Product Details

• Actors: Jack Perkins
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 50 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1565019601
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #251,015 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent look at Earhart's entire life, August 23, 2005

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A&E Biography: Amelia Earhart - Queen of the Air [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is an excellent look at the life of the legendary Amelia Earhart. It does not dwell on her disappearance, as it gives equal attention to every part of her life. It is also an honest and fair look at the woman behind the myth; it points out the fact that she was not really the most talented female flier of her era, that she had a number of accidents and had a tendency to cut corners, and it lists many of the bad decisions she made in pursuit of her ill-fated flight around the globe. It also provides an objective look at her marriage to G.P. Putnam, a marriage of convenience that may have grown into something more with a man widely despised by other female fliers as a pushy promoter who lived on the glory of someone else.

There's good information on her childhood, including several clips from a 1987 interview with her sister, and how her somewhat troubled family life helped make her the rebel she became. Accounts of her early flying days, perhaps inspired by her World War I nursing duties taking care of war pilots in Toronto, are especially interesting, as we learn that there were other talented female fliers pursuing their own dreams at the same time. Elinor Smith, one of those pilots who is interviewed here, is an incredibly engaging woman I would like to know more about. The documentary then recounts some of Earhart's more important milestones, starting with her first flight across the Atlantic - this flight aboard the Freedom Flight made her famous and brought her together with G.P. Putnam for the first time, but she really didn't do anything on the journey except take care of the log while two men flew and navigated. A few years later, she did become the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a solo flight, touching down in a cow pasture in Ireland after suffering some mechanical problems. A little later, she became the first pilot (male or female) to cross the Pacific.

Amelia needed money in order to keep flying, and husband G.P. Putnam kept her busy doing promotional and other marketing gigs, leaving her little time to actually fly and wearing her out as she raised the money for her final exploit. Her attempt to become the first pilot to fly around the world following the equator was not without its harbingers of doom. Her plane crashed on landing in Hawaii, for example, and she had to start again after repairs were completed. By this time, she had only one of her three crewmen still with her - Fred Noonan. The pair would make it three-fourths of the way around the globe before disappearing into legend somewhere in the Pacific. This documentary briefly mentions some of the conspiracy theories that surround the mystery, but it spends more time detailing the mistakes that could have been averted. Neither Earhart nor Noonan excelled at navigation, the plane flew without a trailing wire antenna and its Morse code key (neither Earhart nor Noonan even knew how to transmit in Morse code), and Amelia's countless hours in the cockpit had already made her so sick that her husband recommended she abort the final two legs of the flight.

As one of Amelia's cousins says, though, Earhart should be remembered for all the daring things she accomplished, not for the mystery of her disappearance. She was one of the most famous, most engaging women of the 20th century, and I have to say that this A&E Biography treatment of her helps remind us of the qualities that made her such a larger-than-life personality.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Worthwhile Effort..., March 15, 2006

By 

Histroy Buff (Glendora, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A&E Biography: Amelia Earhart - Queen of the Air [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is one of the better programs in the A&E Biography series. It compares favorably with the American Experience episode on Earhart, using much of the same newsreel footage and interviewing many of the same experts. Recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart; Farewell, First Lady of the air!", May 10, 2010

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Biography - Amelia Earhart (A&E DVD Archives) (DVD)

Aside from the spoofish Spanky and our Gang LIVE album track, "Amelia Earhart's Last Flight," and the obvious facts (the tomboyish aviatrix's plane vanished in the South Pacific), my knowledge of this early feminist was scant. A fast-moving and most interesting one-hour A&E BIOGRAPHY episode bearing her name has filled in a lot of gray for me.

Things I didn't know:

She was the daughter of Samuel 'Edwin' Stanton Earhart and Amelia 'Amy' Otis Earhart. Her father was an attorney, unemployable because of alcoholism.

In Jan. '35, Amelia was the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California, a trip that took 18 hours.

Because of a physical resemblance to Charles Lindbergh, the press dubbed her "Lady Lindy," a sobriquet Earhart disdained.

Her promotion of a fledgling airline gave it enough momentum to succeed. This company eventually became TWA.

Miss Earhart wasn't a very good pilot, and in fact had many accidents.

She could barely operate a radio and didn't know Morse Code.

She was married to an older man who had promoted her for many years.

Earhart spent countless hours raising money for upcoming flights, as she and husband George Putnam were not wealthy people.

After an exhilarating night flight with Miss Earhart, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt got the aviation bug, but FDR refused to let her take flying lessons. Amelia was a frequent White House guest of the Roosevelts.

She designed her own wardrobe.

Her final flight began with a crash landing in Honolulu, HI. The two-engine Electra was rebuilt for about 30K and her around-the-world at the equator trip began anew some 4 months later, this time in the opposite direction and from Miami, FL.

Amelia was not alone on this flight into history. A crew of four was whttled down to her and navigator Fred Noonan.

Earhart and Noonan were officially declared dead 18 months after their disappearance on July 2, 1937.