George C. Scott stars as Ritter, a Nazi pilot. He's been singled out by Goebbels to ride along on the Hindenburg as a security officer. There's a letter stating that the Hindenburg will be bombed and Ritter has to find and stop the fiendish plot. That's right - this movie's about a Nazi officer foiling a mad bomber. He's not a real staunch supporter of Hitler and his crew though, so that makes him a loveable good guy. He's a kinder, gentler Nazi who's out to save lives. Root for the Nazi!
While we're all rooting for the Nazi, the other stock characters board the ship. Look - there's Anne Bancroft! And Burgess Meredith! And that guy from Benson! Plus assorted little kids and a dog. All on the Hindenburg....all doomed to die.
But wait! Not everybody died on the Hindenburg! No, really! So will the good hearted Nazi find the bomb and save everyone? Was there really a bomb or was it just pilot error? Does it matter? When's the disaster in this disaster movie gonna happen? Not for a while, because the Hindenburg is pretty slow. While we wait let's admire the wonderful set design of the interior of the death blimp. It looks pretty fantastic - very 2001 - and those are actually the best parts of the movie.
It's not exactly giving anything away to say that the Hindenburg goes down in flames. I did like how they worked in some newsreel footage of the actual crash, and I also liked how the film went from color to black and white to allow for this. What I didn't like was that the entire movie is 2 hours of set up for 5 minutes of destruction, but it's based on a real event, so what can you do? Well, if you're in the mood for a disaster movie, you could watch The Poseidon Adventure instead. If you're in the mood for an old timey star studded event movie full of people who went on to be "special guest stars", this is the movie for you.
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