The Flight of the Phoenix

A sandstorm forces experienced pilot Frank Towns (James Stewart) to make an emergency landing in the Sahara. With no radio contact and limited water supplies, their chances of survival seem bleak. But then German aircraft designer Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Krüger) suggests to the other passengers that they build a smaller aircraft from the wreckage of the cargo plane while they still have enough strength... Aldrich had considered adapting Paul Bowles’ novel "The Sheltering Sky" for the screen, but ultimately he brought another existentialist desert film to life—featuring a star-studded cast and a gripping narrative arc filled with surprising twists. "The Flight of the Phoenix" became a popular classic and the epitome of epic cinema depicting the struggle for survival. As an intimate drama set against an endless expanse, it is also a masterful expression of the paradoxical impulses in Aldrich’s multifaceted body of work. (C.H.)