Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Instant Favorite.

As Good As It Gets

Just like another beautifully mounted, expensive, silly flop, The Hindenburg reminds me a lot of "Heavens Gate" made five years later. Just like Michael Ciminos film, Robert Wise was obsessed with recreating the era, props, models to exacting standards, unfortunately exacting standards were not used on the plots. Both films suffer with a poor script, which renders all their technical expertise and budget nearly worthless. Also, just like Heavens Gate, there are problems hearing important dialogue in the ships interior over the hum of the aircraft. In Heavens Gate is was the train station. Both films miniature plots can't hold up to the production, and seem silly, like watching a TV movie in IMAX. And really, would a sober minded character like George C Scott's neglect to factor in the possibility of a late landing?

Robert Wise directed this all-star recreation of the events(both fact and fiction) that led to the sudden explosion of the German blimp the Hindenburg while it was about to land in America back in 1937. George C. Scott plays a German official assigned to investigate threats of sabotage that have been made against the famous Zeppelin. Others in the cast include Anne Bancroft, Roy Thinnes, Charles Durning, Richard Dysart, Gig Young, Burgess Meredith, and William Atherton. Some will live, some will die as the film uses the actual newsreel footage of the time, and integrates it into the film at the end.Though well acted and directed, this film is strangely ineffective, with an uninspired script that feels lifted from any number of similar disaster films from the decade.(Though there is one memorable scene involving a song about Hitler & the Nazis sung at a piano.) Not bad by any means, but a disappointment. The "In Search Of..." TV series did an episode on the subject that was much better IMO.

But they did that to slip in actual footage of the Hindenburg blowing up into the cheaply done special effects. Honestly, it would just have been better to simulate actually blowing up the ship in miniature. (They'd probably do it in CGI Today.) Okay, the "Melodrama" here is that a Luftwaffe officer played by George C. Scott is trying to uncover a plot to destroy the Hindenburg. Lots of really good actors make up the suspect list, some of whom were past their prime (Burgess Meredith, Anne Bancroft) others you hadn't heard of yet. (Roy Thinnes, Rene Auberjonis.) What probably got this greenlighted was it was the early 70's, and they had all sorts of disaster movies- Earthquake, Airport, Towering Inferno, Poseiden Adventure - so why not a dirigible? Get an ensemble cast of b-list actors and whether they survive or not is up to their q-score.I would be remiss if I didn't point out the other factor here. All the characters we are supposed to sympathize with hate the Nazis. The ones we don't think Hitler was the best thing since sliced bread. Again, this is kind of typical for a movie where the plot is someone sabotaging the ship, I guess, but it's not really credible. It's really a lot of backtracking.

If a film about The Hindenburg had to be made it certainly would have been made in the decade of the disaster film, the Seventies. But this film labored under a unique handicap that none of the other disaster films of the decade had.Unlike the sinking of the Titanic or the blowing up of Mount Krakatoa and certainly not like any of the potential but fictional disaster events that were film subjects, The Hindenburg was recorded on sight with newsreel cameras and on radio with Herbert Morrison's never to be forgotten broadcast. A lot of people now still remember it, let alone back in 1975.What Robert Wise did and maybe more successfully than any other director was make full use of the famous newsreel footage and carefully edited it into his film, with slow motion techniques into the personal attempts by the cast to try and escape the holocaust. The Hindenburg received Oscar nominations for sound, cinematography, and art&set design with a special award for special effects. Yet no nomination for editing which the main plus this film has going for it.Of course we don't know what ever really happened to the Hindenburg and the film takes account of all the theories put forth. It also uses the real names of the people who were passengers, crew, and officials of the Third Reich. The Nazi government had a big stake in the dirigible fleet they had built, they were as much propaganda value for them as Max Schmeling in boxing and Gottfried Von Cramm in tennis.Of course had they had access to helium to float the big guys this might never have happened. But the USA had a near total monopoly on the world's helium and was not selling it to Hitler. Hence they used the lighter, but flammable hydrogen with the result of the tragedy.George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft head the cast as a Luftwaffe official and a worldly old world countess traveling to the USA to visit her deaf mute daughter going to school for same in Boston. The Nazis didn't believe in helping those they considered defectives, another lovable quality about them.The Hindenburg is a sobering and near factual account of what happened in Lakehurst, New Jersey that afternoon. It's one of the best of the Seventies disaster films and should not be missed.