The Right Stuff

Really enjoy that movie, especially the soundtrack. I wish I could find the original version of the main theme on iTunes.

A favorite scene:

 

You are an evil, evil, man linking that.

 

The book originally was supposed to be about the entire space program, but the Mercury stuff took so many pages that Wolfe said, "Fuck it."

Unfortunately, that's how the book reads. The ending is just so abrupt.

And movie pushes Wally Schirra to the background, doesn't mention Scott Carpenter's notorious flight (and Chris Kraft's vow that "that son of a bitch will never fly for me again."). And the ending: such high praise for . . . Gordo Cooper? Why?

 

Never saw it but am so enthralled by that YouTube link that I may go out and buy the dvd tomorrow. Just watched Apollo 13 the other night. One of my all-time favorites.

BTW, looked up Scott Glenn once a few weeks ago and found out that he was once one of us. Worked as a crime reporter for the Kenosha Evening News back in the 60s before the acting bug bit.

 

Just pulled out the DVD and watched it for the first time in years recently. I was surprised by one cast member I never noticed before: Chuck Yeager himself. When Goldblum and Shearer visit the bar on their recruitment trip, there's an old guy working at the bar that's kind of hanging around, rolling his eyes at them, especially when they say they don't want Yeager. The old guy is Yeager himself. Hilarious to watch after you realize who it is.

 

And interesting tidbit - Ken Wahl was originally cast as Gordon Cooper. Why such praise for Gordon Cooper? Because he was the last of the Merc 7 to go up.

 

Really liked the book. Loved the movie (despite another performance by Barbara Hershey that threatened to kill the story).

 

Brings to mind the cameo by the real Jim Lovell in Apollo 13.

Not really: that was Deke Slayton, on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in 1975.

 

My bad, that was the impression I got from the movie. What part did Jim Lovell play in Apollo 13?

 

He was the captain of the aircraft carrier who greets the Apollo 13 crew after splashdown, at the very end of the movie.

 

If you liked Apollo 13, you'll like The Right Stuff. Great movie based on a great book.

 

My favorite scene is LBJ pitching a fit in the back of the limo when Annie Glenn tells him to stay away... used to work for a prep guy who pitched that same fit when he came back in the office on Fridays and you didn't tell him what he wanted to know within a millisecond of his walking in the door....