Part of the disaster movie craze of the 1970's The Hindenburg (directed by Robert Wise, who seemed to want to try his hand at every conceivable genera, good thing he was so good) takes the true story of the 1937 Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster and imposes a conspiracy theory dramatic story upon it (why exactly the Hindenburg went up in flames is still disputed). Since the ending, fiery explosion, is well known the movie produces its suspense through the mystery narrative of who the bomber is going to be, though I figured that out early on so the real suspense was who is going to survive, which had I searched online before hand I would have known. Yes the people, at least most of them, in this film are based on real folks both on and off the titular blimp. George C. Scott is the star, he plays Col. Franz Ritter based on the real life Colonel Fritz Erdmann who was really aboard the flight. Here Col. Franz is shown as a reluctant Nazi who is secretly considering defecting with is wife, he is assigned by his superiors to sniff out a bomber on the blimp after questionably credible evidence that someone is plotting to blow up the dirigible comes to their attention.
Among the passengers/suspects are a disgruntled countess (Anne Bancroft), a questionable pilot (William Atherton) a desperate business man (Gig Young), a couple of professional gamblers (Burgess Meredith and Rene Auberjonois) and various others. At the end of the movie, when the explosion happens, the film switches from color to black and white which I actually thought was effective. Though not well liked by contemporary critics, who had probably had there fill of disaster movies by 1975, I didn't think that The Hindenburg was that bad, derivative sure but well enough acted, and the blimp sets were wonderful. I'm sure its too slow for many peoples tastes but I actually enjoyed it. **1/2
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