How? Spoilers.


I don't expect this to get a reply anytime soon, since the forums for this particular film seem to be relatively dead...but I figured I'd post anyway.

Spoilers ahead:

In the final scene (well, near final scene) when Kendig uses a radio control to fly the plane away, setting up his "death" and whatnot...how did he get from the plane to his remote control? The helicopter was flying overhead, and the plane was in clear sight the entire time. I don't see how he could have possibly made his way from the aircraft to the little storage shed where he controled the plane by remote control without being seen. There were four eyes on him, and he was in the middle of a field.

Did I miss something?

reply

[deleted]

This has always bothered me. The more I ponder it, the more I think it is a matter of advancing the plot and we, the audience, are to "willingly suspend disbelief." I have pondered what else could have been done, but the way the filmakers chose left me thinking Kendig really was in the plane, leaving me happy when he marches off afterwards.

Speaking of "why?" . . . why did he dump the remote unit so close to the scene of his escape? Not that it matters. . . it is still my all-time favorite film. I like the Mozart in the background as well.

reply

I can envision ways he could "hide" such as under some hay or a tarp that he had previously placed under or near the plane. But it doesn't show that, so I agree with another person's comment in this thread, that scene requires some "suspended disbelief." But it's no more than the many other super spy movies such as where 007 just happens to have the exact weapon/device to get out of the toughest scrapes. And the ironic sequence..."bad guy catches the good guy, has him right where he wants him, but doesn't kill him...leaving it to some underling, who inevitably gives the good guy a chance to escape." Totally unrealistic, but furthers the plot by allowing the super spy to demonstrate some super skill in escape.

reply

I have wondered the same thing over the years, and just figure it was the classic magician strategy of distracting the viewer.

The plane was flying away, and the men chasing him were completely focused on the plane flying away...and while they were distracted, the magician performed his sleight of hand.

And he got away.

reply

I was wondering the same thing, and I watched the scene again closely, but to no avail. There was grassy field, and no place to hide around the plane, and from the clip that shows him reaching into the cockpit of the plane to teh copt landing there was very little time elisped. Not to mention the 10 eyes watching him.

I think its a pity, if we are to just suspend belief. A decent explanation would make him more clever and human, like the rest of the movie. Instead they change him into bond for a scene.

reply

Perhaps there were other shots taken during filming that would have made it clearer, but in the process of editing and shortening they cut out that one key film segment that would have made it clear HOW he did it. I agree, it would have been better if they would have shown how he did it.

my god its full of stars

reply

When I was "playing games" with the campus police while in college, a buddy of mine and I were crossing a road in the middle of campus that had open ground for 200 feet when crossing the road (really just an asphalt strip) in the direction that we were going in (between the campus library--closed at that late hour--and a small faculty office building), though there were bushes to hide in on the side I was then stuck on. After my buddy crossed but before I did, a campus cop pulled up and parked in the handicap slot in front of the library, pointing down the road towards me, and shut down his vehicle lights. We were just out playing with our reletively new CB band radios, and had strongly suspected campus police were monitoring (thus we had coded all the campus buildings so we could comminicate them between us without anyone else listening being able to decipher it). We were speculating over the air what the cop might be doing sitting there, and my buddy brought up how a campus paper article had mentioned one campus police officer was on report for getting caught making out with a campus coed in his car at a known speed trap site, while on duty. I laughed at that speculation, then we heard a third voice come on the air and say two words: "I wish." Oh, that was hilarious.

What I'm getting to is that shortly later, I made a bold dash across the road and into that open area, then dropped to the ground in what was barely a slight depression in the contour of the ground. The cop car lights sprung to life, but apparantly the cop didn't make out my prone camoflaged body on the ground from little more than 100 or so feet away. True, it was the middle of the night, but I was shocked that he could have missed seeing me, as my "camoflage" was just an olive green parka and olive green pants, so not anything special. I had the advantage of darkness, but still. One tends to not think camoflage will work well until it does.

I also don't especially like the apparant jump made by this scene, but I let it slide in favor of letting the movie proceed. If it makes you feel better, say he was in the plane during take off, and when he buzzed the field after taking off, he baled out with a parachute when the plane was obscured behind a hanger for a few seconds, landing in a haystack in a field next to the airfield to soften the landing. Planes tend to revert back to fly straight and level when the stick is released (if trimmed right), so it's possible.

Steve

reply

I just re-watched it and was thinking the same thing. The filmmakers do basically expect the viewer to suspend belief during that scene. However, upon closer watch, I can surmise this. Notice there were TWO airplanes in the field. He kinda baited the helicopter over towards landing by the first one, before running to the biplane. If you notice when the helicopter lands, you see part of the FIRST plane in the camera shot, so that plane may have blocked the view of the original biplane position from the landed helicopter. He then starts the biplane and of course all eyes would instantly follow that down the grass, while he slips concealed to the 2nd plane, then to the shed. Remember he is ex-CIA so I'm sure he can move stealthily. The biplane took ahwile to get off the ground giving him enough time to get the remote while they were distracted and control it from there.

What *I* didn't realize all these years is all the Matthau family members that were in the flick!

reply

DOUBLE SPOILER!!!

Don't read below if you haven't seen "Charley Varrick."



It's interesting that about 6 years before in "Charley Varrick", Matthau's character used a very similar trick (albeit with far more clever results), for a similar reason, with a (to my eye - I'm no expert) similar plane!

reply

I have always had the same question. But in watching that scene closely recently, I see how the filmmakers tried to get us to understand how he did it.

The helicopter lands with the yellow plane between itself and the biplane. So for a few moments while they're landing and getting out of the chopper, their view is obscured. We see very clearly how, when the copter lands, that the large yellow plane is in the way. This obviously is the moment when Kendig dashed for the small building containing the remote.

Makes sense; even so, you still must suspend disbelief that he was able to make a run for it without them seeing him at all.

Another thought popped into my head: this obviously was caused by his getting the flat tire. If he hadn't, he would have been sitting comfortably in the airplane with lots of time to spare when the chopper arrived. And I believe he assumes that they would assume that he was piloting it, even though they didn't see him actually in the plane, since he told Joe in the hotel room that that's what he was going to do.

reply

Just watching it now. The view from the helicopter is significantly obscured during the approach, and there are two small buildings with quite a bit of overgrowth, just 20-30 ft behind where the two aircraft are parked.

It seems quite obvious to me that he just snuck to one of the buildings, and since he is then shown coming out of a derelict building this seems quite likely to be one from the same complex.

This in no way seems like one where they edited out showing him sneaking away. It seems clear to me that they wanted us, briefly, to believe that the CIA had actually succeeded in killing him.

reply