Reviews

A nice little TV movie. Entertaining and informative, but hardly accurate or complete.

I didn't even know of the existence of this film until I stumbled on it today on TV (Aug. 2009). Apparently this is the only dramatic film (i.e., non documentary) - excluding the Peanuts cartoon - that tells the Wright Brothers' story. I saw the whole thing from beginning to end. Overall a pretty good made-for-TV movie. I've thought for years that the Wright Brothers' story would make a fabulous major Hollywood film. It's such a great story. Unfortunately, this film omits many of the most interest parts of the story, the little bits that make their story incredibly interesting and "human", two brothers, and Charlie Taylor, working virtually alone invent the world's first flying machine.

Having read several dozen books on the Wright Brothers, including their own "Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright" and having attended the 100 years of Flight celebration in Kitty Hawk I'm pretty familiar with the actual history of Brothers' achievement, and what a story it is.

As ccthemovieman-1 said, the film does have a "dream-like" visual quality to it. Soft focus abounds. Many of the actual Wright photographs are recreated within the story which gives the film a nice authenticity and subconscious familiarity (we've all seen many of these iconic images in our youth, but may not remember them.

All the high points of their story are told. All the players are there; Lilienthal, Langley, Chanute, The Tate family. However, Charlie Taylor, the builder of their engine, is conspicuously absent. Glenn Curtis and Alexander Graham Bell are portrayed as a team of thieves and rogues.

What's missing are the events that make the Wrights' story uniquely interesting: the arduous boat trip across to Kitty hawk, the first public display of flight in Dayton that the brothers may have flubbed intentionally to keep the press at bay, Gleanings in Bee Culture, the excitement of the initial French display of their plane in 1908, the feud with the Smithsonian, and so many more trivial moments that add spice and flavor to this uniquely American tale.

There are some historical inaccuracies, as you'd expect, but overall the story is mostly true and relatively complete with a nod to the basic science of flight.

I am curious. Did the filmmakers build real replicas of the Wright's machines or were they models? All the shots of actual flight look to have mannequins as pilots.

Definitely worth seeing, this movie is obviously two things, a product of the 70's and a made-for-TV movie, with all that that implies, both positive and negative.

This story needs to be told again - and with a much bigger budget. 15 years ago I would have cast Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hanks. The most interesting book, and most film-able, methinks, is One Day at Kitty Hawk, which as of today, Aug 2009, is listed here at IMDb as "in development" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213650/ . Let's hope it's a great movie.