The Right Stuff (film)

The Right Stuff is a 1983 American epic historical drama film written and directed by Philip Kaufman. It was adapted from Tom Wolfe's best-selling 1979 book of the same name about the Navy, Marine, and Air Force test pilots who were involved in aeronautical research at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as well as the Mercury Seven, the seven military pilots who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight by the United States. The film was written and directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, and Barbara Hershey. Levon Helm narrates, and plays Air Force test pilot Jack Ridley.

This article is about the 1983 film. For the 2020 television series, see The Right Stuff (TV series).
The Right Stuff
Directed byPhilip Kaufman
Produced byIrwin Winkler
Robert Chartoff
Screenplay byPhilip Kaufman
Based onThe Right Stuff
by Tom Wolfe
Starring
Music byBill Conti
CinematographyCaleb Deschanel
Edited by
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release date
  • October 16, 1983 (1983-10-16) (Kennedy Center)
  • October 21, 1983 (1983-10-21) (United States)
Running time
192 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$27 million
Box office$21.1 million[2]

The film was a box-office bomb, grossing about $21 million against a $27 million budget. Despite this, it received widespread critical acclaim and eight Oscar nominations at the 56th Academy Awards, four of which it won. In 2013 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3]

Plot

The film begins in 1947 at the Muroc Army Air Field in California, with civilian and military test pilots flight-testing high-speed aircraft, including the rocket-powered Bell X-1. Death is a part of their life. After privateer Slick Goodlin demands $150,000 (equivalent to $1,718,000 in 2019) to attempt to break the sound barrier in the X1, World War II hero Captain Chuck Yeager is given the chance. While horseback riding with his wife, Glennis, the evening before his historic flight, Yeager falls and breaks his ribs, an injury which inhibits his ability to lock the door on the X-1. Worried that he might not fly the secret mission, he confides in friend and fellow pilot Jack Ridley, who solves the problem by giving Yeager the stump of a broom handle to use as leverage. Though the X1 bucks like a wild bronco, and pushes him to his limit, Yeager goes supersonic and lives. Yet the attendant sonic boom initially causes people to think his plane has exploded. However, an officer immediately classifies his achievement, denying him the fame of his accomplishment, which some people thought couldn't be done in an airplane.

Six years later, Muroc, by then Edwards Air Force Base, remains a beehive of danger, competition, and risky behavior. Major Yeager and friendly rival Scott Crossfield repeatedly break each other's speed records. Crossfield gets featured on the newsreels for achieving Mach 2, while Yeager, unnamed, shakes his hand as the former record-holder. They often visit the Happy Bottom Riding Club run by pioneering aviatrix Pancho Barnes for raucous nights of drinking. Loud and vulgar, she favors the pilots at Edwards who fly the best equipment, such as Yeager and Crossfield, whom she dubs "prime", over green "pudknockers" who only dream about it. Newly arrived United States Air Force captains Gordon "Gordo" Cooper, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, and Donald "Deke" Slayton hope to prove that they have "the Right Stuff". Publicity has replaced secrecy to generate continued funding, adding further pressure to the pilots. Cooper's wife, Trudy, and other wives fear becoming widows as the ever more gripping competitions of man versus machine, man versus Nature, and man versus man grow, but cannot change their husbands' powerful ambitions and what they lead to. The stress and deprivations result in Trudy taking the kids and going to live with her parents.

In 1957, the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite triggers a crisis for the United States government. Politicians such as Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and military leaders demand America wage and win an emerging Space Race. NASA is founded, and seeks to develop the first U.S. astronauts. When approached, Yeager is dismissive of the "spam in a can" program, saying they don't need pilots. The recruiters then don't pursue him in spite of his proven abilities, saying he lacks a college degree. Air Force Pilots Cooper, Grissom and Slayton decide to tryout for the program as their opportunities are limited as second-tier pilots behind Yeager and Crossfield. Grueling physical and mental tests select an initial roster of gentlemen officers drawn from the U.S. Air Force and naval aviation. These include Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter of the United States Navy, John Glenn from the United States Marine Corps, and Cooper, Grissom and Slayton. Dubbed the "Mercury Seven", the men immediately become national heroes. They along with their wives receive compensation for exclusive features in Life magazine. In spite of repeated launchpad and in-flight explosions of the booster rockets which will carry them, the ambitious competitors all hope to be the first in Space as part of Project Mercury. Early U.S. test flights include a chimpanzee to test G-forces and other loads upon animal life. NASA engineers view the astronauts basically similarly, as mere passengers on pre-programmed flight paths. This comes up during an argument among themselves over conduct, where they realize they must present a united front to compete with the "monkey". The men insist that the Mercury spacecraft at least have a window, a hatch with explosive bolts, and pitch-yaw-roll controls to give them some role in its piloting. They say that the public supports funding for "Buck Rogers" and "that's us". While agreeing to this, Wernher von Braun next launches the capsule with the chimpanzee. Russia then beats them into Space on April 12, 1961 with the launch of Vostok 1 carrying Yuri Gagarin. U.S. efforts redouble.

Shepard is the first American to reach space on the 15-minute sub-orbital flight of Mercury-Redstone 3, on May 5, 1961. He and his wife are given a White House visit, meeting the president and first lady, John and Jackie Kennedy. After Grissom's similar flight of Mercury-Redstone 4 on July 21, the capsule's hatch blows open upon splashdown and quickly fills with water. Grissom escapes, but the spacecraft sinks. Many accuse him of opening the hatch prematurely and panicking, a personal smirch, not on the program. The Grissoms don't get a parade, and Betty Grissom is distraught as she won't get to meet Jackie, which was her dream and feels is her due for all the years of being a test pilot's wife. Meanwhile test pilots at Edwards mock the Mercury program, saying Gus Grissom should have been washed out. Yeager states that "it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially when it's on national TV." They then recognize the courage it takes, irrespective of flying skill.

John Glenn is in the capsule and expected to be launched into orbit, but the mission that day is postponed. Meanwhile, the vice-president, LBJ, is trying to get Glenn's wife to appear with him on TV. She refuses, as she speaks with a stutter. Incensed, LBJ decides to "go to the top". Once out of the capsule, Glenn is ordered by the director to tell his wife to cooperate. He refuses, telling his wife by phone not to let the vice-president into their home. When the director suggests someone else will be given his spot, his fellow astronauts back him up, asking, "and who are you going to get?" Soon Glenn, boosted on Mercury-Atlas 6, becomes the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962. Arriving at a communications site in Australia, Cooper meets Australian aborigines and explains their mission. One says their elder has been to space in his mind. Glenn's mission is cut short from 7 orbits to 3, as an alarm suggests a possibly loose heat shield, while he sees sparks outside the capsule in the Earth's shadow, which he calls "fireflies". While initially keeping the danger of a catastrophic failure from Glenn, his fellow astronauts insist he be told the condition of his craft. Von Braun decides that the capsule's best chance is to not jettison the package below the heat shield, hoping the straps will keep it and the heat shield in place for re-entry. Glenn is heard humming as the capsule violently hits the atmosphere. He survives and receives a ticker-tape parade. The entire Mercury Seven and their families become celebrities, and are feted at a gigantic celebration to announce the opening of the Manned Space Center in Houston. During an interview, Cooper is asked, who's the greatest pilot he's ever seen. In a long answer he is about to name Chuck Yeager, but is interrupted by other reporters, so says "You're looking at him," which he often says to his wife.

Back in California, Yeager hears that a Soviet pilot holds the altitude record in a jet plane. A new Lockheed NF-104A has arrived for testing, but funding for his program is being cut as NASA's funding is increasing. Yeager decides to take it out to attempt to beat the altitude record. Upon breaking it, the jets flame out and can't be reignited. His aircraft spins out of control and he is nearly killed in a high-speed ejection. Seriously burned, Yeager simply gathers up his parachute upon landing and walks to the ambulance, proving that he still has the "Right Stuff."

On May 15, 1963, Cooper has a successful launch on Mercury-Atlas 9, ending the Mercury program. As the last American to fly into space alone, the narrator notes he "went higher, farther, and faster than any other American... for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen."

Cast

The following appeared as themselves in archive footage: Ed Sullivan with Bill Dana (in character as José Jiménez); Yuri Gagarin and Nikita Khrushchev embracing at a review, joined by Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin, Kliment Voroshilov, and Anastas Mikoyan; Lyndon B. Johnson; John F. Kennedy; Alan Shepard (in Kennedy footage); and James E. Webb, director of NASA during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Production

Development

In 1979, independent producers Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler outbid Universal Pictures for the movie rights to Tom Wolfe's book, paying $350,000.[4] They hired William Goldman to write the screenplay. Goldman wrote in his memoirs that his adaptation should focus on the astronauts, entirely ignoring Chuck Yeager.[5] Goldman was inspired to accept the job because he wanted to say something patriotic about America in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis. Winkler writes in his memoirs that he was disappointed Goldman's adaptation ignored Yeager.[6]

In June 1980, United Artists agreed to finance the film up to $20 million, and the producers began looking for a director. Michael Ritchie was originally attached but fell through; so did John Avildsen who, four years prior, had won an Oscar for his work under Winkler and Chartoff on the original Rocky. (The Right Stuff would have reunited Avildsen with both producers, and also with a fourth Rocky veteran, composer Bill Conti.) [7]

Ultimately, Chartoff and Winkler approached director Philip Kaufman, who agreed to make the film but did not like Goldman's script; Kaufman disliked the emphasis on patriotism, and wanted Yeager put back in the film.[8] Eventually, Goldman quit the project in August 1980 and United Artists pulled out.

When Wolfe showed no interest in adapting his own book, Kaufman wrote a draft in eight weeks.[4] His draft restored Yeager to the story because "if you're serious about tracing where the future — read: space travel — began, its roots lay with Yeager and the whole test pilot-subculture. Ultimately, astronautics descended from that point."[9]

After the financial failure of Heaven's Gate, the studio put The Right Stuff in turnaround. Then The Ladd Company stepped in with an estimated $17 million.

Casting

Actor Ed Harris auditioned twice in 1981 for the role of John Glenn. Originally, Kaufman wanted to use a troupe of contortionists to portray the press corps, but settled on the improvisational comedy troupe Fratelli Bologna, known for its sponsorship of "St. Stupid's Day" in San Francisco.[10] The director created a locust-like chatter to accompany the press corps whenever they appear, which was achieved through a sound combination of (among other things) motorized Nikon cameras and clicking beetles.[10]

Filming

Most of the film was shot in and around San Francisco between March and October 1982, with additional filming continuing into January 1983. A waterfront warehouse there was transformed into a studio.[4][Note 1] Location shooting took place primarily at the abandoned Hamilton Air Force Base north of San Francisco which was converted into a sound stage for the numerous interior sets.[11] No location could substitute for the distinctive Edwards Air Force Base landscape, so the entire production crew moved to the Mojave Desert to shoot the opening sequences that framed the story of the test pilots at Muroc Army Air Field, later Edwards AFB.[12] Additional shooting took place in California City in early 1983. During the filming of a sequence portraying Chuck Yeager's ejection from an NF-104,[13] stuntman Joseph Svec, a former Green Beret, was killed when he failed to open his parachute.[14]

Yeager was hired as a technical consultant on the film. He took the actors flying, studied the storyboards and special effects, and pointed out the errors. To prepare for their roles, Kaufman gave the actors playing the seven astronauts an extensive videotape collection to study.[4]

The effort to make an authentic feature led to the use of many full-size aircraft, scale models and special effects to replicate the scenes at Edwards Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.[15] Special visual effects supervisor Gary Gutierrez said the first special effects were too clean for the desired "dirty, funky, early NASA look."[4] So Gutierrez and his team started from scratch, employing unconventional techniques, like going up a hill with model airplanes on wires and fog machines to create clouds, or shooting model F-104s from a crossbow device and capturing their flight with up to four cameras.[4] Avant garde filmmaker Jordan Belson created the background of the Earth as seen from high-flying planes and from orbiting spacecraft.[9]

Kaufman gave his five editors a list of documentary images he needed, sending them off to search for film from NASA, the Air Force, and Bell Aircraft vaults.[4] They also discovered Russian stock footage not viewed in 30 years. During production, Kaufman met with resistance from the Ladd Company and threatened to quit several times. In December 1982, one reel of cut workprint of the film that included portions of John Glenn's flight disappeared from Kaufman's editing facility in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood. The missing reel of cut workprint was never found, but was reconstructed using a black and white duplicate copy of the reel as a guide and reprinting new workprint from the original negative, which was always safely in storage at the film lab.

Historical accuracy

Although The Right Stuff was based on historic events and real people, some substantial dramatic liberties were taken. Neither Yeager's flight in the X-1 to break the sound barrier early in the film or his later, nearly fatal flight in the NF-104A were spur-of-moment, capriciously decided events, as the film seems to imply –- they actually were part of the routine testing program for both aircraft. Yeager had already test-flown both aircraft a number of times previously and was very familiar with them.[16][17] Jack Ridley had actually died in 1957,[18] even though his character appears in several key scenes taking place after that, most notably including Yeager's 1963 flight of the NF-104A.

The Right Stuff depicts Cooper arriving at Edwards in 1953, reminiscing with Grissom there about the two of them having supposedly flown together at the Langley Air Force Base and then hanging out with Grissom and Slayton, including all three supposedly being present at Edwards when Scott Crossfield flew at Mach 2 in November 1953.[19] The film shows the three of them being recruited together there for the astronaut program in late 1957, with Grissom supposedly expressing keen interest in becoming a "star-voyager". According to their respective NASA biographies, none of the three was posted to Edwards before 1955 (Slayton in 1955[20] and Grissom and Cooper in 1956,[21][22]) and neither of the latter two had previously trained at Langley. By the time astronaut recruitment began in late 1957 after the Soviets had orbited Sputnik, Grissom had already left Edwards and returned to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he had served previously and was happy with his new assignment there. Grissom did not even know he was under consideration for the astronaut program until he received mysterious orders "out of the blue" to report to Washington in civilian clothing for what turned out to be a recruitment session for NASA.[21]

While the film took liberties with certain historical facts as part of "dramatic license", criticism focused on one: the portrayal of Gus Grissom panicking when his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft sank following splashdown. Most historians, as well as engineers working for or with NASA and many of the related contractor agencies within the aerospace industry, are now convinced that the premature detonation of the spacecraft hatch's explosive bolts was caused by mechanical failure not associated with direct human error or deliberate detonation by Grissom.[Note 2] This determination had been made long before the film was completed.[23] Many astronauts, including Schirra, Cooper and Shepard, were critical of The Right Stuff for its treatment of Grissom,[24][25][26] who was killed in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire in January 1967 and thus unable to defend himself when the film was being made.

Other notable inaccuracies include: early termination of Glenn's flight after three orbits instead of seven (in reality, the flight was scheduled for at most three orbits); the engineers who built the Mercury craft are portrayed as Germans (in reality, they were mostly Americans);[9] etc.

Film models
A replica of the Glamorous Glennis which was used in filming The Right Stuff. Now on display at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. The same museum has the flown Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft on display.

A large number of film models were assembled for the production; for the more than 80 aircraft appearing in the film, static mock-ups and models were used as well as authentic aircraft of the period.[27] Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Wilmore, USAF (Ret) acted as the United States Air Force liaison to the production, beginning his role as a technical consultant in 1980 when the pre-production planning had begun. The first draft of the script in 1980 had concentrated only on the Mercury 7 but as subsequent revisions developed the treatment into more of the original story that Wolfe had envisioned, the aircraft of the late-1940s that would have been seen at Edwards AFB were required. Wilmore gathered World War II era "prop" aircraft including:

The first group were mainly "set dressing" on the ramp while the Confederate Air Force (now renamed the Commemorative Air Force) B-29 "Fifi" was modified to act as the B-29 "mothership" to carry the Bell X-1 and X-1A rocket-powered record-breakers.[28]

Other "real" aircraft included the early jet fighters and trainers as well as current USAF and United States Navy examples. These flying aircraft and helicopters included:

A number of aircraft significant to the story had to be recreated. The first was an essentially static X-1 that had to at least roll along the ground and realistically "belch flame" by a simulated rocket blast from the exhaust pipes.[27] A series of wooden mock-up X-1s were used to depict interior shots of the cockpit, the mating up of the X-1 to a modified B-29 fuselage and bomb bay and ultimately to recreate flight in a combination of model work and live-action photography. The "follow-up" X-1A was also an all-wooden model.[28]

The U.S. Navy's Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket that Crossfield duelled with Yeager's X-1 and X-1A was recreated from a modified Hawker Hunter jet fighter. The climactic flight of Yeager in a Lockheed NF-104A was originally to be made with a modified Lockheed F-104 Starfighter but ultimately, Wilmore decided that the production had to make do with a repainted Luftwaffe F-104G, which lacks the rocket engine of the NF-104.[28]

Wooden mock-ups of the Mercury space capsules also realistically depicted the NASA spacecraft and were built from the original mold.[9]

For many of the flying sequences, scale models were produced by USFX Studios and filmed outdoors in natural sunlight against the sky. Even off-the-shelf plastic scale models were utilized for aerial scenes. The X-1, F-104 and B-29 models were built in large numbers as a number of the more than 40 scale models were destroyed in the process of filming.[30] The blending together of miniatures, full-scale mock-ups and actual aircraft was seamlessly integrated into the live-action footage. The addition of original newsreel footage was used sparingly but to effect to provide another layer of authenticity.[31]

Reception

Box office

The Right Stuff had its world premiere on October 16, 1983, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to benefit the American Film Institute.[32][33] It was given a limited release on October 21, 1983, in 229 theaters, grossing $1.6 million on its opening weekend. It went into wide release on February 17, 1984, in 627 theaters where it grossed an additional $1.6 million on that weekend. Despite this, the movie bombed at the box office with $21.1 million. The failure of this and Twice Upon a Time caused The Ladd Company to shut down.

As part of the promotion for the film, Veronica Cartwright, Chuck Yeager, Gordon Cooper, Scott Glenn and Dennis Quaid appeared in 1983 at ConStellation, the 41st World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.[34]

Reviews

The Right Stuff received overwhelming acclaim from critics. The film holds a 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews, with an average score of 8.81/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Right Stuff packs a lot of movie into its hefty running time, spinning a colorful, fact-based story out of consistently engaging characters in the midst of epochal events."[35] Film critic Roger Ebert named The Right Stuff best film of 1983, and wrote, "it joins a short list of recent American movies that might be called experimental epics: movies that have an ambitious reach through time and subject matter, that spend freely for locations or special effects, but that consider each scene as intently as an art film".[36] He later named it one of the best films of the decade and wrote, "The Right Stuff is a greater film because it is not a straightforward historical account but pulls back to chronicle the transition from Yeager and other test pilots to a mighty public relations enterprise". He later put it at #2 on his 10 best of the 1980s, behind Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.[37] Gene Siskel, Ebert's co-host of At the Movies, also named The Right Stuff the best film of 1983, and said "It's a great film, and I hope everyone sees it." Siskel also went on to include The Right Stuff at #3 on his list of the best films of the 1980s, behind Shoah and Raging Bull.[38]

In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "When The Right Stuff takes to the skies, it can't be compared with any other movie, old or new: it's simply the most thrilling flight footage ever put on film".[4] Gary Arnold in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, "The movie is obviously so solid and appealing that it's bound to go through the roof commercially and keep on soaring for the next year or so".[33] In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby praised Shepard's performance: "Both as the character he plays and as an iconic screen presence, Mr. Shepard gives the film much well-needed heft. He is the center of gravity".[39] Pauline Kael wrote, "The movie has the happy, excited spirit of a fanfare, and it's astonishingly entertaining, considering what a screw-up it is".[40]

Colin Greenland reviewed The Right Stuff for Imagine magazine, and stated that "It is the film's willingness to question [...] idealism, while laying down some very fine footage of things that are moving very fast, which makes The Right Stuff thoroughly absorbing for nearly three and a quarter hours."[41]

Tom Wolfe made no secret that he disliked the film, especially because of changes from his original book. William Goldman also disliked the choices made by Kaufman, writing in his 1983 book Adventures in the Screen Trade: "Phil [Kaufman]'s heart was with Yeager. And not only that, he felt the astronauts, rather than being heroic, were really minor leaguers, mechanical men of no particular quality, not great pilots at all, simply the product of hype."[42]

The Mercury Seven astronauts were mostly negative about the film. In an early interview, Deke Slayton said that none of the film "was all that accurate, but it was well done.[43] However, in his memoirs, Slayton described the film as being "as bad as the book was good, just a joke".[44] Wally Schirra liked the book a lot, but expressed disappointment and dislike for the movie, and he never forgave the producers for portraying Gus Grissom as a "bungling sort of coward", which was totally untrue.[45] In an interview, Schirra said: "It was the best book on space, but the movie was distorted and warped... All the astronauts hated [the movie]. We called it Animal House in Space."[46] In another interview, Schirra said: "They insulted the lovely people who talked us through the program - the NASA engineers. They made them like bumbling Germans".[43] Scott Carpenter said that it was a "great movie in all regards".[43] Alan Shepard harshly criticized both the movie and the book: "Neither Tom Wolfe nor [Philip Kaufman] had talked to any of the original seven guys, at any time... The Right Stuff [both the film and the book] is fiction... The movie assumed that Grissom had panicked, which wasn't true at all. The movie made him look like a bad guy for the whole movie. They were very hard on John Glenn's wife, who had a mild speech problem. They made Lyndon Johnson look like a clown. It was just totally fiction."[26]

Chuck Yeager said of his characterization: "Sam [Shepard] is not a real flamboyant actor, and I'm not a real flamboyant-type individual ... he played his role the way I fly airplanes".[4]

Robert Osborne, who introduced showings of the film on Turner Classic Movies, was quite enthusiastic about the film. The cameo appearance by the real Chuck Yeager in the film was a particular "treat" which Osborne cited. The recounting of many of the legendary aspects of Yeager's life was left in place, including the naming of the X-1, "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife and his superstitious preflight ritual of asking for a stick of Beemans chewing gum from his best friend, Jack Ridley.[Note 3]

Awards and nominations
Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards[47][48] Best Picture Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Sam Shepard Nominated
Best Art Direction Geoffrey Kirkland, Richard Lawrence, W. Stewart Campbell, Peter R. Romero, Jim Poynter and George R. Nelson Nominated
Best Cinematography Caleb Deschanel Nominated
Best Film Editing Glenn Farr, Lisa Fruchtman, Tom Rolf, Stephen A. Rotter and Douglas Stewart Won
Best Original Score Bill Conti Won
Best Sound Mark Berger, Tom Scott, Randy Thom and David MacMillan Won
Best Sound Effects Editing Jay Boekelheide Won
American Cinema Editors Awards Best Edited Feature Film Glenn Farr, Lisa Fruchtman, Stephen A. Rotter and Tom Rolf Nominated
Blue Ribbon Awards Best Foreign Language Film Philip Kaufman Won
Bodil Awards Best Non-European Film Won
Cahiers du Cinéma Best Film 7th place
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Nominated
Golden Globe Awards Best Motion Picture – Drama The Right Stuff Nominated
Golden Reel Awards Best Sound Editing – ADR C.J. Appel, Richard Hymns, Vivien Hillgrove Gilliam and Barbara McBane Won
Hugo Awards[49] Best Dramatic Presentation Philip Kaufman (screenplay/director) and Tom Wolfe (based on the book) Nominated
Japan Academy Film Prize Outstanding Foreign Language Film The Right Stuff Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Director Philip Kaufman Won
London Critics' Circle Film Awards Screenwriter of the Year Won
National Board of Review Awards Top Ten Films The Right Stuff Won
National Film Preservation Board National Film Registry Inducted
National Society of Film Critics Awards Best Director Philip Kaufman Nominated
New York Film Critics Circle Awards Best Film The Right Stuff Nominated
Best Director Philip Kaufman Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Ed Harris Nominated
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Drama Adapted from Another Medium Philip Kaufman Nominated
Young Artist Awards Best Family Motion Picture – Drama The Right Stuff Nominated

Home media

On June 23, 2003, Warner Bros. released a two-disc DVD Special Edition that featured scene-specific commentaries with key cast and crew members, deleted scenes, three documentaries on the making of The Right Stuff including interviews with Mercury astronauts and Chuck Yeager, and a feature-length PBS documentary, John Glenn: American Hero. These extras are also included in the November 5, 2013 release of the 30th Anniversary edition, which also includes a 40-page book binding case, with the film in Blu-ray format. The extras are in standard DVD format.

In addition, the British Film Institute published a book on The Right Stuff by Tom Charity in October 1997 that offered a detailed analysis and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

Soundtrack

Although an album mix had been prepared by Bill Conti in 1983 (and indeed the poster contains the credit "Original Soundtrack Available On Geffen Records"), the soundtrack album release was cancelled following the film's disappointing box office.[50] In 1986, Conti conducted a re-recording of selections from the score and from his music for North and South, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and released by Varèse Sarabande[51] The original soundtrack was released by Varèse Sarabande on September 20, 2013, prepared from the 1983 album mix (as the original masters of the complete score were lost).[50]

No.TitleArtistLength
1."Breaking The Sound Barrier"Bill Conti4:46
2."Mach I"Bill Conti1:23
3."Training Hard / Russian Moon"Bill Conti2:17
4."Tango"Bill Conti2:20
5."Mach II"Bill Conti1:58
6."The Eyes Of Texas Are Upon You / The Yellow Rose Of Texas / Deep In The Heart Of Texas / Dixie"Bill Conti2:50
7."Yeager and the F104"Bill Conti2:26
8."Light This Candle"Bill Conti2:45
9."Glenn's Flight"Bill Conti5:08
10."Daybreak in Space"Bill Conti2:48
11."Yeager's Triumph"Bill Conti5:39
12."The Right Stuff (Single)"Bill Conti3:11
Total length:37:31[52]

See also

Notes
  1. Downtown San Francisco doubled for Lower Manhattan in the ticker-tape parade scene after John Glenn's return to Earth. The scene was shot at the intersection of California and Montgomery Streets in the Financial District, and the Pacific Stock Exchange on the corner of Sansome and Pine Streets can be spotted doubling for the New York Stock Exchange in the final part of the scene.[4]
  2. Schirra proved that activating the hatch explosives would have left a large welt on any part of the body that came in contact with the trigger. He proved this on his Mercury flight when he intentionally blew the hatch on October 3, 1962 when his spacecraft was on the deck of the recovery carrier.[23]
  3. This allusion to Beemans chewing gum was later included in The Rocketeer (1991).

References
  1. "Columbia-EMI Warner: The Right Stuff". British Board of Film Classification, November 29, 1983, Retrieved: October 16, 2013.
  2. The Right Stuff at Box Office Mojo
  3. "Library of Congress announces 2013 National Film Registry selections" (Press release). Archived 2016-06-10 at the Wayback Machine Washington Post, December 18, 2013. Retrieved: December 18, 2013.
  4. Ansen, David and Katrine Ames. "A Movie with All 'The Right Stuff'." Newsweek, October 3, 1983, p. 38.
  5. Goldman 2001, p. 254.
  6. Winkler, Irwin (2019). A Life in Movies: Stories from Fifty Years in Hollywood (Kindle ed.). Abrams Press. p. 1717/3917.
  7. Goldman 2001, p 257.
  8. Goldman 2001, p. 258.
  9. Wilford, John Noble. "'The Right Stuff': From Space to Screen." Archived 2020-11-15 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times, October 16, 1983. Retrieved: December 29, 2008.
  10. Williams, Christian. "A Story that Pledges Allegiance to Drama and Entertainment." Washington Post, October 20, 1983, A18.
  11. Farmer 1984, p. 34.
  12. Farmer 1984, p. 41.
  13. Note that Yeager's ejection was from the highly specialized NF-104 rocket jet, while the movie used a common unmodified F-104.
  14. Svec's Freefall, Check-Six.com
  15. Farmer 1983, p. 47.
  16. Young, Dr. James.. "Mach Buster." Archived 2020-11-15 at the Wayback Machine Air Force Flight Test Center History Office, 2014. Retrieved: July 14, 2014.
  17. "Chuck Yeager, in his our words, regarding his experience with the NF-104." Archived 2020-11-15 at the Wayback Machine Check-six.com, April 23, 2014. Retrieved: July 14, 2014.
  18. "Jack Ridley." Archived 2020-11-15 at the Wayback Machine Nasa September 18, 1997. Retrieved: July 14, 2014.
  19. "Famed aviator Scott Crossfield dies in plane crash." The Seattle Times, April 19, 2006.
  20. Gray, Tara. "Donald K. 'Deke' Slayton". Archived 2020-11-15 at the Wayback Machine NASA. Retrieved: July 14, 2014.
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  25. Cooper 2000, p. 33.
  26. Alan Shepard's Interview to Charlie Rose, July 20, 1994.
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  28. Farmer 1983, pp. 50–51.
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  31. Farmer 1984, p. 66.
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  44. Slayton 1994, p. 317.
  45. Colin Burgess, Sigma 7: The Six Mercury Orbits of Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Springer Praxis Books, 2016.
  46. Vernon Scott, article "Schirra debunks notions about astronauts," The Tribune newspaper, San Diego, CA, 9 May 1985, p. D-12.
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Bibliography
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  • Charity, Tom. The Right Stuff (BFI Modern Classics). London: British Film Institute, 1991. ISBN 0-85170-624-X.
  • Conti, Bill (with London Symphony Orchestra). The Right Stuff: Symphonic Suite; North and South: Symphonic Suite. North Hollywood, California: Varèse Sarabande, 1986 (WorldCat) Archived 2008-12-26 at the Wayback Machine.
  • Cooper, Gordon. Leap of Faith. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000. ISBN 0-06-019416-2.
  • Farmer, Jim. "Filming the Right Stuff." Air Classics, Part One: Vol. 19, No. 12, December 1983, Part Two: Vol. 20, No. 1, January 1984.
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  • Goldman, William. Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade. New York: Vintage Books USA, 2001. ISBN 0-375-70319-5.
  • Hansen, James R. First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-5631-X.
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  • Slayton, Deke and Michael Cassutt. Deke! U.S. Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994. ISBN 0-312-85503-6.
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