What is Philip Kaufman's adaptation and directing technique of "The Right Stuff" based on historical facts?

XS-1 exceeds the speed of sound

The movie opens with a symbolic scene in which the XS-1, coded WK28, crashes during an experiment (*8) and the test pilot loses his life. The black-clad priest (Royal Dano) who appears in this scene often appears in ominous scenes, almost like the Grim Reaper.

Jaeger (Sam Shepard), who was attending the funeral, happens to see an XS-1 aircraft while riding his horse in the desert surrounding Edwards Air Force Base and becomes interested. This passage is a complete cinematic adaptation. In reality, he was made to participate in this project from an early stage by order from his superiors, and instead of suddenly boarding the aircraft early the next morning like in the movie, he attended NACA's flight planning meetings and studied the aircraft's mechanisms. I had it completely in my head.

In the film, Jaeger's wife Glenys (Barbara Hershey) is seen at the Happy Bottom Riding Club , a bar and restaurant run by Pancho Barnes (Kim Stanley), a legendary female aviator and movie stunt pilot. ) appears and the two play around as if they are meeting for the first time. (*9)

"The Right Stuff" (c) 1983 The Ladd Company. All.rights reserved.

In the play, the scene shows the traces of hard work, but in historical fact, the two met in 1943 and were married two years later. Therefore, by the time Jaeger flew the XS-1 in 1947, he already had two children.

And Jaeger recorded a speed of Mach 1.06 in the XS-1, easily exceeding the speed of sound. The day before (actually two days) before this, he had raced with Glennis and fallen off his horse, breaking his ribs. Since he has no strength in his right hand, aeronautical engineer Jack Ridley (Levon Helm) cuts off the handle of a mop and gives it to him to use as a lever to close the hatch. It feels like a made-up story, but surprisingly, it's mostly true.

Furthermore, the depiction that Slick Goodlin (William Russ), the predecessor of the XS-1 pilot, demanded an exorbitant fee of $150,000 in order to try to break the sound speed (the place is Pancho's store) It's based mostly on fact. He was a civilian test pilot contracted by Bell Aircraft, so of course his purpose was to make money.

However, the depiction that Jaeger voluntarily declined special compensation is not true. Because he was in the Army, he only received a fixed salary ($283 a month), regardless of the level of danger of the job.

　According to Jaeger's autobiography , he was living in extreme poverty at the time, and he begged his superiors to ``at least give me enough money to buy my wife a fur coat,'' but his request was quickly rejected. was. This is because, due to the nature of the military, if even one person is granted special treatment, things will get out of control.

*8 In reality, no fatal accident occurred in the XS-1, and this is just a theatrical creation. However, two successors were built.X-2Both planes crashed, killing three people.

*9 In this scene, there is a woman who calls out to Jaeger under the misunderstanding that Glennis has dumped her, and Pancho chides her, saying, ``Okay, that's his wife.'' Orlan Jones, who played this woman, was Sam Shepard's wife at the time. The two divorced in 1984.

Challenge to Mach 2

In 1953, Cooper (*10), a rookie pilot from Oklahoma, is assigned to Edwards Air Force Base, where a select group of elite pilots gather. His favorite phrase to his wife, Trudy (Pamela Reed), is, ``Who's the best pilot? The guy in front of me.'' The two visit the Happy Bottom Riding Club and meet Grissom, Slayton (Scott Pauline), Jaeger, and others.

At the time, Scott Crossfield (Scott Wilson), a civilian who was coming and going here, had set a Mach 2 record in a Douglas Aircraft D-558-2 .

In order to regain the honor of being the fastest man in the world, Jaeger piloted the newly developed X-1A and recorded a speed of Mach 2.44 on December 12, 1953. However, immediately after that, the aircraft began to fall, and was able to right itself just before crashing.

*10 During this period, Cooper was enrolled at the University of Maryland in Germany, and from 1954 he studied for two years at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) at Wright- Paterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Here, Cooper had already met Grissom, and the Lockheed T-33 they were on board with failed to take off and burst into flames. They began working at Edwards Air Force Base in 1956.

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