The Rocketeer

IIRC film wasnt as successful as it should have been on release – a shame – its fab!

TT

Don’t think it did too badly – Wikipedia states it made over $46m domestically (although it doesn’t give a figure for foreign ticket sales, unfortunately).

Its a BRILLIANT film -one of my faves- the period detailling is just right –
Two small points I love when the hero escapes from Hughes office hanging underneath a model of the Spruce Goose ‘She does fly..’

And the airship crash at the end – was this the REAL reason the Hindenburg went down –
IIRC film wasnt as successful as it should have been on release – a shame – its fab!

TT

Yes, I think the Ryan STA was one of them. Thanks for that. It did look very familiar when I saw it, but couldn’t put my finger on it!

I’m actually watching the film now, spotted the Ryan. There’s a single-seater in the film, with a spatted landing gear and an inline engine which is seen for a few seconds as the Rocketeer tries to rescue the pilot in the Jenny. Not sure what that is, but possibly one of those mentioned?

The runaway plane is a Standard J-1, it was also used in “The Great Waldo Pepper” and is now in St. Louis, since re-painted:

http://www.historicaircraftrestorationmuseum.org/Hisso_Standard.htm

Haven’t seen the movie in awhile, but I believe that the racing scenes included the Gee Bee, a Ryan STA, a radial engine Great Lakes biplane, and another racer (maybe the replica Brown B-2 “Miss Los Angleles”?). The story was that the Gee Bee flew so poorly that Steve Hinton and Craig Hoskins flipped a coin each day, and the loser had to fly the Gee Bee.

Cheers for the link, Dave.

There were a few other racers featured in the sequence with the “runaway” Jenny, too, that aren’t mentioned on that site (presumably because they only have a brief appearance). Also one or two on the ground (a high-wing, possibly radial-engined monoplane, I think).

Great film, real comic book stuff.

Google turned this page up on the aircraft used.

http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/rf/aircraft.htm

Love that movie 🙂

Moggy

It is a fun little flick…totally a fantasy, very tongue in cheek, Jennifer Connelly stopped the world in it (and still does) but am as lost on the planes in it as you are…never specialized in 1930’s racers much, even tho I do like them…

Another one along these lines is ‘Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’, very similar, featuring Jude Law flying around in a Batman device equipped P-40…also very fun and a fantasy film…

M

I know, but it was never a film that I actively wanted to watch – I just didn’t really fancy it at the time! :rolleyes: Glad I’ve got it now, though! 😀

I’ve had a look on Historic and can only find a thread about the GeeBee itself – http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=46632 – no mention of the other planes in the movie! 🙁

as a film buff Daz, I cannot believe you have not seen it!!!

A search of this forum should identify the other aircraft (travel air…blah)

superb film but i am biased!