Frank Towns (James Stewart) is flying a oil drilling crew from Jaghbub to Benghazi in Libya. Lew Moran (Richard Attenborough) is the navigator. The plane gets hit with a sandstorm and crash in the middle of the desert. The passengers are British army Capt. Harris (Peter Finch) and Sgt. Watson (Ronald Fraser), Dr. Renaud (Christian Marquand), odd aircraft designer Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Krüger) and from the oil company accountant Mr. Standish, crazy foreman Trucker Cobb (Ernest Borgnine), Ratbags Crow, Carlos with his monkey, Bellamy (George Kennedy) and others. Harris has a plan to walk out. Watson pretends to sprain his leg to avoid the walk and Cobb goes nuts demanding to go along. Dorfmann claims to have a plan to fly out.There are probably way too many characters. Some of the lesser used characters should be left off the plane. Jimmy Stewart's character is way too much of a boy scout. It makes no sense that he goes on a search for Cobb. It puts him completely over the top into unreasonable. As for the plot being unreasonable, that is also a problem but it is a movie after all. With so many great actors, this could be a better character-based thriller.

A good old adventure movie from back in the days when Hollywood knew how to make them. I did not have any movies left on my to-watch shelf, at least none that I felt like watching, yesterday evening and I spotted that this one was given on Cine+ Classic so I decided to go for it.James Stewart was never one of my really favorite actors but he is still one of the more enjoyable old Hollywood stars and it is always fun to watch some of the old bunch. Since it is a fairly old movie it is refreshingly free of hysterical shouting and foul language for no good reason. When people argue in this movie they actually say something using actual arguments. Do not take me wrong, I do not mind the use of foul language in movies but not when it is just to shock or to cover up the lack of intelligent script.I am not sure that I buy in too much on the basic plot in the movie. To rip apart a plane and put it together again using only the material available at the crash site seems a bit too far out for me. There are also a few holes in it like that they where worried that everyone would have the strength left to finish the work but then several of them would cling onto the wing of an airplane using only their hands. Even with the improvised windshield that is rather ludicrous.If one can overlook that it is not a bad story though and with the good old-fashioned performance of the actors in it I quite enjoyed my 140 minute long sitting in front of the TV-screen yesterday.

. . . who is NOT one of Hitler's best buddies, for a change. In fact, the main antagonist of Stewart's WWII veteran pilot character Frank Towns in THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX just happens to be a German, who misrepresents himself. Sniffing trouble, Towns fights this pesky Kraut every step of the way, since EVERYONE WOULD DIE if this was based on a TRUE story. However, greatly detracting from the effect of this tale is Hollywood's insistence that the Nazis, the Confederates, and the Commies are all simply misunderstood peoples with hearts of gold who can out-think true American heroes any day of the week. It is somewhat puzzling that Brig. Gen. James Stewart, a red-blooded Yankee war great in real life, would have consented to play the brow-beaten Frank Towns character here, let alone the Benedict Arnold of the Skies in his earlier pilot flick, THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS. Obviously, Mr. Stewart was a better fighter than a script reader. Either that, or the military's cheap pay scale forced him to take roles beyond his true character just for the sake of getting a paycheck.

Jimmy Stewart plays a pilot of a cargo plane which flies into trouble when a sand storm hits, and it crashes in the middle of the Sahara desert, stranding the passengers in a life and death struggle for survival as they must deal with a limited water supply(though they have plenty of food...pressed dates!) as some of them succumb to madness or cowardice, all the while trying to make a desperate plan work: to use the one undamaged wing to make a new aircraft.A fine cast that also includes Richard Attenborough, Ian Bannen, Ernest Borgnine, Peter Finch, and Hardy Kruger. Exciting and interesting film is a bit long, but also quite entertaining, and creates a believable atmosphere of desperation that makes the ending all the more satisfying.