Lindbergh's Flight: A Wild Ride Through 1920s Newsreels ✈️

Is 40,000 Miles with Lindbergh worth seeing today? Absolutely, if you have even a passing interest in American history or the sheer spectacle of early celebrity.

This isn't a movie in the usual sense, more like a time capsule 🕰️ for folks fascinated by the 1920s and how big events were captured back then. If you need tight pacing or a story with dialogue, you'll probably find it a bit slow going.

The Crowds Were Wild

What strikes you first is just how many people turned out for Lindbergh.

The crowd shots are just unbelievable, stretching as far as the camera can see, all craning their necks. You can almost feel the collective buzz in the air, even without sound.

The film stitches together newsreel bits, and it really feels like someone just pulled all the MGM footage they had from that intense period.

You see the Spirit of St. Louis before takeoff. It looks so small and vulnerable, then later, almost triumphant after Paris.

The linking titles try to keep track of the dates and places, giving it a scrapbook feel. They are pretty plain, but they do the job.

There's a sequence in Paris, the reception is just… wild. People climbing on cars, pushing through barriers, it's total pandemonium.

It's not polished at all; it's just raw chaos, and that's exactly what makes it compelling. You don't get that controlled, staged feel of modern media.

A Man Overwhelmed

One shot of him waving from a car in New York, his face looks kinda shell-shocked by it all.

Like, you can tell he's tired but still trying to project that hero image. It’s a very quick flicker, but it stuck with me.

And the planes themselves look so rickety by today's standards! Watching those old biplanes and monoplanes take off, it’s a wonder anything stayed in the air.

Really, it makes you appreciate how daring that flight really was. It was a huge gamble.

The movie does lean into the hero worship, quite a bit actually. It’s all "Lucky Lindy" this and "Spirit of America" that.

You can almost feel the nation needing a hero after the Great War, and he really fit the bill.

Small Glitches, Big Charm

There are moments, though, where the footage gets a little grainy, or the camera operator clearly had trouble keeping up with the action.

It's charming, in a way. It reminds you this wasn't some huge Hollywood production, just folks with cameras doing their best.

Sometimes the editing feels a bit abrupt, cutting from one city's parade to another without much fanfare. It’s not trying to be seamless, more like a compilation tape someone put together for a school project.

You see him at various stops across the United States, always the same adoring crowds, always the cheers. It's a testament to how massive this single event was for America.

The sheer scale of public reaction is really something else. Everyone wanted a piece of him.

It's a neat look at how media worked back then, too. Before TV, before constant updates, these newsreels were the way people saw these events unfold.

It felt like a shared experience across the country. Almost like a primitive social media.

I did notice one brief shot where the crowd surge almost knocks over a cameraman. It's just a blink-and-you-miss-it thing, but it shows how chaotic those public appearances could get. A tiny, unplanned glimpse of the real action.

This film, it kinda makes you think about fame. How quickly it exploded for him, and how relentless it must have been. He was just a pilot, suddenly the most famous man on Earth. 🤯

In the end, it’s a fascinating document. Not an edge-of-your-seat thriller, but a powerful historical record.

It shows a very specific, very American moment in time.