THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER: Blu-ray (Universal, 1975) Shout! Select

During the early years of aviation, a select group of foolhardy daredevils, driven either by insane fatalism or blind-sided ego – or both, sought to test and go beyond the capacity of their primitive machines in the hope of achieving ever-lasting immortality. They were only half right. Director George Roy Hill’s The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) attempts to tell the tale of at least one of these unsung heroes. As realized by Hill’s good luck charm, Robert Redford, Waldo Pepper exhibits both the carefree spirit of that bygone barnstormer who, having survived the hellish years of World War I, has committed his exceptional bravery in peacetime to the more idiotic pursuit of mere grandstanding for the crowds that, ostensibly have come – not to see him endure through a series of impossible maneuvers in the sky, but to crash and burn attempting them. In hindsight, Hill’s harrowing saga of this small-time, nimble-minded hellraiser owes its aegis to two like-minded pictures: Douglas Sirk’s magnificently dark and brooding, The Tarnished Angels (1957) and Ken Annakin’s more light-hearted, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). Hill’s pic falls somewhere between these counterpoints, depicting high flyers hanging in the balance.  Hill, who was himself a pilot, regarded The Great Waldo Pepper as his passion project – even to the point where he had a major falling out with his long-time collaborator - screenwriter, William Goldman over creative differences. And the picture, while unevenly paced at times, and even more uneasily situated betwixt an air of light-hearted/blind-sided exhilaration for being ‘the first’ in any human endeavor, but also, to be taken quite seriously as a sobering reminder - that today’s progress stands precariously on such slender beginnings, nevertheless finds its common ground in the camaraderie and healthy competition between such men of vision, ironically to suffer from a deplorable shortsightedness in regards to their own self-preservation.

The Great Waldo Pepper is one of the last pictures to feature the harrowing stunt work of the late and very great, Frank Tallman – an ex-civilian pilot instructor turned Hollywood stunt man who, tragically, was killed while on a routine flight from Santa Monica to Phoenix in his twin-engine Piper Aztec in April, 1978. Flying into deteriorating weather, Tallman’s plane struck the side of a mountain. The Great Waldo Pepper features some of Tallman’s best work, captured for posterity by cinematographer, Robert Surtees, whose own career dated all the way back to another high-flying classic, 1944’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Surtees would go on to lens such memorable and star-studded classics as the elephantine Technicolor epic, Quo Vadis (1951), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Ben-Hur (1959), Mutiny on the Bounty (1960), Sweet Charity (1969) and The Last Picture Show (1971) – to name but a handful of his high-profile projects. Great cinematographers – like great artists – are very hard to come by in Hollywood these days; perhaps, because the industry now favors homogenized product, quite unlike cinematographers from Surtees’ vintage who pursued a palette to distinguish their work from their contemporaries. One could, as example, never confuse an image captured on celluloid by Surtees for one created by Jack Cardiff, or Geoffrey Unsworth, or Gordon Willis for that matter. Surtees’ camerawork on The Great Waldo Pepper is – in a word – extraordinary. Whether strapping his camera to the underbelly of a rickety vintage biplane, or setting up for a master shot of the wild blue yonder from the relatively safe vantage of solid ground, Surtees here achieves a sort of gorgeous color saturation, wed to a vintage ‘look’ that just seems to fit the period and subject matter to a tee.

The Great Waldo Pepper has long since been regarded by aviation experts as one of the most authentic recreations, employing actual Standard J-1, Curtiss JN-4, and, de Havilland Tiger Moth biplanes; the latter, modified to look like Curtiss JN-4s, and primarily used for crash sequences. Arguably, nothing like its high-flying sequences had been seen on the screen since William A Wellman’s Oscar-winning Wings (1927); the distinction here, that the stars of Wellman’s exhilarating silent classic actually did most of their own flying and stunts, while the stars in The Great Waldo Pepper merely tagged along as stunt doubles did the really hard work. Nevertheless, dividing its shoot between Elgin, Texas and Zuehl Airfield, not far from Fort Sam Houston where Wings shot in 1926, The Great Waldo Pepper also lensed some aerial scenes over Sebring, Florida. George Roy Hill, who had flown as a U.S. Marine Corps cargo pilot in WWII, had both Bo Svenson (cast as Waldo’s rival, Axel Olsson) and Redford (as the eponymous and nominal hero) practice various maneuvers with no parachutes or safety harnesses to put them in the mood for the characters they would be playing. Mercifully, there were no casualties during these test runs. The Great Waldo Pepper opens with a resurrection of Universal’s original B&W logo, a biplane sailing around a revolving globe. We settle on a series of monochromatic stills, handsomely framed, - the honor roll, paying tribute to lost daredevils of yesteryear. These images have not been staged for the movie or doctored in any way, but are actual ‘rare’ photographs, depicting pilots plummeting to their death – a sobering preamble to the heady tale about to unfold.

We meet WWI veteran, Waldo Pepper – a breezy sort, at least on the surface, who begrudgingly believes he was robbed of a great opportunity to participate in actual aerial battles of the war. Since then, Waldo has been peddling his wares as a barnstorming sensation, drawing crowds wherever he chooses to land. A bit of a hell-raiser and shameless self-promoter, Waldo runs afoul of another veteran, Axel Olsson, who attempts to monopolize Waldo’s territory with a high-flying show of his own. While Olsson flim-flams the public, Waldo loosens the bolts on his biplane’s tires, soon to fall off during Olsson’s next exhibition, making it virtually impossible for him to land. While Waldo collects money from the impromptu gathered townsfolk, eager to witness the inevitable crash, he also directs Olsson to a nearby pond to soften his landing. Olsson takes a nose-dive into the shallow water, breaking a leg, but otherwise surviving the ordeal.  Not long thereafter, kismet catches up to Waldo, who erroneously believes he has seen the last of Olsson. At a local diner, Waldo is in the process of seducing Mary Beth (Susan Sarandon) – a playful gal, giving every indication of being an easy mark. Alas, she also happens to be Olsson’s woman. Olsson arrives on crutches and corners Waldo into a new arrangement – partners, in a joint exhibition.  As Olsson’s plane has been wrecked, he will now fly Waldo’s across flat farmland terrain as Mary Beth, driving Olsson’s car with Waldo riding shotgun alongside it. For here, the plan is for Waldo to leap from the moving car to the rope ladder dangling from the plane’s wing. After several failures to complete the stunt, Waldo does, in fact, make the successful transition from car to plane. Unfortunately, both Waldo and Olsson have underestimated the fast-approaching barn directly in their path. Olsson pulls up in the nick of time and clears the structure. But Waldo, still dangling from the ladder several feet below it, slams into the barn roof, smashing through its side and effectively fracturing his shoulder, arm, leg and face.

Convalescing at the home of his girlfriend, Maude (Margo Kidder) – who initially welcomes Waldo by hurling tomatoes at his head, disgusted by the chances he continues to needlessly take, Waldo instead becomes enamored with a new prototype monoplane Maude’s brother, Ezra (Ed Herrmann) – something of an aeronautics expert – has been building on their Kansas farm. Indeed, Ezra promises his new aircraft will eventually allow Waldo to achieve a dream goal – to be the first to perform a death-defying outside loop.  At first dismissive of the plane’s design, Waldo invests every last dime he has to help Ezra finish the prototype. To this end, he rejoins Olsson – who is presently working for Doc Dillhoefer’s (Philip Bruns) Flying Circus. The enterprise is in a slump; attendance having exponentially fallen as the circus moves from venue to venue. Indeed, the days where daredevil pilots could hold a crowd’s attentions is coming to an end. Dillhoefer needs something truly special. So, Olsson and Waldo concoct a rather idiotic scheme, to have Mary Beth crawl onto the wing of their biplane while in-flight, wearing a tear-away dress that will render her effectively naked and clinging to the side of the plane. Seizing upon the opportunity to be famous – without first truly comprehending what the stunt entails - Mary Beth wholeheartedly demands ‘star-billing’ to perform this stunt; then, gets cold feet – literally – while attempting it for the first time. Olsson sails his biplane at a low trajectory through the Kansas City streets, drawing a crowd of confused onlookers. But by now, Mary Beth has become completely paralyzed with fear. As Olsson cannot successfully land his plane with Mary Beth clinging to its wing, Waldo elects to be taken up in a corresponding biplane to perform a harrowing rescue. In mid-flight, he leaps from his plane to Olsson’s, crawling along the wing and extending his hand for Mary Beth to take hold.

Tragically, Mary Beth slips and falls to her death. Hours after the incident, Waldo, Axel, and Dillhoefer remain in custody, giving testimonials to the police; their disbelief unabated and, indeed, exacerbated when Newt Potts (Geoffrey Lewis), Waldo's former wartime squadron leader, now an inspector for the newly formed Air Commerce Division of the federal government, effectively orders the trio grounded until a full inquest can be conducted. Waldo is dismayed. But Dillhoefer is outraged. He already had plans to take his show to the Muncie Fair.  Meanwhile, Ezra has completed his prototype. This should have debuted at the fair with Waldo in the pilot’s seat. Alas, even as the embargo on Dillhoefer’s Circus and Olsson are lifted, Waldo remains grounded by Potts. Unable to convince Potts to allow for this one exception to his rule, Ezra decides to fly his monoplane and perform the first outside loop with Waldo’s blessing. After all, if Ezra does not do it, somebody else likely will. Tragedy strikes when Ezra, thrice failing in his attempt, suddenly nosedives, crashing not far from the grandstands. Waldo rushes to his fallen friend, finding Ezra badly wounded, but otherwise still very much alive. The crowds, who have gathered merely to gawk at the wreck, inadvertently set off a fire from the spilled engine gasoline with their cigarette butts; the inferno engulfing the wreck with Ezra still inside it. Unable to witness his friend being burnt alive, yet equally as unable to save him, Waldo rushes in, knocking Ezra unconscious with a heavy wooden beam, watching helplessly as the fire consumes him.  Enraged by the crowd’s utter lack of compassion, Waldo takes to one of Dillhoefer’s biplanes and recklessly flies it into their midst, chasing away the onlookers before crash-landing near the fairgrounds.

For his reckless disregard of human life, Waldo is permanently grounded. Determined to defy this ruling, Waldo – under an assumed name – rejoins Olsson in Hollywood where Olsson is now working as a stuntman. Calling himself ‘Mr. Brown’, Waldo gets a job at Paramount Pictures. While working on the set of a new WWI picture, Waldo encounters ex-ace German pilot, Ernst Kessler (Bo Brundin) hired by the producers as a consultant, but also to fly a Fokker Dr. I replica.  Kessler is something of the Holy Grail for Waldo, who has, for some years, been relaying a harrowing tale about his own confrontation with the famed German pilot during the war that, in reality, never happened. The story, while true, was borrowed from an encounter Kessler actually had with one of the true heroes from the war who also happened to relay the story to Waldo. Waldo and Kessler bond over their mutual hero worship. Indeed, Waldo is a little put off that Kessler – in the movie – is being played by an actor, better looking perhaps, but otherwise, untrue to the man. Recognizing Waldo’s hero-worship extends to a challenge between flyers, Kessler uses the next day’s shoot as an opportunity to allow Waldo to engage him as he had thus far only been able to do in his imagination.  Waldo, flying a Sopwith Camel and Kessler in his Fokker, engage one another in a realistic dogfight, sailing over the hillside while Olsson, the movie’s director, and Potts, newly arrived to prevent Waldo from taking flight, watch helplessly from the ground. At some point, Kessler takes the maneuvers more seriously, disabling Waldo’s landing gear and rudder with dramatic swipes. At the same time, Waldo returns the assault, tearing apart one of Kessler’s wings. Seemingly pleased with their perilous – if shallow – victory, both men bring their aircraft alongside one another; Waldo and Kessler saluting, as Kessler did during the war. As their planes peel away in opposite directions, we return to the wall of heroes that appeared under the movie’s main titles, finding Waldo’s portrait among the rest with an ascribed date of 1931, suggesting his encounter with Kessler was his fatal last.

The Great Waldo Pepper is a triumphant, if bittersweet homage to those magnificent men in their flying machines; those angels, tarnished by the prospect of achieving testosterone chest-thumping fame, whatever the cost to their own life and limb. Death is a hell of a price to pay for immortality. And yet, Hill’s movie leaves one with only a fleeting doubt it was all worth it. What sells this image of the flyer, as far more the phantom kings of the wild blue yonder, rather than the idiotic and irresponsible reprobates, driven to their mad destiny by more guts and nail-biting ego than brain, are the performances from Redford, Bo Svenson and Bo Brundin. In these three, we get a genuine sense of the self-made man - that to be freed from the earthly bonds of gravity - if only for mere moments - represents the epitome of some greater unrest imbued in mankind, meant to conquer the skies, not out of some blind-sided altruism for the future prospects of intercontinental travel, but simply because the act itself is so fraught with, as yet, intangible dangers that make even the inference of achievement the thrill junkies’ drug of choice.  It is just, I think, that Waldo should perish doing what he loves best as he could do nothing else. His life’s trajectory, badly bungled and utterly confusing to him while his feet are firmly planted on the ground, is provided for with an exceptional level of clarity when his head is in the clouds; as intoxicating as it proves lethal in the end.

For its star-studded premiere, ex-silent screen siren, Viola Dana was among the ‘honored guests’ – Dana, the former lover of Ormer ‘Lock’ Locklear; a dashing aviator, military veteran and budding film star, killed during a nighttime film shoot at Fox Studios in 1920, and on whom the fictional Waldo Pepper was loosely based. The Great Waldo Pepper was not a colossal hit when it premiered, although its $5 million budget was offset by its $9 million box office intake. The picture would eventually earn $20,642,922. Critics then were divided in their praise, believing the aerial sequences represented the pinnacle of professionalism, but somehow feeling the human drama had been upstaged by the stunts. Nevertheless, the picture is so transparently beloved by George Roy Hill, who not only directs, but produces and co-authored its screenplay; so monumentally embraced by its cast, and, since its theatrical release, so fondly remembered by fans, it is rather difficult to dismiss it as an outright disappointment. And no such disappointment arises when screening Shout! Select’s Blu-ray either. Universal Home Video has not always been progressively motivated to preserve their movie heritage for posterity. Indeed, of late, a good many films from their back catalog have found their way via third-party distributors like Shout!, looking far less than stellar in hi-def. But The Great Waldo Pepper miraculously avoids Uni’s shortsightedness. After an exceptionally grainy Universal logo – the result of an image originally photographed in 1.33:1, cropped and blown up to Panavision’s 1.25:1 aspect ratio, the rest of The Great Waldo Pepper settles into a gorgeous presentation, showing off Robert Surtees’ cinematography to its absolute best. Colors are robust. Contrast is superb. Save one curious instance of a vertical tear running right down the middle of a very brief scene, there is no other hint of age-related damage present. Honestly though, could Uni not have found a replacement element for this one blemish, or done a frame by frame digital clean-up? The shot barely lasts a few seconds.  The DTS mono audio is well-represented at an adequate listening level. So, kudos to Uni and Shout! again. What is not altogether appreciated is the virtually lack of extras. Shout! Select titles usually sport at least an audio commentary. But no – on this occasion we get a brief ‘stills gallery’ and a theatrical trailer and that is all. Bottom line: The Great Waldo Pepper is one of those movies that grows dearer with the passage of time. Redford is wonderful in it, and the quality of this Blu-ray is top-tier with one or two minor caveats. Highly recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

0