Set in 1926, the film has a familiar, breezy charm for a good little while. Redford plays the title character, a barnstorming biplane pilot who spins tall tales about his WWI record while taking farmers above the clouds for five-minute flights and sweet-talking a wide-eyed movie fanatic (Susan Sarandon) who doesn\u2019t really buy his line of bullshit. But she plays along with it anyway, probably because he looks like Robert Redford. The two team up with Waldo\u2019s persnickety, oddly-accented rival (Bo Svenson) and join a flying circus, coming up with ever more elaborate feats of aerial derring-do to wow the rural, depression era crowds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then something horrible happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was a kid I\u2019d often confused this film with The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper<\/em> during their constant cable television airings, so I somehow had it in my head that I\u2019d never actually seen The Great Waldo Pepper<\/em>, which turns out to be half true. Sitting down with the film for the purposes of this piece I was seized by a hazy memory of my mom getting up and shutting off the TV after being appalled by the aforementioned incident. Without getting into specifics, it really is one of the most traumatizing left turns from an era in American cinema that was defined by such shocks. It\u2019s the swiftness of it, I think. Audiences aren\u2019t conditioned to accept such an abrupt non-conclusion to a heroic rescue sequence. Hill doesn\u2019t telegraph it, or even linger on the loss. A beloved character is right there in front of us until they aren\u2019t anymore. It happens that fast, and The Great Waldo Pepper<\/em> becomes an entirely different movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tonal whiplash is followed by the almost immediate departure of another endearing performer, this one in a much grislier, more protracted fashion. Such ugly realism was important to Hill, a WWII Marine transport pilot and lifelong aviator who flew the camera plane for this film himself. Waldo Pepper<\/em> was a story of his own devising, the director cashing in all his clout from The Sting<\/em>\u2019s success to make his most personal project on a massive scale, with amazing aerial photography that wouldn\u2019t be topped until Tony Scott and Tom Cruise felt the need for speed eleven years later with Top Gun<\/em>. The high-flying acrobatics were engineered by longtime stunt pilot Frank Tallman, a one-legged daredevil who darn near got himself killed on the picture, and joked about it afterwards. Meanwhile, Hill and Goldman fell out so badly over the screenplay they didn\u2019t speak to each other for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, Waldo\u2019s dopey dreams of glory are fulfilled in the only place such moronic notions can take flight: Hollywood. Through a bizarre set of circumstances, he finds himself cast in that very same WWI dogfight he\u2019s always lied about, this time faking it with the actual Red Baron himself (well, not really the Red Baron. Snoopy took care of that guy) Ernst Kessler, played by Bo Brudnin in the film\u2019s best performance. The former German war hero is an exhausted alcoholic, drowning in debt and reduced to playing himself in silly American movies full of lies in order to make ends meet. He\u2019s tired of telling the same old stories about shooting down incompetent children in the battles that made him a legend. It\u2019s only when he meets our dear sweet, chivalrous idiot Waldo that he finds a notion for a noble death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no better actor than Robert Redford when it comes to being full of shit. Here\u2019s a guy who devoted his entire career to finding cracks in his own impossibly handsome facade. He\u2019s always playing characters too good to be true, because they are. Yet as Waldo, I can\u2019t help but feel he\u2019s still a little miscast; I simply can\u2019t buy Redford as reckless and impetuous. He\u2019s too pensive a screen presence, always overthinking everything. (Tom Cruise would make the perfect Waldo Pepper, to a point where I\u2019m surprised he didn\u2019t already try to remake this movie 25 years ago.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a very strange film, socking you in the gut with the ugly realities of early aviation and then ascending somewhere dreamier, up into the clouds. Opening and closing on tales of storybook heroism, The Great Waldo Pepper<\/em> is halfway to one of those Redford golden-god hagiographies like The Natural<\/em>, but the movie is a little too strange and unsettling to actually get there. That\u2019s what\u2019s so interesting about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Great Waldo Pepper” is streaming on Netflix.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/waldo-pepper2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The movie has that kind of iffy energy. It\u2019s got a weird, bad juju that\u2019s kind of fascinating, especially in the final stretches. The Great Waldo Pepper<\/em> aims to be gloriously romantic about notions it acknowledges from the outset are entirely idiotic. Redford\u2019s character is furious he missed his chance to get killed in WWI, and he\u2019s going to chase down every opportunity that arises in the ensuing years. (The irony, which I believe isn\u2019t lost on Goldman\u2019s screenplay, is that if Waldo had just hung on a little longer he\u2019d have another Great War in which he could get shot down.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n