Today's clip is inspired by OldAFSarge's great post here.
In 1975, when they made films like The Great Waldo Pepper starring Robert Redford, they used real airplanes and real pilots really flew them.
And when they crashed planes in this movie, they actually crashed real Tiger Moth biplanes.
What I did not know until now was that the flying stunts were performed by legendary pilot Frank Tallman, himself an amputee. (Like Sir Douglas Bader and Yours Truly.) In fact, I'm thinking that the next post will look at Frank Tallman in a bit more detail. In real life, he was more of a man than most of the actors that he flew for in Hollywood.
Too bad the driving force in the film was that liberal/statist guy with the three bumps on his face!
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Yeah, you're not going to see Robert Redford on this page as an example of what a man was or should be, that much is true. But Tallman and his partner Paul Mantz...THEY were the men.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading the post I was trying to think of the man who dies filming the first (and BEST!) "Flight of the Phoenix" movie.
ReplyDeleteRight before I clicked the comments section I remembered it was Paul Mantz, who gave his life during the filming.
@ drjim: Yeah, I've got something in the works on Paul Mantz as well.
ReplyDeleteI need to watch that again, it's been too long.
ReplyDelete"he was more of a man than most of the actors that he flew for in Hollywood"
ReplyDeleteHell, most people are more of a man than any of those metrosexuals they use for actors now.
I think Art Scholl was also in that movie as a stunt pilot.
ReplyDelete@ Old NFO: You're almost right. He was the aerial cameraman. Thanks for making me look, because I didn't know.
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