High Flying

By Richard Schicke

THE GREAT WALDO PEPPER

Directed by GEORGE ROY HILL Screenplay by WILLIAM GOLDMAN

Waldo Pepper is a young man who spends his brief life one step behind history, hurrying to catch up and never quite making it. The greatest natural flyer his World War I squadron leader ever saw, Waldo nevertheless came too late for the greatest days of aerial combat, particularly the chance to duel the German ace of aces, Ernst Kessler. Barnstorming in an aerial circus during the mid-'20s, he senses that the tide has once more turned against him. The aviation establishment is now interested in proving to the public that flying is a safe and reliable means of transportation, rather than in determining who will be the first nut to do an outside loop. Again, Smiling Waldo is too late with too much of the wrong kind of skill and spirit.

One must not think of Waldo (Robert Redford) as merely a daredevil, idly tempting fate. Rather, he is a distillation of the romantic attitude common among the first generation of aviators. Their feeling was that the suddenly accessible sky offered not just a beauty and a freedom the earthbound could never know, but a purifying simplicity as well. In those early days, there were well known limits of performance against which one pressed, hoping through technique and aeronautical invention, to redefine them. There was also a direct correlation between talent and success (which could be defined simply as survival) that seemed unknown on the ground. A camaraderie grew among the handful of initiates in this new and glamorous mystery that was not to be found anywhere else either.

Dark Mood. The movie does not state this message directly. Instead, it sifts through a succession of exquisitely made thrill sequences. Early on, the mood is farcical: Waldo loosening the wheels of a rival barnstormer so that he must crash-land in a pond; Waldo disastrously trying to perfect the crowd pleasing trick of transferring from moving car to low-flying plane by means of a suspended rope ladder.

Thereafter the mood darkens. A girl wing-walker literally dies of fright. A friend crashes while testing a new plane, and Waldo is permanently grounded for buzzing the crowd that gawks at the man's death by fire. In the end there is nothing left for Waldo but the ultimate commercialization of his love for his craft: stunt-flying in a Hollywood war movie. There, ironically, he finally gets his chance to fly against Kessler, and, by turning a fake dogfight into the real thing, to pass into legend himself.

Waldo Pepper is a flamboyant movie, eminently satisfying just as a spectacle. What transforms it into something more is the authenticity that Director Hill, whose avocation is flying antique airplanes, brings to it. He is obviously paying tribute to a spirit of gallantry that he believes in and admires. Fortunately, he has communicated his earnestness to Writer Goldman, whose humor is tempered by uncharacteristic restraint, and to an excellent cast, among whom Bo Brundin as Kessler stands out. As for Redford, this is his best work since Downhill Racer. Appealingly awkward when trying to express his feeling for flying, he is in his most dashingly self-destructive mode when demonstrating the heights to which his passion drives him. All in all, The Great Waldo Pepper is popular entertainment of a very high order. sbRichard Schickel

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