The Right Stuff (Film)
Writer: Philip Kaufman
Director: Philip Kaufman
Release: February 17, 1984
Tagline(s): 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.
The spectacular story of America’s first astronauts.
How the future began.
America was looking for a hero who had what it takes to become a legend. America found seven of them.
Producer(s): Robert Chartoff, Irwin Winkler
Executive Producer: James D. Brubaker
Stars/Actors: Sam Shephard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Fred Ward, Barbara Hershey, Kim Stanley, Veronica Cartwright, Pamela Reed, Scott Paulin, Charles Frank, Lance Henriksen, Donald Moffat, Levon Helm, Mary Jo Deschanel
Music by: Bill Conti
Production Company: The Ladd Company
Genre(s): Adventure, Biography, Drama
ID: tt0086197
Rating: PG
Runtime: 193 minutes
Based On: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Synopsis: The story of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and their macho, seat-of-the-pants approach to the space program.
Declassified by Agent Palmer: After All this Time The Right Stuff Still Inspires Despite Historical Inaccuracies
Quotes and Lines
Narrator: There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would die. Their controls would freeze up, their planes would buffet wildly, and they would disintegrate. The demon lived at Mach 1 on the meter, seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, where the air could no longer move out of the way. He lived behind a barrier through which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the sound barrier.
Chuck Yeager: Hey, Ridley, ya got any Beeman’s?
Jack Ridley: Yeah, I think I got me a stick.
Chuck Yeager: Loan me some, will ya? I’ll pay ya back later.
Jack Ridley: Fair enough.
Alan Shepard: Dear Lord, please don’t let me fuck up.
Gordon Cooper: I didn’t quite copy that. Say again, please.
Alan Shepard: I said everything’s A-OK.
John Glenn: Annie, listen to me, OK? You listening? If you don’t want the Vice President or the TV networks or anybody else to come into the house, then that’s it, as far as I’m concerned. They are NOT coming in, and I will back you all the way, a hundred percent on this. And you tell them that, OK? I don’t want Johnson or any of the rest of them to set as much as one TOE inside our house.
Annie Glenn: OK.
John Glenn: You tell them that- that Astronaut John Glenn told you to say that.
Chuck Yeager: I’m a fearless man, but I’m scared to death of you.
Glennis Yeager: Oh no you’re not. But you oughta be.
Alan Shepard: Request permission to relieve bladder… Gordo… Gordo?
Gordon Cooper: Look, the man has got to go! Now it’s either that or we get out the lug wrench and pry him out…
Chief Scientist: Do it… in the suit.
Gordon Cooper: José, permission to wet your diapers anytime son.
Recruiter: Funding. That’s what makes your ships go up. I’ll tell you something, and you guys too: No bucks, no Buck Rodgers.
Chuck Yeager: Monkeys? You think a monkey knows he’s sittin’ on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I’ll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that’s on TV. Ol’ Gus, he did all right.
Alan Shepard: Sounds dangerous
Recruiter: It is! Extremely dangerous!
Alan Shepard: Count me in!
Glennis Yeager: The government can spend all kinds of money teaching you how to be a fearless test pilot, but they don’t spend a god-damned thing teaching you how to be the fearless wife of a fearless test pilot.
Narrator: The Mercury program was over. Four years later, astronaut Gus Grissom was killed, along with astronauts White and Chaffee, when fire swept through their Apollo capsule. But on that glorious day in May 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher, farther, and faster than any other American – 22 complete orbits around the world; he was the last American ever to go into space alone. And for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.