The Mercury 7 were profiled in Wolfe's bestselling book"The Right Stuff." It was a hit, melding Wolfe's 'new journalism' narrative approach to non-fiction with the greatest story of Post-WWII America. The novel was the foundation of the Phiip Kaufman movie of the same name.
Epic, innovative, satirical- the cinema version of "The Right Stuff" was pumped with patriotism and pomp. No amount of sarcasm, self-detachment or irony could withstand the chills of the theme, the messages, the heroes.
The movie was a critical success with four Oscar wins, but was considered a box office flop. Ed Harris portrayed Glenn in his astronaut days, the role he's still most associated with despite 30 years on the Hollywood A-list. The film was released in 1983, just as Glenn was running for president, leaving many to wonder if the movie's heroic portrayal of the first American to orbit the Earth would lead him to the White House.
It didn't, as the centrist Democrat Glenn didn't fit the party mood after four years of Ronald Reagan. The movie instead turned Glenn from an American hero into an American legend.
The film touches on the classic John Ford western theme - what happens to uncivilized men when civilization comes? In the uncivilized role often played by John Wayne was Chuck Yeager (played in the movie by Sam Shepard), the first man to break the sound barrier. The most famous pilot in the world, whose achievement in 1947 at the dusty and sparse Muroc Army Airfield, Kaufman fills these scenes to the brim with Western lore. Yeager breaking his ribs riding a horse. His friend Jack Ridley, played by The Band's Levon Helm (who also narrated the movie), finding a fix by cutting the end off a broom so Yeager could make his record flight and use the broom handle to close the door on the Bell X-1 that flew him into history. There's even a dusty saloon, based on the real-life Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club, owned by Pancho Barnes, a pioneering female stunt pilot.
Yeager and the Mercury 7 crew spent much of their time at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Yeager tested a captured Russian MIG at Wright-Patt and was often in Dayton for his military duties, a circumstance he didn't appreciate. He often complained about the weather and the trouble finding a place to live in bustling Dayton during the height of the post-war boom.
The astronauts were in Dayton for weeks at a time for testing and training for their eventual trips into space.
Yeager wasn't selected as an astronaut because he wasn't college educated, or more likely, didn't have the smooth marketable image needed to get the funding necessary to put the program into orbit.
Glenn was created for the role. Born in small town Cambridge, raised in New Concord, Glenn was the ideal Midwest aw shucks type, with good humor, steel nerves and energy. His Boy Scout image held up in Harris' movie portrayal, and his convictions were on display in one of the films most famous and true-to-life scenes.
Glenn's wife Annie suffered from a severe stuttering problem that led to extreme shyness and a fear of the public. As Glenn waited out weather to become the third American in space, Vice President Lyndon Johnson arrived, wanting to be photographed comforting Glenn's wife in their home while her husband was fired into the sky.
Annie wanted nothing do with Johnson. The program director told Glenn there were "issues with his wife," which led him to take a call from her. She said Johnson wanted in the house. Glenn said if she didn't want him there, he wasn't coming in, and he'd back her up "100 percent." The movie portrays Glenn arguing with the program director afterward, with the director threatening to pull Glenn from the flight assignment list. The other six astronauts asked him who he expected to fly, backing Glenn.
Harris portrays Glenn entering space with his eyes wide with the wonderment of a child. Later he's informed his heat shield may be damaged - he might not survive re-entry. As he enters the Earth's atmosphere and the space capsule shakes from the heat and force, Harris hums "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Chuck Yeager is still alive at 93, and busy on social media dispensing history and short, funny insults at dumb questions. His favorite subjects include being shot down over Europe in a P-51 Mustang battling the Germans and The Oak Ridge Boys.
Yeager's openly rugged and individualistic personality was a central theme of the movie, something some critics hated. With so many articles of late on the lost identity of men in the modern age, the movie suggests at least one man will be around as long as Yeager is.
As "The Right Stuff" come to a close, and the astronauts are paraded through Houston to mark the opening of NASA's space center, Johnson treats them to a vaudeville show that's juxtaposed over Yeager attempting to break an altitude record at Edwards Air Force base in an F-104.
Yeager pushes his jet further and further through the upper atmosphere. Just as it gives out, the sky clears, the blue fades; the stars appear. The plane falls back to Earth, Yeager bails, he becomes ensnared in his own parachute and is badly burned on his hand and face.
Helm's Ridley rides in the passenger seat of an ambulance, following the burning flames and smoke plumes that are a familiar sight now after three hours of the film. Emerging from the wreck, with his parachute wrapped under one arm, Yeager limps forward, proud as can be.
The driver asks Helm, "Is that a man?"
Helm replies, "You're damn right it is."
About the Author