“It is my pleasure to introduce to you … seven Americans, gentlemen all!” – John P. Ryan as the head of the Manned Space Program, bringing out the Project Mercury astronauts in one of the greatest press conference scenes in movie history in “The Right Stuff.”
Given the sprawling nature of “The Right Stuff,” Tom Wolfe’s brilliant 1979 “non-fiction novel” about the first 15 years of America’s space program, and the adaptation challenges baked into the source material, it’s something of a miracle it took just four years for Philip Kaufman’s 192-minute epic to make it to the big screen, where it was greeted with nearly universal critical acclaim, went on to garner eight Oscar nominations and four wins, essentially created the genre Quentin Tarantino labeled “the hip epic” …
... and completely fizzled at the box office.
In the years since, “The Right Stuff” became a home video hit, was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, inspired a 2020 TV series on Disney+ and is remembered for its still impressive and innovative visuals and sound, and for being a prime example of near-perfect casting, from Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager to Ed Harris as John Glenn to Dennis Quaid as Gordo Cooper to Barbara Hershey as Glennis Yeager and, lest we forget, Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer as NASA recruiters. For this month’s 40th anniversary of one of the best films of the 1980s, adapted from one of the best books of the 1970s, here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re planning a fresh watch of “The Right Stuff.”
The wrong marketing?
As mentioned, “The Right Stuff” never took off at the box office, ranking seventh on its opening weekend (behind “Never Say Never Again,” “The Dead Zone” and “The Big Chill,” among others) and grossing a total of just $21 million on a budget of $27 million. Part of the problem might have been that the release of the film coincided with John Glenn’s presidential aspirations. A Newsweek cover story on Oct. 2, 1983, had the headline, “Can a Movie Help Make a President?” Though Ed Harris expertly captured Glenn in the movie, the advance publicity almost made it seem as if “The Right Stuff” would be some sort of hagiography/campaign film, when in reality it was a thrilling, wide-ranging, ensemble-driven piece.
And he shall be Levon …
With the great cinematographer Caleb Deschanel providing the P.O.V. visuals that make it feel as if we’re in the pilot’s seat, careening through the clouds, and the score by Bill Conti (“Rocky”) rising to a crescendo, “The Right Stuff” states its case as a piece of muscular poetry from the very start, as a honey-dipped, Southern drawl of a voiceover intones, “There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. … The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, 750 miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. … They called it the sound barrier.” The narrator is Air Force test pilot and aeronautical engineer Jack Ridley, played by the late and legendary Levon Helm, drummer and co-lead vocalist of The Band. Cut to black-and-white, docu-style footage of test pilots, including Sam Shepard’s Chuck Yeager, who will remain the dominant presence in the film, even when the focus shifts to his successors, who would come to be known as the Mercury Seven.
Blutarsky … in space??!!
If Universal Studios had won the bidding rights to Wolfe’s book, “The Right Stuff” might have been a completely different animal. In Alex French’s and Howie Kahn’s great oral history of the film for Wired magazine, producer Irwin Winkler notes, “They wanted it for a John Belushi comedy,” and producer Robert Chartoff chimes in, “Like the ‘Airplane’ series.” Good God almighty.
The Grim Reaper at your door
Even the smallest piece of casting in “The Right Stuff” was spot on. When Royal Dano as the minister and the bearer of bad news, wearing a black suit and a black hat, approaches your door, he looks like the personification of the Grim Reaper himself.
Be kind, Carol, and rewind
There’s a great nod to “The Right Stuff” in 2019’s “Captain Marvel.” When Brie Larson as the title character crash-lands through the roof of a Blockbuster store in the year 1995, she blasts a cardboard cutout for “True Lies.” As Carol Danvers is about to exit the store, she picks up a copy of “The Right Stuff” on VHS — a film she’d find particularly relatable, given her history as a test pilot for the Air Force.
Oh, Lord ...
Before Ridley’s voiceover brings down the curtain on the story, the last lines we hear spoken by an onscreen character in “The Right Stuff” come courtesy of Dennis Quaid’s Gordo Cooper, as the solo pilot on Project Mercury’s longest and final space flight, in May of 1963: “The sun is coming through the window now. Oh, Lord, what a heavenly light.”
What a heavenly film.
