The making of ‘TOP GUN’ (1986)

 

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This was the highest grossing movie of 1986, raking in over $350 million worldwide. For the record, Crocodile Dundee ran second and Platoon third. In North America alone it sold nearly 50 million tickets in its first theatrical release. It was such a popular picture with young people that the US Navy reported a 500% increase in applications to join its aviation program. A degree of manipulation was involved, however. They set up recruiting booths at major cinemas to snare young adrenaline-charged patrons as they exited a showing. If recruits were tempted by the thought of winning a ‘Top Gun’ Award, however, they were going to be disappointed. No such award exists in the US Navy. Never has. Bomber jacket sales and sales of Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses also increased substantially, such was the impact on fashion of this film. Indeed, the whole leather jacket, white T-shirt and sunglasses look was reborn because of the enormous popularity of the picture’s leading man.

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Stunt pilot Art Scholl was hired for certain sequences and, sadly, it cost him his life. He died when his Pitts -2 camera plane spun into the Pacific off the coast of California near Carlsbad in September 1985. His final radio message was a frantic, ‘I have a problem…I have a real problem.’ Neither the aircraft nor its 54 year old pilot were able to be recovered. The movie is dedicated to Scholl’s memory.

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Art Scholl and his wife Judy

In the original screenplay ‘Goose’ was supposed to die in a mid-air collision, but the US Navy did not approve depiction of a fatality brought about by pilot error, so something else had to be cooked up. They finally agreed to have him eject from his aircraft and suffer fatal injuries when his head strikes the canopy. The Navy also disapproved of Kelly McGillis’s character, Charlie Blackwood, being a naval officer as originally intended and getting the hots for another naval officer, so she was changed to a Navy consultant instead. The opening dogfight was initially supposed to have taken place over Cuba, but the Navy insisted it be switched to international waters. They also insisted that the language in the picture be ‘toned down’.

Yet another aspect of the original script had to be altered on the Navy’s insistence. ‘Cougar’ was supposed to be killed landing on the carrier at the start of the movie, thus enabling ‘Maverick’ to ‘slide into Cougar’s spot’, but the Navy brass would not allow that either. After all, this movie was intended to be a recruiting project for them, so it was scarcely desirable to highlight one of the greatest dangers to pilots on carriers. The Navy agreed to the hire of its aircraft and carriers to Paramount for around $1.8 million, so their ‘clout’ was substantial. ‘Cougar’ was permitted to live and turn ‘chicken’ instead.

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Cougar turning in his wings

All the aircraft carrier sequences were filmed aboard the USS Enterprise. Paramount were allowed to film everyday activity aboard the vessel free of charge, but anything specifically requested was billed at $7,800 an hour for fuel and other costs. On one occasion director Tony Scott was getting shots of aircraft landing and taking off, back-lit by the sun, when the vessel suddenly altered direction. When he asked the commander if it might be possible to change direction again for a few minutes so that he could complete his shots, he was politely informed that it would cost Paramount $25,000 to change direction. Scott wrote out a check on the spot and the vessel altered course.

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USS Enterprise

A love scene between Kelly’s character and Tom Cruise’s (Maverick) was shot nearly five months after the picture had wrapped because a preview audience complained about the lack of one. By then Kelly’s hair had changed considerably from how it had looked throughout the movie, so the scene was shot using silhouettes and dimmed lighting. The elevator scene between the two was also shot at that later date, hence we see Kelly wearing a cap to hide her hair which had been coloured for her next role. If not for Scott’s insistence she would not have even been in the film. The studio wanted someone ‘younger’ and ‘more fashionable’, but he stood firm on the issue. Kelly was three inches taller than her leading man who had to wear lifts to compensate. She even acted bare-footed on occasion to create the illusion that they were of similar height. In the final scene, as someone plays ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ on the jukebox, Scott had Kelly walking in a trench as she and Cruise meet. As often happens on movie sets, the two leads did not get along at all. Cast members were also well aware of Kelly’s sexual preferences, so it was no surprise to them when she came out as a lesbian in 2009.

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In the elevator scene Tom even appears taller than Kelly

Scott may have pushed hard for Kelly to star in Top Gun, but he was dead against Meg Ryan being cast. At the time she was well known for her role in the TV soapie As the World Turns. He did not want a soapie star in his big feature, not in a picture where his leading man was costing the studio a million dollars. Meg met and fell in love with Anthony Edwards (Goose) on the set of Top Gun, and they remained together until Dennis Quaid came along and she married him.

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Meg Ryan & Anthony Edwards

A locker scene was also added to the movie. ‘We’re paying $1 million for Tom Cruise so we gotta show some flesh’, said technical advisor Pete Pettigrew. Pettigrew, incidentally, was the real life ‘Viper’, a TOP GUN instructor who once shot down a MIG during the Vietnam War. He plays Charlie’s ‘older man’ date at the officer’s club. There really was an American F-14 pilot who ‘flipped the bird’ at a MIG pilot, by the way. He was Scott Altman of VF-51. He did all Cruise’s stunt flying in Top Gun, and later became a NASA astronaut who flew four space missions.

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Kelly McGillis and Pete Pelligrew between shots

According to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, it was not until he was taken up in an F-14 that Tom Cruise agreed to sign on for the film. ‘So, they take Tom up there, and they do five Gs’, he recalled. ‘They do barrel rolls, they do everything. He’s heaving in the plane. He gets on the tarmac, runs to a pay phone…and says, ‘I’m in. I’m doing the movie. I love it. This is great.’

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Kilmer and Cruise being ‘cool’

According to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, it was not until he was taken up in an F-14 that Tom Cruise agreed to sign on for the film. ‘So, they take Tom up there, and they do five Gs’, he recalled. ‘They do barrel rolls, they do everything. He’s heaving in the plane. He gets on the tarmac, runs to a pay phone…and says, ‘I’m in. I’m doing the movie. I love it. This is great.’

Top Gun is one of those movies that look great and sound great. The soundtrack is terrific and the aerial sequences are exciting. The leading actors are charismatic enough, but they are so ‘cool’, so ‘with it’, that after a while they start to grate on one’s nerves. Everybody has an ego that becomes a little nauseating after two hours. I watch something like The Magnificent Seven (1960) these days and I am still impressed by the way Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and company handle ‘cool’ – with effortless ease. With style. Messrs Cruise, Val Kilmer and company in Top Gun do everything way over the top. They try so hard to be cool that they end up being, well, silly! And the picture suffers because of it. Unlike The Magnificent Seven, it has dated.

Top Gun is one of those movies that look great and sound great. The soundtrack is terrific and the aerial sequences are exciting. The leading actors are charismatic enough, but they are so ‘cool’, so ‘with it’, that after a while they start to grate on one’s nerves. Everybody has an ego that becomes a little nauseating after two hours. I watch something like The Magnificent Seven (1960) these days and I am still impressed by the way Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and company handle ‘cool’ – with effortless ease. With style. Messrs Cruise, Val Kilmer and company in Top Gun do everything way over the top. They try so hard to be cool that they end up being, well, silly! And the picture suffers because of it. Unlike The Magnificent Seven, it has dated.

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