The Right Stuff

[21]

Caught a few minutes of this on TV Land and damn if I didn't realize what an amazing cast it had. Obviously, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Lance Henrickson and Sam Shepherd went on to bigger things, but I didn't realize Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer were in it, David Clennon, Kathy Baker, and most surprising Anthony Munoz (THAT Anthony Munoz) as Gonzalez the orderly.

So anyway, : , one of those movies I stop everything to watch, over and over. Just a phenomenal story.

But still, the book is even better.

 

[Sam Mills 51]

?

Sequence in the film, Slap. If you haven't seen it, you should. At least once, anyway. Here's the scene ...

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Caught a few minutes of this on TV Land and damn if I didn't realize what an amazing cast it had. Obviously, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Lance Henrickson and Sam Shepherd went on to bigger things, but I didn't realize Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer were in it, David Clennon, Kathy Baker, and most surprising Anthony Munoz (THAT Anthony Munoz) as Gonzalez the orderly.

Tom Wolfe hated the movie Hollywood made out of his novel. Kaufman, who both wrote and directed, felt that only Chuck Yeager had "the right stuff" and that the Mercury 7 astronauts were a bunch of schlubs who got lucky, so he made changes accordingly as he wrote the script. And the Mercury 7 themselves thought the film unfairly made Gus Grissom look bad and didn't accurately reflect the outcome of NASA's investigation into the Liberty Bell 7 accident (that it was caused by mechanical failure rather than Grissom panicking).

 

[shockey]

So anyway, : , one of those movies I stop everything to watch, over and over. Just a phenomenal story.

But still, the book is even better.

what she said.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

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

A favorite scene:

 

[kleeda]

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.

 

[BTExpress]

The book originally was supposed to be about the entire space program, but the Mercury stuff took so many pages that Wolfe said, "**** 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 ***** will never fly for me again."). And the ending: such high praise for . . . Gordo Cooper? Why?

 

[old_tony]

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.

 

[Killick]

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.

 

[DanOregon]

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.

 

[John]

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

 

[Starman]

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.

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

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.

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

 

[DanOregon]

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

 

[Starman]

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.

 

[deadliner]

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.

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

 

[slappy4428]

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....

 

[Guybehindtheguy]

One of my all-time favorites. Best scene for me is when Yeager breaks the sound barrier.
"Hey Ridley, I think I broke this mach meter here. It's jumped plum off the scale."

Sheppard is such a good actor, sometimes I wish he'd stop writing his ****ed up plays.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

So, was Grissom panicky, or not?

 

[Starman]

So, was Grissom panicky, or not?

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/liberty_bell_000617.html

Nobody will ever know for sure, but Gunther Wendt, the chief technician who helped bolt astronauts into the spacecraft from Mercury through Apollo, said he didn't think it was possible for Grissom to have blown the hatch.

One of the legacies of Liberty Bell 7, tragically, might have been the original design of the Apollo hatch mechanism -- an unwieldy procedure that took over a minute, and probably contributed to the death of Grissom, White and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire. After the disaster, the hatch was redesigned so it could be opened in about 15 seconds, which probably still wouldn't have been fast enough.

 

[slappy4428]

So, was Grissom panicky, or not?

Probably, but still not sure he blew the hatch