Films of the 1950s this week with the legendary Jimmy Stewart interviewed by Howard Miller for his CBS Radio series The Howard Miller Show on March 25, 1957.
Stewart is on a promotional tour for his latest feature, The Spirit Of St. Louis, directed by Billy Wilder.
The Spirit of St. Louis was a 1957 aviation biography film in CinemaScope and Warnercolor from Warner Bros., directed by Billy Wilder, produced by Leland Hayward, and starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder from Lindbergh’s 1953 autobiographical account of his historic flight, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954.
Along with reminiscences of his early days in aviation, the film’s storyline largely focuses on Lindbergh’s lengthy preparation for, and accomplishment of, his history-making transatlantic flight in the purpose-built Spirit of St. Louis high-wing monoplane. His takeoff begins at Roosevelt Field and ends 33 hours later on May 21, 1927 when he lands safely at Le Bourget Field in Paris. The film ends with actual newsreel footage of Lindbergh’s ticker tape parade in New York.
Stewart had a lifelong passion for aviation and Lindbergh’s story. Later in his life, he recalled Lindbergh’s famous flight as among the most significant events of his youth, one that led him to seek a career as an aviator. Like Lindbergh, Stewart had been an USAAF pilot, and both eventually retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve at the grade of brigadier general.
To accurately depict the transatlantic flight, three replicas, at a cost of $1.3 million (equal to $14.2 million today), were made of the Spirit of St. Louis for the various filming units stateside, in Europe and in the studio. Stewart purchased a similar Ryan Brougham that was modified under Lindbergh’s supervision. In 1959, Stewart donated the aircraft to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The second replica was donated to the San Diego Aerospace Museum but was destroyed in 1978 when a fire gutted the Electric Building in Balboa Park that housed the museum. The third replica is displayed in the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.
Filming took place at the Santa Maria Public Airport in Santa Maria, California, at what is currently the site of Allan Hancock College. A non-flying replica for ground shots was also built, which currently hangs in the Minneapolis−Saint Paul International Airport. Aerial sequences were directed by Paul Mantz and were taken from a North American B-25 bomber converted as a camera platform for photography.
Here’s that interview Jimmy Stewart did for Howard Miller as it was broadcast on March 25, 1957.
