THE ROCKETEER
US, 1991, 108 minutes, Colour.
Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connolly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, Terry O’ Quinn, Ed Lauter, James Handy, Tiny Ron, Jon Polito.
Directed by Joe Johnston.
The Rocketeer is an entertaining Disney film. It was based on a graphic novel – a precursor of the many such action adventures that were to be made in Hollywood over the coming fifteen years.
The setting is 1938, the eve of World War Two. The film focuses on a group of fliers who performed acrobatics in clown uniform for entertainment. They were also trying to break air records. Suddenly, during the test, the FBI chase a group of gangsters who go across the runway and destroy the plane. However, the gangsters hide what they had stolen, a new rocket suit invented by Howard Hughes, in the hangar.
Various adventures follow – including a Nazi spy ring, a Hindenburg vehicle, German attack on American soil, the use of the rocket to save a plane as well as to rescue the heroine, a masked adventurer, a variation on the theories about Errol Flynn as a secret Nazi spy.
Bill Campbell is the dashing hero who puts on the rocket gear and becomes the Rocketeer. Jennifer Connolly is charming as his girlfriend, an extra in a Warner Brothers Errol Flynn-style movie who is used by the main star, Timothy Dalton, who has some swordfights a bit like those in The Adventures of Robin Hood – and is a suave undercover spy for the Nazis. Paul Sorvino is a gangster, Terry O’ Quinn is Howard Hughes. Alan Arkin has a good role as the inventor alongside the Rocketeer. Tiny Ron, a seven-foot basketballer, plays a villain, with a mask as if he had just stepped out of the sets for Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy.
The film moves swiftly, is entertaining for younger audiences, but interesting enough for older audiences as well. Joe Johnston began his career working with George Lucas on designs for Star Wars. He directed special effects films like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, Jurassic Park 3.
1. An entertaining Disney film? Different? A precursor of the action adventures of succeeding years?
2. The 1938 setting? Los Angeles, the airfields, the hangars? The roads and the countryside? The city, the film studios and sets, the lavish restaurants? The atmosphere of the times? Costumes and décor? The rousing musical score?
3. The title, the nickname from the media, an action hero, with the rocket gear, masked? Flying through the air? Saving the plane? Going to the rescue of Jenny? Flying around within the restaurant? The final comeuppance and the villain being destroyed by the rocket?
4. Cliff and Peeby, the plane, their ambitions, the test flight, the gangsters and the pursuit by the FBI, the shooting of the plane, the crash landing, the wheel, the explosion? Having to give up their ambitions? The loss of money, their livelihood? Otis Bigelow and his getting them to perform in clown dress? The discovery of the rocket? The experimentation? The realisation that it could be used? Cliff, his seeing that Malcolm had gone up in the plane, donning the gear, flying up, saving the day, crash landing in the water, Peeby rescuing him, using the rockets to propel the car? The decision to give back the rockets to the FBI? The realisation of the dangers, Jenny, his donning the gear, as the waiter in the restaurant, Jenny and her disdain, his ruining the tape on the film set, the clash with Sinclair? His putting the rocket on, flying around the restaurant, the escape? The confrontation with the FBI? Their thinking him guilty? The shoot-out in the house – with Lothar threatening them? The murders, the danger, the rescues? The Hindenburg? The plane and Howard Hughes coming to the rescue, Howard Hughes happy with the success of the rocket? The happy ending for Cliff and Jenny?
5. Peeby, earnest, helping with the planes, interested in the rocket, getting it fixed? Concerned about Cliff? The murders, in the house, the machine gun? His participation in the final action? A sympathetic offsider?
6. The gangsters, Eddie Valentine, his henchmen, the pursuit? The threats in the bar? The people in the bar resisting? The toughs at the restaurant? The links with Neville Sinclair? The clash between Eddie and Neville? Using Lothar? Lothar and his threats, the machine gun, in the Hindenburg, his going up in flames?
7. Neville Sinclair, the Errol Flynn kind of star, accent, manner, the swordfight, his moodiness, the death of the actor? His overhearing the information from Cliff? His going into action, taking Jenny out, the meal, dancing, flirting, his true colours? The pursuit, holding Jenny to ransom, phone calls? On the Hindenburg – and his taking the rocket, it exploding?
8. Howard Hughes, the plausibility of Hughes and his inventions, with the government, the FBI agents, getting the rocket back, the comparison with the Germans? His coming to the final rescue?
9. The FBI, the agents, trigger-happy, a bit slow? Yet finally in on the confrontation?
10. The background of Germany, Nazism, the film clippings, the newsreels, Hitler? Giving an atmosphere to the adventures?
11. Entertaining heroics, romance, inventions, derring-do?
