The Great Waldo Pepper

The Great Waldo Pepper is a 1975 American drama film directed, produced, and co-written by George Roy Hill. Set during 1926–1931, the film stars Robert Redford as a disaffected World War I veteran pilot who missed the opportunity to fly in combat, and examines his sense of postwar dislocation in 1920s America. The cast includes Margot Kidder, Bo Svenson, Edward Herrmann and Susan Sarandon. The Great Waldo Pepper depicts barnstorming during the 1920s and the accidents that led to aviation regulations by the Air Commerce Act. Plot 1926: World War I veteran Waldo Pepper feels he has missed out on the glory of aerial combat after being made a flight instructor. After the war, Waldo had taken up barnstorming to make a living. He soon tangles with rival barnstormer (and fellow war veteran) Axel Olsson. Antagonistic at first, Waldo and Axel become partners and try out various flying stunts. One of these stunts, a car-to-aircraft transfer, goes wrong and Waldo is nearly killed after Axel is unable to climb high enough to clear a barn, slamming Waldo into it. Waldo then goes home to Kansas to be with on-again, off-again girlfriend Maude and her family. Maude is not happy to see Waldo at first, as every time he returns from a barnstorming tour of the country, he is injured in some way. Eventually, they make up and become lovers once again. Meanwhile, Maude's brother Ezra, a long-time friend of Waldo's since boyhood, promises to build Waldo a high-performance monoplane as soon as he is well enough to fly it. Waldo's goal is to become the first pilot in history to successfully perform an outside loop, and Ezra feels Waldo can do it with the monoplane. In the meantime, Waldo rejoins Axel. The two eventually get a job flying for a traveling flying circus owned by Doc Dillhoefer. However, Dillhoefer's Flying Circus is in a slump, as there is very little attendance at the shows. In an effort to attract bigger crowds, Dillhoefer hires Mary Beth to act as the show's new sexy attraction, in which she would climb out on the wing of an aircraft in flight wearing shredded clothes, thus allowing the wind to blow them off. But while performing this new stunt for the first time, Mary Beth freezes up on the wing, afraid to return to the cockpit. As Waldo (who did a "plane-to-plane transfer" in flight to climb aboard Mary Beth's aircraft) extends his hand to help Mary Beth back into the cockpit, she slips and falls off the wing to her death.