Customer Reviews

X-15

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Dick Donner's directorial debut is about as far from auspicious as you want to get and is no way evocative of the successes he would enjoy in later years with the likes of Superman and the Lethal Weapon series. This maudlin, mysoginist, cliche-ridden old-school melodrama is further marred by aspect ratio problems that have been explained sufficiently by other reviewers, so I won't get into that here--but what adds insult to injury is MGM DVD's hack mastering job. The studio didn't even bother to optimize the film for 16.9 televisions, which partially would have allowed viewers with 1.33 TVs to compensate for the aspect ratio problem by making an adjustment in their DVD player's display settings. Furthermore, with today's digital technology it would have been easy enough to correct the aspect ratio problem in a post house by either adjusting the stock footage to 2.35:1 by zooming in on it, or remastering the whole film at 16.9 by slicing off the edges of the footage that Donner shot. I would have preferred the latter approach as it would have sacrificed very little in terms of picture fidelity, and if this were a worthwhile film, I'd rip the DVD to my hard drive and do the scaling myself in Adobe AfterEffects. But, alas, I have a life and will leave this pursuit to only the most die-hard purists out there. Bottom line, MGM need to get a clue in regards to consistently formatting their legacy releases to 16.9, a practice they have yet to adapt. All they need to do is walk into any Good Guys store and notice that the vast majority of large TVs now take advantage of the wider aspect ratio.

Half plane, half rocket, the North American X-15 took test pilots to the edge of space for the first time, bridging the gap between air and space flight. This movie showcases the efforts of NASA and the X-15 group to get the experimental rocketplane in the air.

Fans of the X-15 will be in heaven, as they are treated to a ton of footage of the X-15 in testing, accidents, and actual flight. But sadly, for the rest of us, the movie is a gigantic bore. The X-15 itself is the star of the movie, the humans being incidental, more or less cardboard cut-outs.

The narration of Jimmy Stewart to limited to the opening and closing of the picture, while Mary Tyler Moore and the other officers' wives inexplicably vanish from the last quarter of the picture. Charles Bronson and the other leads are really pretty good, but despite their best efforts, it's really hard to care about them or the success of their plane.

The film is strangely lacking in real emotional content. What emotion there is is contrived and has a forced, "by-the-numbers" quality. Without any real human drama, it almost feels as if the movie had been put together by a computer.

As for the actual X-15 footage, it's hard even to get into that because almost all of the flight scenes are "stretched" to fit the widescreen format. As a result, all of the jets are twice as long and half as tall as they ought to look. Frankly, it's distracting, and so maybe the director should have opted for a smaller aspect ratio during filming so that the other footage would better match the X-15 footage.

Basically, a toy model of a rocket would soar higher than this picture does... and that's without lighting the engines!

The aspect ratio issue addressed by other reviewers is genuine: stock NASA and USAF footage was massively used in this picture, but as this was shot in the standard aspect ratio of 1,37:1, it had to be stretched horizontally to match the 2,35:1 Panavision framing used for the rest of the movie. Hence the annoying distorsion that makes all aircraft look like some giant inadvertenly stamped his foot on them. Unfortunately, this is a flaw inherent to the movie itself, and the DVD is not to blame. The basic mistake was to shoot in widescreen a movie that relied so heavily on 'external' footage.

After reading so many bad reviews I was hesitant to make the purchase. But I had seen the movie at the theater when it first came out in 1961 and had kept a found memory of it. I had an urge to see it again. Frankly, it was not as bad as I expected.

What people say about the aspect ratio problem is true. Indeed it is disappointing, especially when you consider the fact that with today's technology it would have been relatively easy to make the necessary corrections. That being said, I decided I was going to enjoy it the way it was presented, since there are no alternatives.

This production has two main components. One has to do with the main subject itself, the X-15, and I gather would be quite technical for the general public. The other aspect is the typical run-of-the-mill 1960's melodrama, which turns what would have been a dry documentary into a movie. During the entire proceeding we go back and forth between those two polarities. It is actually quite well made in that regard. Remember that we are talking about the early sixties here. Of course we don't make movies like this anymore and some scenes are quite laughable. But yet, it has that charming flavor of what were then very promising times. We now know that they were the golden years of aerospace. Today that atmosphere can only be found at air museums or in movies like this one. Also, back in 1961 was the beginning of space flight and the X-15 program was competing with the Mercury program. This tension is alluded to right from the beginning, and hangs there like a backdrop to the main theme. In this regard it reminded me of Tom Wolf's "The Right Stuff", which came out quite a bit later.

A nice feature of this DVD is that subtitles are available in English, French or Spanish. If you don't want to miss any word of the technical jargon that they use throughout, you can always switch on the subtitles in the original language.

Enjoy!

I had to go it alone in 1961 to see the grand opening of the X-15 story at the old ASCOT Theater in the Bronx. All of my friends, amateur rocket buddies and charter members of the New York Rocket Society would not go to see this then promising film and somehow had the intelligence to tell me not to waste my time. They were all eggheads and must have read some bad reviews in the NY Times.

It was indeed a very bad movie about a great aircraft. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film even though the discussed wide screen problems hampered my viewing. It was the first full length movie to be released about the beginnings of the real space program and I was thrilled to see it. With the possible exception of ON THE THRESHOLD OF SPACE, an early film which documented the U.S. Air Force MAN-HIGH balloon project, the X-15 story is almost in a class by itself. It was a film about a rocket research project, and the featured characters were almost incidental.

In order to appreciate my excitement about seeing this film you must understand that the X-15 had been spoken about since about 1957 when I was 11 years old. My first glimpse of the X-15 was in released Air Force photos that showed it covered by a large canvas which cloaked the exact shape of the rocket. This only permitted a tantalizing first impression of the shape of the X-15 and really helped capture my imagination. I was a fan of this vehicle from that day forward, if such a thing can be said.

The film story was about a rocket powered extreme altitude aircraft, and nothing in the movie except the actual Air Force footage of the X-15 was worth looking at. The X-15 went on to achieve a maximum altitude record of 67 miles and a velocity record of 6.7 times the speed of sound. Although function determined much of its form, the X-15 was also one of the most beautiful rocketplanes ever designed, and resembles the SR-71 in profile.

The X-15 demonstrated the use of reaction attitude control jets, the application of Inconel X high temperature alloy, early Air Force pressure suit technology, a powerful and fully throttleable rocket engine, and did much of the pioneering research that made the space shuttle possible in later years. Although it is seldom mentioned, the X-15 was one of the most successful research programs of the U.S. Air Force and NASA.

According to what I have read it only failed to better its performance to Mach 8 as was hoped for and attempted. However, it did outperform most of its original specifications. It also gave many of us something important to be proud of during the early days when America appeared to be falling behind the Russians in space flight capability.

"dhoggan" is right on the money. This is the lazy way to release an old film. Nothing could have been easier than to have re-worked this film in a full-frame version with the NASA footage sections returned to their original dimensions, which are naturally full-frame. You'd think it would have been a breeze with the available technology and software. Instead of being able to advertise a newly restored version that's better than the original theatrical release ever was, they end up with a DVD that's getting pathetic reviews and which isn't likely to sell. Sales from the corrected version would surely have offset the cost of the easy re-working of the film. The problem here lies with whoever is responsible for marketing this stuff. Come on MGM - you're supposed to be better than this. How about actually THINKING first.

As an aviation enthusiast, and particularly the X-15, I eagerly awaited the DVD to come out. I went over it in less than 2 minutes. The important scenes, the NASA footage, are so badly stretched beyond recognition, that I will keep my VHS copy from TV broadcast as my main copy, at least the plane sequences were ok there. Terribly disappointing.
Will have to wait until spacecraft-films will release their documentary on the X-15 (announced since last year). Shame on you, MGM !

Being an aviation enthusiast, I welcome any DVD release pertaining to aviation. "X-15" is no exception, even though this picture leaves much to be desired. I am especially critical of the official US Air Force photography of the X-15, the B-52, and the F-100 and F-104 chase plane sequences. Originally shot in the "flat" format, then viewed with an anamorphic "scope" lens, the images are stretched, so that these sequences are very distracting. I saw this film in the theater, and it was equally distracting there. With a now very sucessful director like Richard Donner and a studio like MGM, you would have thought the DVD release could have been corrected. A true disappointment!

X-15 is very much a creature of its time.

With narration by James Stewart and the semi-documentary approach it is embedded in the cold war era.

The stock footage of the X-15 flights is stunning and the speed of the approach and landings remind you of how this craft paved the way for the space shuttle.

If only the acting could have had a fraction of the speed of the X-15.
Charles Bronson plods through the film - one can also imagine him breathing a sign of relief when his character no longer takes part in the procedings.

Mary-Tyler-Moore is used for decoration purposes only, and none of the characters seem to exist beyond their script outlines.

The film is one for people who will only watch it for the X-15.
My son as every summed it up as:
Many people in crew cuts and short sleeve shirts saying `Roger' to each other !

As others have said, the archival NASA footage that makes up much of the film is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to fit the Panavision format, resulting in grotesquely distorted aircraft and people. And unfortunately, the film wasn't very good to begin with. My advice: stay away from this stinker. If you want a good (not great, but good) rocket test pilot movie with undistorted archival footage, try "Toward the Unknown."