The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) Movie Review

This exciting and underseen film features James Stewart at the top of his late-career game, offering the far-fetched yet strangely compelling tale of a group of air crash survivors who, trapped in the Sahara Desert and with no other options in sight, decide to build a miniature plane out of the giant air hulk they crashed in. Sure, the odds of crashing your plane with a flotilla of tools, jet fuel, pressed dates, and a welding apparatus -- but without a working radio or much water -- isn't exactly believable, but somehow director Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) makes it work, and work well. Will this bizarre contraption really work? It's two and a half nail-biting hours during which personalities violently crash, schemes are hatched, and a career-making secret is revealed.

The film will hopefully earn a wider viewership after the 2005 remake is released.