Apart from the sinking of the "Titanic", the loss of the German airship "Hindenburg" at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937 was perhaps the most famous disaster of the twentieth century, so it is perhaps unsurprising that this film should have been made during the 1970s, the Golden Age of the disaster movie. There is, however, a difference between "The Hindenburg" and the standard seventies disaster flick in that it is a period piece based on a real-life disaster; most such films were set in the present day and told fictional stories.
There is another difference between this film and films like "The Towering Inferno", "The Poseidon Adventure" or the various versions of the "Titanic" story. In those films the disaster happened over a longer period of time; the "Titanic", for example, took over two hours to sink after hitting the iceberg, so when James Cameron filmed the story he was able to use the second half of the movie to show the disaster as it happened, in virtually real time. The fire which destroyed the "Hindenburg", by contrast, took only a few minutes to consume the airship, and only takes up a small part of the film's running time. The film-makers, therefore, needed to come up with something else to make a full-length feature film out of the disaster.
The true cause of the "Hindenburg" disaster remains unknown to this day, but the film explores the theory that the airship was destroyed as a deliberate act of sabotage by forces opposed to the Nazi regime. The main character is Franz Ritter, a Colonel in the Luftwaffe and the "Hindenburg's" security officer. Ritter discovers that there is a plot to destroy the airship and works desperately to thwart it. He himself, however, is becoming disillusioned with the Nazis (whom he originally supported) so has some sympathy with the anti-Nazi opposition. In reality no firm evidence for sabotage has ever been found, but there is also no firm evidence which would definitely rule it out, so this aspect of the film is not so much a distortion of history as an exploration of a possible, if unproven, theory. In some respects, however, the film-makers do alter the facts to suit the story. For example, in the film the airship's captain Max Pruss delays his landing because of adverse weather conditions (a key plot point), whereas in fact no such delay took place.
The film's main drawback is that it just does not work as a thriller. We all know that the "Hindenburg" was indeed destroyed and we therefore realise that Ritter's efforts to prevent its destruction will prove vain. It therefore generates very little tension. Films about the "Titanic" disaster suffer from the same drawback, but both Cameron and the makers of the earlier 1953 film about the sinking are able to overcome this problem by creating characters we can care about. The important question therefore becomes, not "will the ship sink?" (we know it will), but rather "can Jack and Rose, or the Sturges family, survive the sinking?" "The Hindenburg" does not give us any characters we can identify with in this way. Most of them, including the saboteur, are fairly sketchily drawn. The only one to be fully developed is George C. Scott's Ritter, and even he is not particularly sympathetic. A man who has taken four years to realise that Hitler might not actually be the great saviour of the nation he was hoping for makes an unlikely hero for a Hollywood blockbuster. The other major star in this production is Anne Bancroft as Countess Ursula von Reugen, an old friend of Ritter, but she does not have a lot to do. (Although both Scott and Bancroft were big stars in their day, and had leading roles in many films, both today are largely remembered for one single role, General Patton in his case and Mrs Robinson from "The Graduate" in hers).
On the plus side, the final scenes of the disaster are reasonably convincing, as is the period reconstruction of the 1930s, and there is a witty comic song called "There's a Lot to Be Said for the Fuehrer", actually an ironic piece of anti-Nazi propaganda, which sounds like something . Overall, however, this is one of the weaker disaster movies of the seventies, better than "The Cassandra Crossing"- it would be difficult to be worse- but not as good as, say, "Jaws", "Earthquake" or "The Towering Inferno". There's not a lot to be said for "The Hindenburg". 5/10
A goof. One of the German characters has the surname "Boerth". In German this would be pronounced (approximately) like the name "Bert", but throughout the film it is mispronounced to rhyme with "fourth".
There is another difference between this film and films like "The Towering Inferno", "The Poseidon Adventure" or the various versions of the "Titanic" story. In those films the disaster happened over a longer period of time; the "Titanic", for example, took over two hours to sink after hitting the iceberg, so when James Cameron filmed the story he was able to use the second half of the movie to show the disaster as it happened, in virtually real time. The fire which destroyed the "Hindenburg", by contrast, took only a few minutes to consume the airship, and only takes up a small part of the film's running time. The film-makers, therefore, needed to come up with something else to make a full-length feature film out of the disaster.
The true cause of the "Hindenburg" disaster remains unknown to this day, but the film explores the theory that the airship was destroyed as a deliberate act of sabotage by forces opposed to the Nazi regime. The main character is Franz Ritter, a Colonel in the Luftwaffe and the "Hindenburg's" security officer. Ritter discovers that there is a plot to destroy the airship and works desperately to thwart it. He himself, however, is becoming disillusioned with the Nazis (whom he originally supported) so has some sympathy with the anti-Nazi opposition. In reality no firm evidence for sabotage has ever been found, but there is also no firm evidence which would definitely rule it out, so this aspect of the film is not so much a distortion of history as an exploration of a possible, if unproven, theory. In some respects, however, the film-makers do alter the facts to suit the story. For example, in the film the airship's captain Max Pruss delays his landing because of adverse weather conditions (a key plot point), whereas in fact no such delay took place.
The film's main drawback is that it just does not work as a thriller. We all know that the "Hindenburg" was indeed destroyed and we therefore realise that Ritter's efforts to prevent its destruction will prove vain. It therefore generates very little tension. Films about the "Titanic" disaster suffer from the same drawback, but both Cameron and the makers of the earlier 1953 film about the sinking are able to overcome this problem by creating characters we can care about. The important question therefore becomes, not "will the ship sink?" (we know it will), but rather "can Jack and Rose, or the Sturges family, survive the sinking?" "The Hindenburg" does not give us any characters we can identify with in this way. Most of them, including the saboteur, are fairly sketchily drawn. The only one to be fully developed is George C. Scott's Ritter, and even he is not particularly sympathetic. A man who has taken four years to realise that Hitler might not actually be the great saviour of the nation he was hoping for makes an unlikely hero for a Hollywood blockbuster. The other major star in this production is Anne Bancroft as Countess Ursula von Reugen, an old friend of Ritter, but she does not have a lot to do. (Although both Scott and Bancroft were big stars in their day, and had leading roles in many films, both today are largely remembered for one single role, General Patton in his case and Mrs Robinson from "The Graduate" in hers).
On the plus side, the final scenes of the disaster are reasonably convincing, as is the period reconstruction of the 1930s, and there is a witty comic song called "There's a Lot to Be Said for the Fuehrer", actually an ironic piece of anti-Nazi propaganda, which sounds like something . Overall, however, this is one of the weaker disaster movies of the seventies, better than "The Cassandra Crossing"- it would be difficult to be worse- but not as good as, say, "Jaws", "Earthquake" or "The Towering Inferno". There's not a lot to be said for "The Hindenburg". 5/10
A goof. One of the German characters has the surname "Boerth". In German this would be pronounced (approximately) like the name "Bert", but throughout the film it is mispronounced to rhyme with "fourth".