Movie Review of "Amelia": Earhart's Last Flight Frames Story of a Complex, Courageous Woman

"Amelia," a glossy cinematic summary of Amelia Earhart's life during the years 1932-1937, also includes a brief scene depicting Earhart's third-place finish in the Women's Air Derby of 1929. Louise Thaden won the air defby, a race from Santa Monica to Cleveland that was nicknamed the "Powder Puff" derby by humorist Will Rogers.

Earhart and Thaden competed against each other again when women were finally allowed to enter the men's air races. Thaden won the prestigious Bendix Transcontinental Trophy race from New York to Los Angeles in 1936. Earhart finished in fifth place and Laura Ingalls came in second behind Thaden, proving that the "powder puffs" could hold their own against the top male pilots in the air.

But few women of Amelia Earhart's time, or any time, possessed Earhart's impressive combination of charisma, intellect and brave ambition. Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and set some altitude and speed records in the early 1930s. It took courage to fly long distances in an era when aircraft and navigational equipment were primitive by today's standards. Earhart was comfortable talking to reporters and became a tremendous ambassador for aviation in general and women pilots in particular. She wrote two books and lectured frequently about her flying experiences, including regular appearances at Purdue University in her role as a consultant.

If you don't know much about Earhart before you watch "Amelia," you may come away with a wish for a deeper understanding of some scenes. This movie is a biopic, not a documentary, so it condenses and combines some notable people and events her life while omitting others entirely. Your remedy -and it's an enjoyable one---is to read one or some of the more thoughtful books that have been written about her life and disappearance. Two good ones are "The Sound of Wings" by Mary S, Lovell, and "Amelia Earhart's Shoes" by Thomas F. King, et.al.

If you see the movie first, you will still enjoy the flying scenes in "Amelia" and the performances of Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. The final scenes are suspenseful although you know---spoiler alert? --- Earhart never reached Howland Island on her 1937 around-the-world flight.

Most of the events portrayed in "Amelia" are true or at least rooted in true events. Swank's appealing performance is aided by her remarkable physical similarity to the tall, slender Earhart. Amelia Earhart was born in 1897 but contributed significantly to the image of a decade known as the "Roaring '20s." Had she been born 50 years later, Earhart might well have become a "flower child" of the 1960s. While the movie does not disclose George Putnam's status as a married man at the time he met Earhart, it does accurately reflect Earhart's philosophy that marriage was not an essential or confining consideration in her relationships with men.

Director Mira Nair does not speculate what conversation took place between Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, during the last couple of hours of their final flight. A worried Noonan is shown essentially wringing his hands quietly in the back of the plane after they are overdue to land at tiny Howland Island. It is far more probable, however, that if Noonan could provide no additional navigational aid he was helping Earhart to scan the seascape for the sight of land. The time en route to the area where Earhart and Noonan expected to find Howland was nearly 19 hours and they had limited time beyond that to search for the island. Earhart's limited experience in the use of radio navigation, and the possibility (raised by close examination of film of the takeoff) that her airplane's radio antenna had been damaged during takeoff from Lae, severely reduced the options available to the exhausted duo before their fuel, and time, ran out.

"Amelia," the movie, is a "good view." Consider it also as a possible appetizer for one of the many well-crafted books available to learn more about the complex, courageous woman who was Amelia Earhart.

Sources:

"The Sound of Wings" by Mary S. Lovell

"Amelia Earhart's Shoes" by Thomas F, King et.al.

"The Aviation Fact Book" by Daryl E. Murphy

"The Ninety-Nines," U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/99s/EX21.htm

"The Powder Puff Derbies" http://aerofiles.com/powderpuff.html

The Earhart Project, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR)http://www.tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/AEdescr.html