The scene where Fred and Amelia are in New Guinea, and he comes on to her - I was actually really bothered by that. It just seems to be an unfair portrayal. (Maybe if there was a witness to that, or something?) But to portray a real man as a total sleaze (if he really wasn't one) just seems wrong. But perhaps there are stories/rumors that I'm just not aware of concerning this. Anyone know?
Regarding any romantic liaison between AE and FN, that has been strongly doubted. Fred was newly married (March, 1937), but seemed to regard AE as "one of the guys", reference his letter home to Mary Bea in which he said, and I paraphrase, he considered AE a regular person and a good pal.
But, ultimately, Noonan doesn't have a the full force of CMG Worldwide and the Earhart Foundation to protect his interests, so potshots are easier to get away with.
It's just kinda sad... It didn't add a single thing to the movie. In fact, I think it detracted because it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Oh well, it's a movie.
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Agreed. I don't get what they were trying to do with that? Emphasize that she was the beloved and Richard Gere was the lover--in Mira Nair's words? I think we got that already.
I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.
I think it was an implication that Fred thought she was easy to bed considering she did it before during her marriage and did not hold her marriage sacred enough not to do it with another person. He was drunk also and probably horny since he had been without sex for a month. I don't know, this was my assumption to the scene and I am sticking to it.
shareMakes sense.
Love is never having to say you're sober.
Absolutely! I was surprised at how badly the movie blackened Noonan's name, and it would seem this is entirely without a shred of evidence. Totally shameful.
shareWow, I thought it was just me who watched that scene and thought it was a load of BS.
The whole portrayal of Noonan on that day before their final take-off smacked of propaganda.
I can't believe the writers stooped so low.
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...poor Fred has been easy to blame for the loss of Amelia over the decades. ... Even hinting that he was incompetent or responsible for the crash is wrong.Agreed.
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There is far too much politics to blame everything on everyone except Earhart herself. She had the support from everyone far and beyond what anyone else would have had access to.
Feminism is a Misandrist Cult. Feminist Misandrist Hate is The Emperor's New Clothes
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The movie said she didn't take the morse code machine or reciever with her. Why not take it! Seriously if something happened to the radio (which actually did happen) then wouldn't you want morse code as a backup?
The whole scene with Fred trying to hit on her seemed way out of the blue. I was shocked that it was even in the movie.
I think the morse code thing was a fabrication for the movie, although I don't know why. It's not like it isn't dramatic enough already.
As to the Fred drunk scene, I just thought it was intended to show his alcohol problem in a quick and dirty manner. Maybe it was also intended to show AE's somewhat gender-bending image and how some around her might have really felt (total speculation of course).
There doesn't seem to be any authoratative basis for the insinuation that Fred Noonan was drinking and made a pass at Amelia...not one of the best aspects of the movie.
Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies
I think the morse code thing was a fabrication for the movie
No it wasn't. In real life, Earhart's survival depended on being able to talk with support crews on the ground, but she didn't bother to learn one of the most commonly used radio communication modes of that day. Brilliant, huh?
As to the Fred drunk scene, I just thought it was intended to show his alcohol problem in a quick and dirty manner
Noonan didn't have a "problem" -- the Noonan-as-alcoholic story seems to have originated in the 1960s, long after their deaths. Some people just can't bring themselves to admit that Saint Amelia blew it. (Funny thing is, even if he had been drunk on the morning of the flight, it would still be Earhart's fault for electing to take off with an intoxicated navigator -- the final go/no-go call is the pilot's alone.)
My personal speculation is they wrote in a scene of Noonan drunk, because they preferred implying an excuse for Earhart over putting the blame where it belongs by presenting some politically incorrect truths -- those truths being that Amelia Earhart was at best a mediocre pilot; that she got most of her glory because of her gender and from dating a public relations wizard; that she made the fatal mistakes of believing her own press releases and letting her enthusiasm exceed her common sense; and that in the end it was almost certainly her own incompetence that got her killed. A sound decision by the makers of this film -- an honest depiction of Earhart would have to be titled something like Death of a Fool, and who's going to go see a movie like that?
I just got around to watching this and like others on this page I thought the drunk scene was inappropriate. I was also bothered by showing Noonan crying when they realized they were in a desperate situation. Anyone who had signed up for a trip like that would not have been a coward so I think it was unfair.
And while Amelia is remembered for her spirit there were many at the time who had real doubts about her ability. In her diaries, Anne Lindberg noted a conversation with her husband Charles where he essentially said that she was a poor pilot and if she kept flying she'd come to grief one day. He called it.
"that she got most of her glory because of her gender and from dating a public relations wizard;"
Come on BullSchmidt; you and I must have watched different versions of the film.
The one I saw highlighted the branding of AE by Putnum and certainly didn't try to hide it. As he said, they had to get money to finance her flights somehow and AE herself in the film confesses to Putnum that she thinks the whole thing has gone too far.
I agree that the Noonan scene could have been better handled and I also agree that her competency as a pilot should have come under more scrutiny. Had this occurred the film may have avoided some of the claims of blandness that have been levelled against it.
Not that we should take it as fact, but I thought it was worth adding to this thread that Gore Vidal wrote later about the fact that his father, Gene Vidal (played by Ewan MacGregor in the film) blamed Amelia's death on Noonan's drinking problem.
Did I not love him, Cooch? MY OWN FLESH I DIDN'T LOVE BETTER!!! But he had to say 'Nooooooooo'
If Gene Vidal blamed Earhart's death on Noonan's "drinking," he becomes
someone who should not be considered a reliable source. Noonan was not a drunk, nor was he carrying any booze on the plane, nor was he in any way inebriated when they took off. There were plenty of witnesses at Lae who confirm that. The mere idea that Earhart would have allowed such a thing, as careful as she was in her planning, etc. is incomprehensible. This leads me to strongly suggest that many of Vidal's son's mental problems came directly from his father. Noonan got Earhart's Electra within radio range (STRONG radio range - radiomen of Itasca were practically deafened by the strength of her transmissions). He did his job, apparently pretty well. Earhart depended upon her direction finding radio to perform the final navigation to arrive at what was a speck of land in the Pacific. She was unaware that her DF required a signal of 200 to 1200 kilocycles, not the 7200 she believed, and her missing receiving antenna prevented her from hearing the Itasca using voice transmissions. It's quite obvious that Vidal was totally ignorant of the events that occurred the morning when Earhart approached Howland Island. Vidal obviously had no idea what happened and his ignorant and baseless slanders of Noonan can be taken as an indication of his lack of ethics (and sense).