The Hindenburg

1975

Action / Adventure / Drama / History / Thriller

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 31% · 16 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 39% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 6559 6.6K

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Plot summary

Colonel Franz Ritter, a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.


Uploaded by: OTTO
June 12, 2015 at 11:55 AM

Director

Top cast

George C. Scott as Ritter
Joanna Moore as Mrs. Channing
Anne Bancroft as The Countess
Rene Auberjonois as Major Napier
1080p.BLU
1.85 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
2 hr 5 min
Seeds 6

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by hitchcockthelegend 7 / 10

Effective story telling in an often maligned genre.

On the 6th of May 1937 The Hindenburg Zeppelin, whilst attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, New Jersey, burst in to flames. Thirty Six people were killed that fateful day, this is a fictionalised account of what may have happened that day.

There are quite a few theories as to what caused the Hindenburg disaster, this film takes the sabotage angle and thankfully (to me) it makes for a very engrossing picture full of tension, drama and no little horror. The 70s was a time for disaster pictures, it seemed that one was churned out every year, not all were great movies for sure, but some actually were viable entertainment, and with The Hindenburg we get good old fashioned story telling, character build up and the pay off actually, well, pays off!

Running at just over two hours long, first time viewers should be aware that for a good 100 minutes of the film it's all about the set up, there are characters to meet and journey motives to explore, all passengers are under suspicion, and we live thru this courtesy of George C Scott's (wonderful here as usual), Col. Franz Ritter, the man assigned to ensure no sabotage can take away the pride of Germany. The film has flaws for sure, the array of passengers are the usual disaster picture assortment of beings, and of course some situations beggar belief, but this is a disaster flick after all, and director Robert Wise pulls it all together nicely for the films finale, and what a finale it is. Using stop frames, and inter cutting film of the actual disaster itself, the finale grips with a sense of realism, the plot line may well be merely one of the reasons put forward, but the crash is indeed a thing of fact, and it closes the film in a very sombre and impacting way. 7/10

Reviewed by rmax304823 6 / 10

Oh, the Humanity!

There are some nice scenes of flight in the giant German zeppelin, The Hindenburg. The 1930s were a period of experimentation with zeppelins for various purposes. Smaller versions, called blimps, are still used to spot drug smugglers and illegal immigrants by TV cameras.

They seem like a nice way to get from one place to another by air, don't they? The travel slowly, placidly even, and low enough so that you can savor all the features of the landscape you're flying over.

The problem was that they kept falling apart in storms, collapsing for unexplained reasons, or blowing up, like the Hindenburg. In this case the problem was the gas used to provide buoyancy. Hydrogen gas is the lightest element there is, and the first to be created after the Big Bang. After 1937 it was replaced by helium, the second lightest element with an atomic number of 2, and inert.

There's a Big Bang in this movie too but it's not caused by God but rather by a bomb hidden aboard the zeppelin by an anti-Nazi character (Atherton), assisted by George C. Scott. The point is to destroy spectacularly the pride of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, there is a delay in landing and the bomb goes off prematurely, before the passengers and crew can dis-zeppelin. But, not to worry. The two monstrous little kids who must always be among the passengers of jeopardized flying machines survive. So does the stupid dog. (I think) George C. Scott doesn't make it and it's too bad because his intentions are of the best, he's polite and generous, and he plays the role of the disillusioned Nazi in a subdued fashion. Atherton doesn't make it either but I'm not sure he really wanted to. "The Countess" played by Anne Bancroft survives, her kickshaws intact, and that's good because she's an intelligent and striking actress, now that she's gotten past her early roles as a sexpot or gorilla bait. What a wide and welcoming smile she has, and sexy too.

So it's May, 1937, and the bloated thing arrives at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey, and bursts into flame just as it's being moored. The cinematic presentation must have given director Robert Wise a problem. Video footage of the explosion and collapse is widely available. Everybody has seen it. That makes it difficult to create in model form, and there are no CGIs in 1975. So Wise chops the newsreel footage up into sections, some magnified, of this magnificent disaster. Each section of newsreel lasts a few seconds and stops on a freeze frame. Then, for a minute or so, we cut to the passengers that we've come to know, scrambling desperately for their lives amid the flaming, falling wreckage. Then back to another few seconds of the original news footage. Then back to the passengers for a minute or so. What took only about a minute of real time is stretched out to about ten minutes on the screen.

The Nazi vs. anti-Nazi plot is to be expected. The other back stories are routine, including the shell of a romance between Scott and Bancroft. More interesting are the scenes inside the airship -- the cat walks, the gas balloons, a dangerous extra-vehicle trip to repair a rip in the outer canvas. And then there are the picturesque ice bergs near Newfoundland, the smokestacks of New York City, and snotty remarks about New Jersey, where I was born, being a land of moonshiners. I'm here to tell you that there were no moonshiners in New Jersey in 1937, just truck farmers growing tomatoes and other vegetables to be sold to the corrupt and "sophisiticated" urbanites of New York City. I suspect the Hindenburg chose to blow up where it did because Manhattan was simply not GOOD enough for it to happen there. Better for it to provide an unforgettable spectacle for those God-fearing sons of the soil living in the Garden State.

Reviewed by MartinHafer 7 / 10

Very entertaining but for a rather small audience

This is very much a niche film--one that will appeal to some viewers but probably not most. I was attracted to it for two reasons--my love of George C. Scott films as well as because I am a huge airship lover and have always wondered what it would have been like to ride in one of these behemoths. However, given that most people DON'T have this fantasy and Scott is quickly becoming a forgotten name in films, I honestly can't see most people seeing or enjoying the film.

The film is a fictionalized account of the final voyage of the Hindenburg. While it is all supposition and guesswork, it is pretty exciting. Plus at the end of the film they did a nice job of integrating existing newsreel footage into the body of the movie. The acting is pretty good and the special effects excellent, but much of the spectacle is lost on television--it was amazing on the big screen.

Overall, history lovers will be happy but most others who have no idea about this event or its context will probably be left bored and confused.

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