The film was written and directed by Phillip Kaufman, and like Wolfe’s book, follows closely the personal story of military test pilots, their wives, and those aviators' generally thankless job in the early Cold War years of exploring the limits and capabilities of experimental aircraft-many of the machines dangerous and unpredictable-in Spartan conditions and in remote places like Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Which is why it seems strange now to recall that 1983 also saw the release of the much-anticipated film version of The Right Stuff, adapted from the landmark book by Tom Wolfe which tells-in novelistic language and dazzling style-the story of the early days of the American space program, from the test pilots who flew high-risk missions inside prototype planes, to the original seven Navy, Air Force, Marine and Army aviators who made those first tentative but audacious steps into the space age. Tom Cruise even made a third appearance that year in All The Right Moves, a likeable tale of a talented, but stubbornly self-centered high school football player whose personality pits him against an equally willful, domineering coach.Ĭritically speaking, very little of this tsunami of low-ball comedy, slob humor and coming-of-age storytelling had an impact, though there is the enduring cultural legacy of so many great movie laugh lines, and the memory of all those Rayban sunglasses and Members Only jackets. Hinton, which deployed a galaxy of young actors destined for greater fame-Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, Diane Lane and (again) Tom Cruise. Still, among this glut of youth movies there were genuine gems: Risky Business, starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca DeMornay and Bronson Pinchot and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, adapted from the novel by S.E. That same year saw the rapid ascension of the Brat Pack-then, and now, an infamously misbehaved gaggle of young actors who (so it seemed) could make money for the studios simply by showing up on the set, even if the movie-making ranged from fair-to-middling to mediocre. For one, 1983 saw an uptick in box office success for actors who had made the migration from TV to film via the enormously popular Saturday Night Live (Dan Akroyd, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase), springing into big screen vehicles custom-scripted for their comedic styles- Trading Places and National Lampoon’s Vacation being two of the best known. Image courtesy of Warner Brothers/The Ladd Company The Golden Age of Space Exploration: 30 Years After The Right Stuffįor most of us over the age of 40 or 50, we think of the movies of early and middle 1980s as a hodgepodge of commercially popular formulas, popular faces, and the rise of a patently easy-money approach to filmmaking.

The Golden Age of Space: 30 Years After The Right Stuff

The right stuff tom wolf