By flying higher and faster than any other man had ever dared before, Chuck Yeager set the pace for a new breed of hero. Those that had just one thing in common...THE RIGHT STUFF.
How the future began.

America was looking for a hero who had what it takes to become a legend. America found seven of them.

Covering some 15 years, The Right Stuff recounts the formation of America's space program, concentrating on the original Mercury astronauts. Scott Glenn plays Alan Shepard, the first American in space; Fred Ward is Gus Grissom, the benighted astronaut for whom nothing works out as planned; and Ed Harris is John Glenn, the straight-arrow "boy scout" of the bunch who was the first American to orbit the earth. The remaining four Mercury boys are Deke Slayton (Scott Paulin), Scott Carpenter (Charles Frank), Wally Schirra (Lance Henriksen) and Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid). Wolfe's original book related in straightforward fashion the dangers and frustrations facing the astronauts (including Glenn's oft-repeated complaint that it's hard to be confident when you know that the missile you're sitting on has been built by the lowest bidder), the various personal crises involving their families (Glenn's wife Annie, a stutterer, dreads being interviewed on television, while Grissom's wife Betty, angered that her husband is not regarded as a hero because his mission was a failure, bitterly declares "I want my parade!"), and the schism between the squeaky-clean public image of the Mercury pilots and their sometimes raunchy earthbound shenanigans. ~

The Right Stuff is a 1983 American drama film that was adapted from Tom Wolfe's best-selling 1979 book of the same name about the Navy, Marine and Air Force test pilots who were involved in aeronautical research at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as well as the seven military pilots who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first attempt at manned spaceflight by the United States. The Right Stuff stars Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Sam Shepard, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid and Barbara Hershey. Levon Helm is the narrator in the introduction and elsewhere in the film, as well as having a co-starring role as Air Force test pilot Jack Ridley. In 2013 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3]

The Right Stuff was well received by critics and currently holds a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[30] Film critic Roger Ebert named The Right Stuff best film of 1983, and wrote, "it joins a short list of recent American movies that might be called experimental epics: movies that have an ambitious reach through time and subject matter, that spend freely for locations or special effects, but that consider each scene as intently as an art film".[31] He later named it one of the best films of the decade and wrote, "The Right Stuff is a greater film because it is not a straightforward historical account but pulls back to chronicle the transition from Yeager and other test pilots to a mighty public relations enterprise". He later put it at #2 on his 10 best of the 1980s, behind Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.[32] Gene Siskel, Ebert's co-host of At the Movies, also named The Right Stuff the best film of 1983, and said "It's a great film, and I hope everyone sees it." Siskel also went on to include The Right Stuff at #3 on his list of the best films of the 1980s, behind Shoah and Raging Bull.[33]

In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "When The Right Stuff takes to the skies, it can't be compared with any other movie, old or new: it's simply the most thrilling flight footage ever put on film".[5] Gary Arnold in his review for the Washington Post, wrote, "The movie is obviously so solid and appealing that it's bound to go through the roof commercially and keep on soaring for the next year of so".[28] In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby praised Shepard's performance: "Both as the character he plays and as an iconic screen presence, Mr. Shepard gives the film much well-needed heft. He is the center of gravity".[34] Pauline Kael wrote, "The movie has the happy, excited spirit of a fanfare, and it's astonishingly entertaining, considering what a screw-up it is".[35]

Yeager said of the film: "Sam [Shepard] is not a real flamboyant actor, and I'm not a real flamboyant-type individual ... he played his role the way I fly airplanes".[5] Deke Slayton said that none of the film "was all that accurate, but it was well done".[36] Slayton later described the film as being "as bad as the book was good, just a joke".[37] Walter Schirra said, "They insulted the lovely people who talked us through the program - the NASA engineers. They made them like bumbling Germans".[36] Scott Carpenter felt that it was a "great movie in all regards".[36]

Robert Osborne, who introduced showings of the film on Turner Classic Movies, was quite enthusiastic about the film. The cameo appearance by the real Chuck Yeager in the film was a particular "treat" which Osborne cited. The recounting of many of the legendary aspects of Yeager's life was left in place, including the naming of the X-1, "Glamorous Glennis" after his wife and his superstitious preflight ritual of asking for a stick of Beemans chewing gum from his best friend, Jack Ridley.[N 2]

When the film came out, the former (and future) astronaut and Senator John Glenn of Ohio was running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

While the film took liberties with certain historical facts as part of "dramatic license", criticism focused on one: the portrayal of Gus Grissom panicking when his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft sank following splashdown. Most historians, as well as engineers working for or with NASA and many of the related contractor agencies within the aerospace industry, are now convinced that the premature detonation of the spacecraft hatch's explosive bolts was caused by mechanical failure not associated with direct human error or deliberate detonation at the hands of Grissom.[N 3] This determination had, in fact, been made long before the film was completed,[38] and both Schirra and Gordon Cooper were critical of The Right Stuff for its treatment of Grissom.[39][40] However, Kaufman was closely following Tom Wolfe's book, which focused not on how or why the hatch actually blew, but how NASA engineers and some of Grissom's colleagues (and even his own wife) did perceive him to be the cause of the accident; much of the dialogue in this sequence was in fact, taken directly from Wolfe's prose.[41]

The Right Stuff had its world premiere on October 16, 1983, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to benefit the American Film Institute.[27][28] It was given a limited release on October 21, 1983, in 229 theaters, grossing $1.6 million on its opening weekend. It went into wide release on February 17, 1984, in 627 theaters where it grossed an additional $1.6 million on that weekend.

As part of the promotion for the film, Veronica Cartwright, Chuck Yeager, Gordon Cooper, Scott Glenn and Dennis Quaid appeared in 1983 at ConStellation, the 41st World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore


Release Date: October 21, 1983

Distrib: Warner Brothers

Boxoffice: