Despite the period detail and the wonderful detail regarding aircraft, this is one awful film. The acting is wooden, the plot ridiculous, and overall, the whole thing is a disaster. Enjoy the vintage airplanes, the stunts, and the period detail and try to ignore the rest. I saw this in the theater when it was first released and I remember at the time wondering, "What the hell was the point?" So ludicrous it was hard to stay in the theater at the time, the characters so shallow and silly that no one could accept them as anything but cardboard cutouts, the script one of this writer's worst, and this director's nadir, there is absolutely no reason to sit through this turkey. Except for the aircraft and the fact Frank Tallman did the flying. Try your best to pay no attention to the rest of the movie.

I love this picture for many reasons. I don't know why it isn't available on DVD. It reminds me of my childhood dreams of becoming a military pilot and the joys (and terrors) of flying. As a teen-age in the mid-1930's I saw Ernst Udet drag the Oakland Airport with his swept-wing bi-plane inverted and pick a handkerchief off the runway with his wing tip. And about 8 years earlier, when I was about 6, I lived in Rio Vista on the Sacramento River mid-way between Sacramento and San Francisco, when a mail plane crashed in a grain field just outside of town. I ran out with a crowd of town folks and other kids. By the time we got to the plane it was burning fiercely with the pilot trapped in the cockpit and no way the men in the crowd could have rescued him. Everyone was grim-faced and silent, except for one smart alec who said he wished he'd brought his knife and fork because the burning pilot smelled good. I have often wondered if this gruesome event inspired The Great Waldo Pepper's scene where Waldo's friend crashes and burns. But I expect this was a common occurrence.

As someone who loves the notion of flight as adventure to the extent of having been in a microlight, hot-air balloon, helicopter, twin-seater single - propeller aircraft, best of all a twin-prop civilian charter flight over the Grand Canyon, and lover of the devil-may-care spirit of 1920's America, this particular movie celebrating a barnstorming "flying-circus" troop was always going to be right down my street, or should that be flight-path... Throw in heavyweight participants hot from "Butch Cassidy..." and "The Sting", like director George Roy Hill, screenplay writer William Goldman ("Butch Cassidy" only) and of course Robert Redford in the lead and you just know this one is going to straighten up and fly left.The film title and introductory scenes where we first see Redford's "Pepper" character are however deceptive. These entertaining almost playful scenes where we witness Pepper's good-natured rivalry with fellow-flier Bo Svennson not only for the patronage of the target awe-struck thrill-seeking populace of little-town Americans but also for, of course "the girl", Susan Sarandon in an early role, have a touch of whimsy, even sentimentality as Pepper takes a hero-worshipping young tyke up for a spin.However the film grows more serious as it continues, as we are made aware that in the end this is a business and that to make money and outdo rival companies for daring, the Barnum-type owner/entrepreneur Dilhoeffer (well played by Philip Bruns) exhorts Pepper and his confederates to ever more dangerous stunts with nary a thought for the consequences (health and safety doesn't get a look in here!). The outcome is predictable as first of all, Sarandon and later Pepper's friend, boffin-type aircraft designer Stiles die horribly in stunts which go disastrously wrong, leading the film to its ultimate and overriding motif about the "otherness" of people like Pepper, gifted with a rare talent but with a bent for living on the edge, outside everyday society.Such people are of course rarely long for this world, as is tacitly underscored at the end where we learn of Pepper's death at a young age from a commemorative picture on a wall but are overall left with a great admiration for all those risk-taking individuals from those times, unforgettable photographic images of whom (you know the ones I mean, wing-walking or even playing tennis on bi-planes, workmen casually eating sandwiches on girders atop the under-construction Empire State Building etc) can still draw gasps of admiration from people like me living our ordinary, mundane earth-bound lives.The cinematography is fantastic, thirty years before "The Aviator", the air stunts are brilliantly pulled off and photographed. Redford is at his winning best as the "out-there" Pepper and he's well supported by his band of high-flying misfits. Part of me was repelled however by the seeming disregard for the deaths of Mary Beth and Stiles by Dilhoeffer, Pepper etc not to mention the rubbernecking general public and believe a little more humanity could have come through in the writing.On the whole though this is a charming, greatly entertaining movie, not without its darker side and for me belongs in the same air-borne formation with "Only Angels Have Wings" and "The Aviator" as a classic movie celebrating the lives of those fascinated by and/or who make their living in the skies above. Mere days after Captain Sullenberger's near miraculous emergency descent into the Hudson river, amen to that!

This movie is made by some of the same players that made Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Writer, Director and Actor). Unfortunately, it doesn't have nearly the acclaim. Perhaps because the ultimate tone of the movie is darker, the movie still captures that fun that permeates Butch Cassidy.In terms of the aerial stunts and flying sequences, not only does the hold up to the modern movies like 'Flyboys', it is in fact, much better. Visually just as complete, you also know these are the real deal.The script is brilliant. At the end of this film, one is forced to wonder why this level of movie so rarely is ever seen today.You can read the other reviews for plot points, and details. Suffice to say that if you are a fan of movies with planes, actions, love, tragedy cool war history lover, or Hollywood of the early thirties, you'll eat this movie up.Now lets get a DVD of this that is worthy!