Search - The Flight of the Phoenix on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children Movie Release: 1965 DVD Release: 05/20/2003 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV,Letterbox for TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French, Spanish Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 29 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Members Wishing: 2 Genres: Action, Adventure, Disaster Film, Adventure Drama

Based on Elleston Trevor's novel, The Flight of the Phoenix opens with a well-staged plane crash in the middle of the Sahara desert. The pilot (James Stewart) and the navigator (Richard Attenborough) do their best to maintain order among the survivors, a group of oil men not well-suited for survival in the desert wastes. Some of those who appear to be the most resourceful reveal themselves to be inept or cowardly, while other less prepossessing types -- notably bespectacled Standish (Dan Duryea) -- demonstrate surprising inner reserves of strength. The ultimate fate of the survivors rests in the hands of Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger), who uses the wreckage of the old plane to design a new one. The Flight of the Phoenix was dedicated to the memory of veteran stunt pilot Paul Mantz, who was killed while filming the take-off scene of the new plane. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

James Stewart - Frank Towns
Richard Attenborough - Lew Moran
Peter Finch - Capt. Harris
Hardy Kruger - Heinrich Dorfmann
Ernest Borgnine - Trucker Cobb

Robert Aldrich's The Flight of the Phoenix comes to DVD in one of the finest transfers of any mid-'60s 20th Century Fox film. Letterboxed to an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, in keeping with its non-anamorphic photography, the image is not only brighter and sharper than this reviewer remembers it, even in showings on American Movie Classics (where the movie turned up regularly from the late '90s onward), but significantly crisper and more vivid, and "closer." You can see every pore on James Stewart's face and every bead of sweat on Richard Attenborough's face, and not just in the tight close-ups; the sandstorms have an almost tactile quality about them; and the heat seems to shimmer. The crystal-clear sound also brings out the best nuances of Frank De Vol's unfairly overlooked score. Joseph Biroc's cinematography and the Deluxe Color film stock haven't looked this good since the day the movie opened, and the letterboxing provides a focus for Aldrich's sense of dramatic tension that is partly lost when the image is opened up to full-screen. The movie has been given 36 chapter breaks, which is appropriate, though the 149-minute running time almost defies simple outlining. The special features are a bit unusual -- in addition to the original English-language trailer, we get to see the Spanish and Portuguese trailers, all accessible on a two-layer menu that opens automatically on the start-up of the disc. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide