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The Ladd Company
Winkler Films
Not part of a collection.
How the future began.
At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.
Filipe Manuel Neto
Jul 20, 2023 · via TMDB
**Overall, it's a good movie about the start of the space race.** The space race was one of the aspects that marked the intense rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. There was the notion that space could be a battleground or a zone of influence, as colonial territories had been decades before, and that the nuclear threat made it urgent to dominate space. That's why the Mercury Program was born, responsible for the first suborbital and orbital flights carried out by the USA. Directed by Philip Kaufman, the film is very good and very well made, even if, at times, it resembles an expensive advertisement for NASA and what was done by the North Americans in the space race. It is a long film, with three hours, but that is justified by covering a large period of time and giving us a very global view of the Mercury missions. This leads me to another problem: you need to have a minimal knowledge of the program and who was part of it to be able to understand everything the film shows, because there are not many explanations and the film presumes that the audience knows what they are watching. The cast is, perhaps, one of the most important aspects of the film, since it is largely based on the development of the characters and on the way each actor worked and developed his character. And there is no doubt that we have a wide range of talented artists here where Sam Shepard, Fred Ward, Ed Harris and Dennis Quaid dominate the canvas and capture our full attention. There's no way to single out just one or two, I think each of them did the best they could with what they had at hand, and director Kaufman got the best out of them all. It's a very light film, not a dense drama full of technical aspects or complicated ideas. The film even manages to give us an idea of the political and financial management of the project, and the use that American politicians were making of it for electoral purposes. There's some room for humor, but it's not a movie that makes us laugh out loud. The most comical situation for me was the way in which an American vice president was stopped at the door of an astronaut's house by his wife. The dialogues are good, they are well written, and the visual and special effects used are convincing. This film also has good cinematography and a very atmospheric soundtrack.
User reviews courtesy of TMDB.
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Spectrum On Demand
Sam Shepard
Chuck Yeager
Scott Glenn
Alan Shepard
Ed Harris
John Glenn
Dennis Quaid
Gordon Cooper
Fred Ward
Gus Grissom
Barbara Hershey
Glennis Yeager
Kim Stanley
Pancho Barnes
Veronica Cartwright
Betty Grissom
Pamela Reed
Trudy Cooper
Scott Paulin
Deke Slayton
Charles Frank
Scott Carpenter
Lance Henriksen
Wally Schirra
Donald Moffat
Lyndon B. Johnson
Levon Helm
Jack Ridley / Narrator
Mary Jo Deschanel
Annie Glenn
Scott Wilson
Scott Crossfield
Kathy Baker
Louise Shepard
Royal Dano
Minister
David Clennon
Liaison Man
Jim Haynie
Air Force Major
Jeff Goldblum
NASA Recruiter
Harry Shearer
NASA Recruiter
Scott Beach
Chief Scientist
John P. Ryan
Head of Program
Darryl Henriques
Life Reporter
Eric Sevareid
Himself
William Russ
Slick Goodlin
William Hall
The Permanent Press Corps
Edward Anhalt
Grand Designer
Mary Apick
Woman Reporter
John Dehner
Henry Luce
David Gulpilil
Aborigine
Michael Pritchard
Texan
O-Lan Jones
Girl at Pancho's
Chuck Yeager
Fred
Mimi Sarkisian
New Mexico Nurse in Lobby (uncredited)
Caleb Deschanel
Director of Photography
Buddy Joe Hooker
Stunt Coordinator
Philip Kaufman
Director
Lynn Stalmaster
Casting
Irwin Winkler
Producer
Robert Chartoff
Producer
Bill Conti
Original Music Composer
Richard Hymns
Sound Effects Editor
Randy Thom
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
Todd Boekelheide
Sound Re-Recording Mixer
Jordan Belson
Visual Effects
Tom Wolfe
Novel
Philip Kaufman
Screenplay
Prampolini-Menarini Express
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Coup 53
Still Hope
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Josh: Independence Through Unity
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The Look of Silence
Anatomy of a Murder
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Stand by Me
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Hotel Rwanda
Selena
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A Moon in the Ordinary
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So Evil My Love
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Derailed
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Sight
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From Time to Time
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Topaz
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Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story
Word
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Age of Consent
Winged Creatures
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Summer Things
Heart of Darkness
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Milka: A Film About Taboos
Stay Hungry
La dernière échappée
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Valkoiset ruusut
No Good Deed
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising
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Three Lives
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Queen of the Night
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A Bullet for Pretty Boy
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The Greatest
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Hlava plná slunce
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Stříbrná šestka
Xia Xue & Wei An: Miss You Always
Kill Your Darlings
The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
A Good Theatrical Work
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Mistr a Markétka
Terbang
Aquí
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Ford v Ferrari
The Martian
Apollo 13
Contact
Elvis
Richard Jewell
The Guns of Navarone
The Boys in the Boat
The Aviator
Bridge of Spies
Sully
The Alamo
The Tuskegee Airmen
A Complete Unknown
First Man
Devotion
Thirteen Days
Rescue Dawn
Fail Safe
I Am David
Einstein and Eddington
Against the Ice
The First of the Few
The Spirit of St. Louis
Worth
Fire in the Sky
Red Tails
All the Way
The Finest Hours
The Gathering Storm
Flyboys
The Perfect Storm
Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend
The Hindenburg
Fat Man and Little Boy
Jobs
Cave Rescue
Oct 21, 1983
Feb 17, 1984
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Leo Kottke: Home + Away
1989
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Evil Dead II
1987 · 14 wins
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2008 · 14 wins
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1978 · 13 wins
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2000 · 12 wins
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1981 · 11 wins
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