances from Redford and from Bo Brundin as Kessler. (Olsson is played by Bo Svenson; are there any other English-language films where two major male characters are played by actors named Bo?) The main attraction of the film, however, is not the acting but the magnificent flying sequences, all of which were performed using real aircraft, not models or special effects. (It is said that the actors performed all their own stunts, including wing walking, which must have given the film's insurers some nervous moments). It is these exhilarating scenes which give the film its excitement and much of its emotional power, making it a fitting tribute to the pioneers of aviation. 7/10

manuel-pestalozzi First I must say that this beautiful movie handles the wide screen format extremely well, to watch it on TV comes near to an act of profanation. The lines, the colors , the surfaces, the sun that always seems to be low above the horizon ... The Great Waldo Pepper really is a work of cinematic art.Secondly I would really like to know how the idea for this script developed. It looks like the aviation business is a metaphor for the movie industry. I would not be surprised had director and co-scriptwriter George Roy Hill put many personal feelings and experiences into it. Aviation stands for freedom. But even in the title scene the constant fear of being forcefully grounded becomes evident – the main character, aviator Waldo Pepper, talks an overawed boy into getting a canister of gas for him with the promise of a free tour above the landing strip. Cute, at first sight, but also curiously grim. It immediately started me wondering how the boy could manage to carry the full canister over the required long distance.The wish to be free and be able to fly off sets ever more demanding conditions. People get bored with acrobatics, they want to see blood. The artists comply, because they are ambitious but also because they know that it is the only way that allows them to continue. Time moves on and it becomes evident that commercial air service will put an end to the adventurous phase of aviation. Hollywood seems to be the only way out. Acrobats are needed as stunt-men there. The grindhouse routine of the dream factory is not to their liking, but what else can they do? On a set Waldo Pepper meets a famous German flyer he idolizes. Much to his surprise this Erich von Stroheim character is deeply in debt. „In the air, I see heroism, chivalry and a spirit of comraderie", rasps the German, „but on the ground ..." He just limply shrugs. The final quixotic showdown between Pepper and the German is a natural and very good ending of this surprisingly „deep" and rather pessimistic movie that offers far more than nostalgia.

pbannon . In the 1970's, I was competing in Freestyle Snow Skiing, and the sport was very new, it went through trying times, people were injured permanently and the sport had to regulate itself and stop the barnstorming aspect of itself. I remember being able to do stunts one year, that were illegal the next year. We, the competitors, felt that the sport was being regulated to death. . But the sport survived, and still thrives, people are doing wilder stunts now than back then, so I guess all came out well in the end. I remember going to a Halloween party in a nice sports car, way back then, dressed as the great Waldo pepper, in a flight uniform with scarf, and knowing that my time, at that age, was very similar to his. I related to the movie at that time in other words. . Paul Bannon