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Before Richard Donner brought us the 'Lethal Weapon' series, and before even 'Scrooged', 'The Goonies', and 'Superman', he directed his first feature film, 'X - 15'. With a solid cast featuring the likes of Charles Bronson, James Gregory, and Mary Tyler Moore, Donner directed one of the most curious films ever created. As a film, in the normal sense, it's completely useless, apart from a variety of historically interesting aspects. As a documentary, it is (perhaps) filled with interesting information. Unfortunately, it goes to great lengths to make sure that it can't be seen as a documentary. It commits to a supremely hokey plot involving the difficulties that go along with being married to a test pilot, but it does almost nothing at all with that plot. Apart from a few scenes thrown in here and there which barely manage to connect with anything, the film obviously doesn't really know what to do with a plot at all. We might edit about twenty minutes out of the film, and we would be left with what would be indistinguishable from a bland documentary. At least 80% of the movie's time is spent rattling off details of the X - 15, or the NASA program in general. The movie opens with James Stewart narrating facts, and he breaks in at certain points throughout, and the manner in which this is presented sets the stage for a film that might run on an infinite loop at a space museum. ***

The only real story is the X - 15 itself, and the rest is added as window dressing in order to induce people to watch. We do, of course, meet our pilots, and their wives, and we can thus thrown in the bits of drama, but your eyes are rarely off the X - 15, and when they are you're most likely to be seeing a few men sitting around a table talking about the project. Imagine a version of 'Top Gun' where we cut the story down to what we can do in fifteen minutes, and the rest of the time is spent telling us about the planes, how they fly, and then watching them do it. 'Top Gun' is bad enough in terms of watching planes fly, but in 'X- 15' it isn't uncommon to spend ten solid minutes watching the X - 15, and it's just flying in a straight line. ***

If one can stand to watch it as a documentary it's not bad at all, but it would be difficult for anyone to watch today if they were expecting a film. When it was originally released, it at least had the additional benefit of being rather 'up to the minute'. Now it's history, and history rather boringly reported besides. Though it's somewhat interesting to see Mary Tyler Moore's decidedly early-sixties fashion sense, and you've got to love James Gregory in almost anything, but it hardly saves the experience. This is the sort of movie from a bygone era that might well be worth viewing even if it only had a bad plot, but with a non-existent one it becomes something of a chore to watch.

The 2.85:1 format is certainly welcome, and you can see that the movie was trying to take advantage of it when possible. On the other hand, there is little going on artistically here, so it certainly isn't being used in that sense. The transfer looks quite good considering the age of the film, but the age does show. There are a lot of contrast problems throughout, with the result that a lot of the movie looks as though it were shot with far too much lighting. There are also certain flaws that seem to be problems with the source material. There are some lines and grain that don't look like they would come from the transfer. Certain scenes where we see the wives, or homes look to have lost something in the range of color, almost as though they were colorized. Still, all things considered this is about as good as the film is going to look. ***

The sound is pretty unimpressive, but not in ways which seem a result of the transfer, or even such that you could say they are really flaws. The sound is just not up to today's standards, and it's noticeable. The dialogue tracks are clear, but it is very noticeable that they are indeed dialogue tracks, if that makes sense. Otherwise, the sound is serviceable, but nothing more.

This is a strange release frankly, and one for the most diehard of collectors only. There is some interest from a film historian/major collector point of view, but the DVD has little to offer anyone else. Of course, someone interested in X - 15 may be able to appreciate the film greatly, but in terms of a viewing experience, the movie isn't even watchable considered from the point of view of the time of its initial release.

Marc Eastman

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