Search - Concorde Alpha-Delta - An Intrepid Journey (History Channel) on DVD

Brief Concorde Historical Overview

Samuel Weirich | Portland, OR USA | 06/29/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I purchased this hoping for a more in depth history of the Concorde but alas it is quite superficial and focuses more on the unit that ended up at the Intrepid museum in NYC. For those interested in a focused history of the R&D behind the Concorde I recommend a hard copy of "Concorde" by Frederic Beniada & Michel Fraile. The photographs are fabulous making this more of a coffee table style text but the ultimate is for those with a good grasp of written French, Pierre Sparaco's "Concorde, la veritable histoire"."

To the Intrepid

Israel Friedlander | brooklyn NY | 07/31/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This dvd almost does`nt say a thing about about building the concorde, it just tells you the story of the concordes last trip to new york, and then moving it to the intrepid. It really does not tell the history of the actuall concorde, try different dvd`s on this topic."

Average, less than "true blue" honest and at times even camp

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 09/02/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Concorde Alpha-Delta - An Intrepid Journey tells the story of Concorde, the first and still the only commercial aircraft to break the sound barrier with people onboard going from one city to another. However, the film has a curious way of telling the story of Concorde. Instead of going chronologically through time or having the end and then a comprehensive, orderly flashback through time, the film jumps back and forth sporadically over a great many years. The movie only runs a mere 44 minutes; and therefore the story must be presented rather fast--so what did they do? They start at the end with a Concorde aircraft, stripped of its four engines, being readied for its final journey on a barge to be permanently displayed at The USS Intrepid Seam Air & Space Museum at New York's waterfront; and then they go back and forth willy-nilly trying to tell you that Concorde was about the great dreams of humanity and a testament to the ability of mankind to create such a wonderful airplane. The filmmakers made sure to have female choirs singing in the background; this creates a very high intensity melodramatic punch that feels campy rather than respectful of Concorde. Worse yet, with all that we get of those smirking executives being interviewed for this film I can't really believe their claims that Concorde was about achieving the great dreams of mankind the way they say it was; Concorde, as we do learn, was much more the result of a business alliance between Britain and France to make supersonic airplanes and offer this mode of transportation to people for profit. And Concorde would have made a solid profit, too, if it were not for the 1973 Arab-Israeli War which, according to this film, resulted in Arabic oil producing countries quadrupling the price of oil practically overnight. Once the price of oil was so high, the plane had to be geared toward a much smaller, select group of very wealthy passengers. Indeed, British Airways and Air France were both lucky that there were enough businessmen whose companies were willing to pay for them to fly--there weren't even enough celebrities and royalty to keep the business afloat!

The DVD comes with three or four rather brief extras including an 18 minute version of this documentary and a brief featurette about the fastest trip Concorde made between New York and London.

I know, I know. It may seem as if I've given it all away I can assure you that I haven't. The video newsclips from the early days of Concorde aren't many but what we do get is very good. There is excellent footage from other people being interviewed--even the grandson of Charles Lindbergh has something interesting to say! Unfortunately, there is just too great an emphasis on the end of Concorde when one of them was stripped of its engines and sent on a barge to be displayed on the Intrepid in New York's harbor. Unless you're a diehard Concorde fan you would do well to look for other documentaries or retrospectives about this aircraft; there's not enough meat on the bone here and that's a shame. I expected much more from The History Channel."