With the release of Tom Cruise’s alleged final outing as Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible- Final Reckoning—sure, okay—there’s been loads of promotional material that, par for the course of these movies, heavily hypes up the practical stunts and outlandish things Tom Cruise will do to make audiences smile. One of the more bombastic set pieces that has been a major centerpiece of the posters and trailers is Cruise hanging from a rogue biplane. The ludicrous nature of the stunt has already caught people’s attention and received praise from critics. However, it’s not the first film to do practical stunts on a biplane—then again, no one was boasting that it was—because, coincidentally, this year marks the 50th anniversary of another practical stunt spectacle: 1975’s The Great Waldo Pepper starring Robert Redford.
Directed by George Roy Hill in his third collaboration with Robert Redford, following Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, and written by William Goldman—the screenwriter equivalent of a character actor, in that you read his filmography and think, “Really? He wrote that too?”—The film follows Redford as the titular character in his exploits as a barnstormer and stunt pilot following World War I. Similar to a modern Tom Cruise vehicle, the story is decent, but it’s more of a framework for the impressive stunt work done by the actors and stunt performers, and elevated by the charisma of the leading man—as well as the sarcastic banter Goldman is known for.
With the normalization and almost mundanity of CGI in modern movies, practical effects and stunt work have become virtually a commodity in action films and blockbusters. So much so, when something like Thunderbolts—sorry, The New Avengers—does them, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Ever since he climbed the side of the Burj Khalifa, the selling point of Tom Cruise’s movies at this stage in his career revolves around the crazy stunts he’s willing to do. While that’s a selling point for modern movies, back in the 70s, that was just what they did, considering that was their only option available, but even with that frame of mind, the stunts in The Great Waldo Pepper garnered the film a considerable amount of praise from critics. Even those who didn’t like the movie admired the incredible stunts performed, many of which were executed by the actors themselves.
Throughout the film, Redford and co-star Bo Svenson are repeatedly in the cockpits and walking around on the wings of these biplanes, and the movie is smart enough to frame the action accordingly, so you know there’s no visual trickery. They’re really up there. That’s what makes little things like a brief moment where Svenson’s character slightly slips and hangs onto the side of the plane feel so nerve-wracking. Was that moment planned? Maybe. But the stunts were reportedly performed without safety harnesses or parachutes, so that could’ve still gone really bad, really quickly.
There are tons of great moments of Robert Redford in the cockpit of these planes as they’re taking off and flying around—shot in a similar manner that Top Gun: Maverick would do nearly five decades later—and it adds to the adrenaline of the scenes. There aren’t any elaborate Mission: Impossible-esque action scenes aboard the planes, save for an intense dogfight in the climax, and it’s not like there’s a scene where Robert Redford has to board a plane from the wings of another...except there is a scene like that! That happens in this! It's not a slick and smooth maneuver either; it takes them multiple times to do it, because, as it turns out, getting two airborne planes to be within a few feet of each other and having someone go from one to another is not as easy as you would otherwise expect. Movies can be educational and informative; never forget that. It's a heart-pounding scene, which is all done in an effort to save Susan Sarandon. Oh yeah, she’s in this too, did we not mention that? (Disclaimer: Don’t get too attached.)
Even Edward Hermann does crazy aerial maneuvers in this. That’s right, the man you either know as Max from The Lost Boys or Richard Gilmore in The Gilmore Girls—you know your brain goes to one of those two roles when you hear his name—has one of the most palm-sweating-inducing scenes in the film. In one of the film’s many aerial performances, the camera is locked down to the plane as he goes from a steep nosedive from what looks like hundreds of feet in the air to passing by the grounded audience while being upside-down, and you’re with him for the entire ride. It’s a properly immersive set piece, and you’ll feel your stomach drop while watching it. The film is full of moments stunts like that, so if you come out of Mission: Impossible this weekend and want to watch another lead cast member of Lambs for Lions play around on a biplane, this one's definitely worth checking out.
Mission Impossible- Final Reckoning is currently in theaters everywhere.