PART TWO: Ron Howard’s Skyward

Here is Part one of my essay on Skyward …

It ended on a real cliffhanger!

Julie has refused Scott’s apology which, if you think about it, shows just how far she has come. A mere week before she was the new girl in school who has never had a boyfriend, or even a friend, and now she is turning down an apology from a hot football player. Progress!

She is also deeply involved in her flying lessons – all of which is going on behind her parents’ back.

Keith and Dan and I, as viewers, were collectively concerned and said things to one another like, “The girl is a minor – is Bette Davis allowed to take her up flying like that??”

Julie keeps up the charade that she’s going to her Y class after school, when she’s spending all her time with Coop and Bette out at the airport.

I smell trouble.

Onward.

Julie is starting to prepare to really start flying. Up until now it has all been on-the-ground lessons. In the blistering hot sun, with Bette Davis’ sneakers sticking to the tar, the two of them go through the pre-flight lineup, what you do, what you have to be aware of, the things you need to check and double-check.

Like I said, Bette Davis could do this role in her sleep, but she brings a nice reality here to her knowledge of airplanes. I believe that she is a pilot. She doesn’t appear to be “slumming” in the role, she doesn’t appear to be trying to ‘do Bette Davis’. No. She’s playing the character.

Billie takes Suzy up in the gorgeous biplane we saw Billie flying at the beginning of the movie. This time, she lets Suzy take over for a bit. Suzy is nervous, but she does really well, banking to the left, and so forth. Billie has the feeling that, with experience, Suzy will make “a damn good pilot”.

Back on the ground, things are not going so well. After their disastrous attempt at a first date, Suzy and Scott (Ben Marley, of course) have had very little contact. He tried to apologize, she told him to get lost. Then she tried to be nice to him, and he walked away. There’s some things to be said.

Suzy, becoming stronger now and her own woman – not so much a victim of how she thinks other people see her – decides to make amends. It’s really her job to do so. She was the one who acted like a brat on the date. She can see that now.

Now that she’s flown a damn plane for 30 seconds, she can see what she needs to do.

All of this was heart-rendingly romantic to me as a 12-year-old, and I have to say it ain’t so bad to me now either. Some things never change. Life isn’t easy. We don’t always “do our best”, especially in the moments that count where the stakes are high. But how do we make amends?

Ben Marley comes out of a class, and sees Suzy sitting at his locker, waiting. God, the memories of high school when you would memorize where the beloved’s locker was and make sure you were walking by in the break that you knew he would be there. It was byzantine, because what if your third period class was on the first floor, but you knew HE would be at his locker on the fourth floor right beforehand? Well, that means you make sure you’re on the damn fourth floor, to see him at his locker, and then you RACE down the stairs to your class, and slide into your seat just as the late bell rings, that’s what you do.

Anyway, he sees her sitting there, and you can tell he’s still pissed. She blew it. He was ready to be berated before, he was willing to take it because he knew she was upset – but now that she’s refused his apology and been such a bitch – forget about it, lady, I’m over it.

Suzy says, “Can I talk to you?” He doesn’t say yes or no, just starts to put his books in his locker, not looking at her. She says, “I know I was wrong. I thought the whole thing was just a big joke.” This gets him, makes him mad all over again, and he says, “I told you, I wouldn’t do something like that.”

She says, “I know. I know that now. I just wanted everything to go perfect.”

He doesn’t respond to that, because what are you supposed to say, but she’s feeling stronger now, and feels ready to open up. She thinks for a long time, and then confesses, “I’d never been on a date before.”

He takes this in and then says, “Well, you shoulda told me that. I would have understood.”

Excuse me. But Ben Marley broke my heart into a million pieces when I was 12 years old with how he said that.

She then opens up more and says, “Sometimes I get so scared.” She stops herself and says, “Guess that’s kind of stupid, huh.”

He suddenly grins and says, “Guess you can’t be smart all the time.”

This makes her smile.

I think that was a nicely written scene, and I ain’t ashamed to say it.

It’s now the end of the day and we can see Suzy Gilstrap tearing down the ramp outside her school, going a million miles an hour, obviously urgent and late for her date at the airport. At the bottom of the ramp, she crashes into Ben Marley (I am determined to get his name up in Google searches … it won’t be easy because of the whole Bob Marley and Bob Marley Dynasty factor, but I will make it happen!! I’m on page 9 now. It is so nice to have meaningless goals.) They have a funny moment of laughter, and it’s weird – you can see now that something has changed for him. He’s now openly crushing on her. He’s lit up at the sight of her, and there’s a gentleness in his regard – especially because she seems to have other things going on. Ah, the rules of love. When you have a lot going on – the men just FLOCK to you!!

She says, “I’m kind of in a hurry.”

He, all crushing on her and it’s kind of devastating, says, “Can I give you a ride?”

Now let me say one thing: OBVIOUSLY the story of Skyward is really of her becoming a pilot. But for me, at 12, it was allllllll about the romance. These are the scenes I remember almost word for word. Of course now I have the DVD and JUST saw it, so the dialogue is fresh – but it was incredible to me how much came back to me, fully formed, when I saw it with Keith and Dan. This was one of those scenes. How she was kind of antsy, in a hurry, and he towered over her, trying to delay her because he just wanted to talk to her more. He likes her now.

Now there’s an interesting aspect to his character. Let me talk about this as though it is Middlemarch. Because it pleases me to do so.

The self that he is presenting to Julie is a confident gregarious football star. He can get away with it because she’s the new girl in school and she also doesn’t like football. We don’t know until later that he is actually the dud on the team, that he never plays, sits on the bench through games, and is pissed and bummed and embarrassed about it. This does come out later in an argument they have – I am sorry to jump ahead but I feel it is necessary to bring up some things here in Ben Marley’s performance. I talked a little bit about this type of person in my giant piece on Mickey Rourke:

You don’t need to be a star, in the Hollywood sense, with a salary and an entourage, to be a star. We all know guys like that, guys who are not famous, but who have a glitter to them, something “extra.” It could be the security guard at the building where you work who throws out flirtatious comments as you walk by, and instead of being weird or offensive, it makes your day. Or it could be the old guy at the corner coffee shop, who sits there every day, doing the crossword, holding court, over-tipping the breakfast waitress just because he knows it’s the right thing to do, dispensing advice and opinions that everyone remembers.

These people are “stars.”

This is the kind of person Ben Marley is playing. He’s actually NOT a star, in terms of football-ability, although he wants to be, but his personality is star-like. The way he jokes with everyone, the way he steps up to the plate in awkward moments, the way he seems to be living in a movie in his own mind, where he is the friendly likable star. Not everybody has a personality like that. He does. It’s what makes him appealing.

I don’t know how many people remember Square Pegs (I mean, with as much detail as I do) – but he played the hot senior Larry Simpson in the pilot, the one that Sarah Jessica Parker falls for – and then he played him in another episode … the most attractive boy in school who also happens to be smart and also nice. He didn’t play cocks. He played the object of desire, sure … but guys who had that little extra something, maybe you’d call it charisma.

But what is interesting (and I think this is where Potsie, too, was smart in his script for Skyward) is that he is NOT a star (we don’t know it at this point – we’re as taken in as she is). He’s the loser of the team.

It’s interesting to watch this scene knowing later what we know about him … to see how he’s just surviving, through being an extrovert, through being nice, all that. Surviving his own sense of disappointment. He is the opposite of morose.

Nothing like a long discourse on Ben Marley for Valentine’s Day.

So anyway. Back to our story.

She tells him she’s in a hurry to get somewhere and he says, not wanting the interaction to end, “Can I give you a ride?” She then says, confused, “But what about practice?”

He says, “Ah, I don’t have to go – they’re training the rookies this week – I don’t want to hurt ’em, know what I mean?” Flashing her a grin and I think he even WINKS. What we know later is that he actually DOES have to go to practice … he’s blowing off practice for her – but deeper than that, he’s blowing it off because he can’t stand not being good at football, it’s embarrassing to him. But his energy here, with her, is cocky, assured, and friendly. It’s an interesting choice. I’ll TRY to stop talking about it, sometime in the next five years, but for now, I’m not done.

So off they go to his truck. (Of course he has a truck.) He’s almost like a little boy here, jazzed up, excited – wanting to do the right thing, be a gentleman, all that. But he’s so jazzed up that he jumps into his truck, into the driver’s seat, without thinking of … hmmm … how will she get in? So we get a closeup of him, all businesslike and boyfriend-ish, getting his keys out, you know – playing it cool, or trying to … but then he realizes: something’s missing … why isn’t she in the car?

This is one of the scenes emblazoned in my memory. How he behaved, how he was – I even remembered the shots. Bizarre. He looks out the passenger side window and sees:

Oh dear. Then he has this whole kind of embarrassed frantic response, like – DUH, of course you need my help – and leaps out of the truck, races around the back … but it’s so endearing because of course he has NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL HE IS DOING. How does one put her in the truck? Where does her wheelchair go? Do I … pick her up in my arms? But what is so endearing is that despite being totally new at this, he just blazes forward and makes decisions, on the spot – book bag first, open door, uhm – then what … oh yeah, pick you up … But he’s losing it the whole time.

And then, awkwardly and sweetly, he picks her up in his arms and puts her in the truck.

He may be mortified this entire time – for not knowing what to do, for the fact that people are all around … but he goes ahead and does what he needs to do anyway.

I died a million deaths, I tell ya.

I just love the whole sequence. I love it because it’s not played romantically, even though the end-result is TO DIE FOR. No, instead it is played with embarrassment, firm and utter frenzy, and also his essential kindness. It’s just a slam-dunk.

We don’t see their ride to the airport. We don’t know what they talked about or if she told him her secret plans. The next thing we see is the sun is setting, and Julie is wheeling quickly across the tarmac to the waiting plane – obviously just disembarked from Scott’s truck. We’re seeing it from Scott’s perspective – kind of at a distance. All he sees is her roll up to this waiting man (Coop) – who picks her up in his arms, plops her right in the airplane – then we hear Bette Davis’ voice shout “CLEAR” (I could hear her shout that all day long) and the plane starts to roll off.

Scott – who is wearing a damn cowboy hat at this point and just a tall slim glass of water as far as I’m concerned – watches agog, as the plane taxis down the runway. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Then, in a beautiful shot, with the sun going down, the plane zooms down the runway, and then is airborne.

Scott follows the plane’s ascent, and he’s just blown away.

Forget about “crush” – he is now into this girl. Nothing will stand in his way. That little shy wallflower in a wheelchair is flying a damn plane? He’s in.

Keith and Dan were swooning at those shots. Keith was like, “Why am I finding this so attractive?” I shouted, “LOOK AT HIM.” Keith said, “I’m confused. That hat should totally turn me off.” I shouted, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME??”

Sheila, stop shouting at your hosts.

Next comes a very tense scene. Bette Davis and Suzy Gilstrap are up in the air. Gilstrap is taking the controls now, and she gets validation from Bette in the back. “Good, Julie …” Etc. The lesson is going well. As they approach the runway, Bette warns about the cross-breeze. Suzy Gilstrap says yes, she can see it, she’ll be fine. Bette starts to get nervous – and we get a shot of the zigzag approach to the runway … Gilstrap is losing control of the aircraft. Bette’s voice comes tense and tight, “Line it up with the runway …” Then – uh oh – big trouble – Bette commands, “I’m taking over.” Gilstrap shouts, “I can do it!” Bette commands again, “Give me control of the plane, Julie.” Gilstrap shouts, “NO!”

Gasp!

Big brat! We see the plane from the ground and it is all over the place, and we can hear Bette saying again, “Give me the controls, Julie …” And then Bette shouts (in true Bette form): “DAMN YOU!” Ahhhh … all of cinematic history is in how Bette says that line.

It is that which shocks Gilstrap out of her foolhardiness and she raises her hand off the controls and Bette – her mouth tight and pissed off – takes over and lands the plane.

You’re almost afraid at what will happen when they land.

Coop comes over to the plane to help Suzy out – and Bette is taking her headphones off, and steam is basically coming out of her ears. She tells her to NEVER question her authority again. Gilstrap is bratty to the end, willful, we’re seeing an ugly side of her now – and she gives Bette Davis shit back. I mentioned this scene in this post. Gilstrap is over-acting, she doesn’t have the skill to make the scene work – and Bette drops her energy, and completely dominates the scene. Davis is telling her she’s acting like a baby, and Gilstrap freaks out. “I’LL ACT HOWEVER I WANT. IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT MAYBE I SHOULD GET A NEW TEACHER.” Bette Davis takes this calmly and says, “Maybe you should” and walks back to the restaurant, not looking back.

Who needs Gilstrap? I mean, seriously. Pain in the ass.

Coop (damn Coop with his open vest) has been standing off to the side watching this whole thing, not saying a word. He silently takes Julie out of the airplane and then gives her a stern talking-to which then turns into a total telling-off. He says, “What you are going to do right now is go over there and apologize to Billie.” Julie is defiant: “NO!” Coop says, “She cares about you, Julie!” This tips Julie over the edge. “NO SHE DOESN’T. SHE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ME.” Coop says, “Yes, she does, Julie!” Julie is back in her old ways now, the self-pitying ways, and says, “She does not. She just feels sorry for me.” Coop starts to laugh and says, “I think Billie Dupree has better things to do than feel sorry for a little crippled girl.”

Julie basically pops a wheelie and rolls away from him. He yells after her, “You know what your problem is? You can’t believe that anyone cares about you. You think everyone is going around saying, ‘Oh that poooor little crippled girl … nobody ever gave her a chance!’

Dan gasped. “He’s really telling her the truth!”

(I loved watching this movie with these two gentlemen. Can you tell?)

So. Things are bad. Julie has behaved badly. Again.

The next scene is in school. Yay! Ben Marley again! Julie is at her locker, putting her books away, and he runs up to her – he’s obviously been looking for her. He is out of his mind.

“Julie – was that you flying that plane?”

She’s all freaked out, and starts to roll off, trying to put him off, make him keep his voice down, anything – she says, “Yeah.”

He flips. “I knew it! I knew it! Julie! My God – I watched that plane take off – and you were up in the air – what the hell were you doing??” He’s basically running to keep up with her in the hall.

Julie is short with him. “I was taking a flying lesson.”

Scott is so psyched. “When do you take another one?”

“I don’t know …”

He’s trotting along beside her. It’s totally awesome. A dream come true for a pudgy little girl like myself. He says, “You need a ride? I’ll drive you out there any time you want.”

She is now, basically, the coolest girl he has ever seen in his life.

Finally, she has to take the reins and she says to him, “Listen. You can’t tell anyone about this, okay? You have to promise.”

He’s a little bit disarmed now. Not just by her seriousness, but the fact that she does this thing after school that he doesn’t understand, and he is just so impressed. He’s kind of struck dumb by her, and he says, “Okay … sure …” (He even gives her body a little once-over … really subtle … but it’s there! Like – dude is hot for her now.)

Then they part ways and as she rolls off, he calls after her, “Nobody’d believe me even if I did tell them!”

Julie turns to look back at him, and there’s a crazy moving-in closeup at that point – Ron Howard flexing his muscles. It’s almost like a moment from one of those kung-fu movies, with weird closeups coming from a great distance. You can tell that she didn’t like that remark. It seems to suggest how much people underestimate her.

Now, Gilstrap, it’s time to eat crow.

She goes back to the airport. Bette Davis is sitting with all the old geezers in the restaurant and they’re making her tell airplane-horror stories. It’s so funny to see BETTE DAVIS in that environment. She’s howling with laughter saying, “I knew the tail was on fire but there was nothing I could do about it” and they all burst out laughing. Hilarious. Then, at the door of the restaurant … Julie.

You might think after the brou-haha that Billie would hold a grudge – but she’s lived a long life, she’s honest and forthright, and isn’t petty. She calls out to Julie, “Come on in – these old fellas won’t bite!”

But Julie stays at the door and says, “Can I talk to you?”

The two go outside. Bette is wearing a khaki skirt. Just thought I’d mention that. And her hair is always tucked up under her hat.

Julie apologizes. What is Bette’s response? She says, “I can’t hear you!” and so basically Julie has to SHOUT her apology. “I was wrong – it won’t happen again.” “It better not,” barks Bette Davis.

Ah, Bette, I love you so.

Now comes the next plot-point which will eventually become a vise from which Gilstrap cannot extricate herself. In order to fly solo (according to Skyward anyway), you have to be medically approved by the FAA doctor. And, if you’re a teenager, obviously, you need parental permission. So Bette asks Suzy when she can meet her parents. Suzy hems and haws. “They’re really busy right now.” Naturally Bette says the immortal words, “Have them come over and have some of my chili!” Gilstrap is vague, but then Bette gets down to business; “I need your medical records to be signed by the FAA doctor, and I need to meet your parents.” Gilstrap says, uneasy, “Okay.” Another thing that comes up is that now they will be losing the light at the end of the day – and in order to become a pilot, in order to solo, Gilstrap needs more flying time. Bette Davis suggests that Gilstrap come to the airport before school, at 6:30, and get a lesson in then.

Hmmm. So then we see Gilstrap at the dinner table, making up some bullshit story about a school project she and Scott are working on, which requires them to get up really early. “We’re doing a report on city morning jobs …” Gilstrap babbles to her harassed unknowing parents. Neither of them are wacky about the idea … but her father says (or mumbles) “Well … as long as it’s for school …” Julie races off to call Scott. She’s obviously taking him up on his offer to drive her to the airport. I’m not sure that picking her up at 6 in the morning was what he had in mind.

But there he is, at dawn the next morning, pulling up to her house. Good boy. She rolls down the ramp to meet him and she’s glowing at the sight of him. He’s kind of shy here, apologizing for being late, saying it won’t happen again. It’s a date. Kind of.

Then off to the airport. There’s an absolutely gorgeous shot of the plane flying over a river as the sun is coming up. And you can hear Bette Davis’ voice from the cockpit – “I really need those medical records, Julie. And when can I meet your parents? You’re almost ready to solo.”

The web of lies is starting to strangle Gilstrap.

How on earth will she get her medical records and how will she ever let her parents know what she has been doing in her spare time?

In order to deal with these issues, Suzy Gilstrap basically engages in criminal activity, using Ben Marley as her accomplice. The next scene shows the two of them in the empty school office, where they had spent so much time when they couldn’t go to gym class, the office where they first met. Ben stands watch, itchy and restless, as Suzy Gilstrap goes through a filing cabinet looking for the medical records that had been provided to the school when she registered. It’s not exactly what Billie needs, because it’s not FAA approved or whatever, but Gilstrap is desperate. Ben is nervous. He says, “Are you almost done? You really shouldn’t be doing that.”

Gilstrap is beyond the pale now. She’s determined. “They’re my records.” Finally she finds what she needs and Marley says, “Let’s get out of here.”

They skedaddle.

Scott drives Suzy out to the airport, and they go to drop off the bogus medical records to Bette Davis. They come into the restaurant together, and it’s a nice moment because Bette calls out from behind the counter, “Hi, Julie – Hi, Scott” – which shows that Scott has become a regular presence out there too. But now he’s an accomplice and he looks kind of edgy and guilty. Julie says, “Billie, I brought you the medical thingamajigie …” which, to me, shows her lying act right away. “Thingamajigie?”, Gilstrap? I’m onto you. Don’t try to snow Billie. But Billie is snowed, for the moment. She comes out from behind the counter, pleased, and takes the folder, saying, “Excellent. Your parents brought you to the FAA doctor. Good.”

She doesn’t look at the records yet, and says, “Now. When do I get to meet them?” Julie prevaricates. “I’m not sure …”

So what do you do in such awkward moments?

Julie says, “Scott wants to try the chili.”

Bette Davis says, for the 20th time in the film, “Two bowls of chili comin’ up.”

As Bette goes back behind the counter, Julie glances at Scott, who looks … uneasy. He doesn’t like what they just did. Not one bit.

We now arrive at the ten minutes of the film which stayed with me almost word for word from when I first saw it in 1980 (my only viewing until now). The scenes here remained in a small newsreel of images in my memory banks – glances, gestures, pauses – the whole damn thing – I knew what would happen before it came up. I remembered camera angles (the boot on the floor at the dance, in particular), and cutaways. This tells you how transported I was by it when I was twelve. I was out of my mind.

I’ll walk you through it.

Oh, and right before this section came up, I said to Keith and Dan – “There’s a pep rally coming up – where Scott is really angry …” and then, right at that moment, the scene began. Amazing, how memory stores these things for us. I hadn’t thought of Skyward in years, until it came up randomly that night with Keith and Dan when they invited me over to see The Wrestler. But suddenly, out of nowhere, the entire thing leapt out of my memory banks, fully formed. I didn’t just remember the plot. I remembered the way characters said things, I remembered specific lines, scenes, pauses, gestures … Truly remarkable. I wonder what else is in there. My memory, I mean.

The front steps of the school. A huge crowd of students. Cheerleaders jumping and screaming. A pep rally. Then, we cut to the interior of the school. The hallways are empty. Ben Marley, holding a duffel bag and sneakers over his shoulder, bursts out of an office and he is obviously agitated.

Dan gasped, “What’s happening?”

Marley walks to the door and, in a burst of rage, kicks it open.

Excuse me. Hawt.

The pep rally is raging, and Ben Marley shoves his way through the crowd, obviously upset, trying to hold it together. He just wants to get out of there.

Julie is in the crowd and she sees him shove by, without seeing her, and she calls out after him, “Scott!” He hears her but he keeps walking. Uh-oh. What’s going on. She rolls after him, calling his name again, and this time he stops. But the way he stops was really upsetting to me as a 12-year-old. He stops with reluctance, and gives her a look like, “Again? What do you want?” This is how I felt the boys I liked looked at me and treated me when I wanted to talk to them, at the tender age of 12. They were like, “You again?” So his energy here cut me like a knife.

She says, “I get to go the dance tomorrow night.” It must be the Homecoming Dance. And his response is shocking. He says, “Great. Maybe they’ll name you Queen.” Then goes to his truck, flings the duffel bag into the back (a gesture I remembered in my DNA from, like, almost 30 years ago) and flings the door open to get inside. It’s awful.

But this is HIS moment. This is when we get to know HIM and when Julie, finally, comes outside of her SELF and realizes that there are other damn people in the world.

She says, staring at him, hurt, “Don’t you want to go?”

He shouts, “No!”

She’s trying to find her ground (after, uhm, being skyward for so long) and asks, “What’s the problem?”

He’s really upset and he can’t share it with her. It’s too embarrassing, and he’s pissed off. He doesn’t want to be bothered, he wants to go off and lick his wounds in private. “There’s no problem!”

Then, of course, Julie goes to that place she goes … the “poor little crippled girl” pose that Coop called her on … and she asks, “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”

This puts him over the edge and he shouts from the truck, “No! I just ain’t gonna be there, all right?”

But Julie isn’t easily swayed this time. She knows something’s going on and she needs to find out what it is. She says, “Aren’t you gonna play in the game?”

Scott starts laughing, and it’s an ugly sight. It’s a bitter laugh. Our hot sweet chatterbox? Bitter and mean? It was AWFUL to watch as a 12-year-old. I wanted to crawl into the television so I could hold his hand. He says, bitter, “Sure. Coach just pulled me into the office and said, ‘Billings, you haven’t been to practice in weeks, but I’m gonna put you in the starting lineup.'”

Now Julie starts to get mad. “Why didn’t you go to practice?”

Scott flips out. “Because I was too busy driving YOU all over the place!”

They’re in a fight now, loud and jagged. Julie shouts back, “Well, why’d you do that when you knew you had to be there?”

Scott, upset and hurt, shouts the thing he will regret, “Because I felt sorry for you, okay?”

Julie is in a rage. “Well, DON’T” she shouts and rolls away like a mad woman.

Scott slams the door to his truck and sits there, fuming for a minute … then knows he can’t just leave it like that so he flings himself out of the truck (again – I remembered his whole body language so vividly – he flings the door open so hard you feel like it might come off – and he launches himself out of the truck, slamming the door behind him, and then runs off – or stamps off – to track down Julie.)

She sits in the empty gym, by herself. Scott finds her there and hurries over to her. But he’s not hurrying in a submissive “oh my God I’m so sorry” way. He’s more urgent and upset, about what he’s just gone through, and he knows he has to make it right – but he’s also still pissed off about what just happened to him before the scene began. Like I said: I think he’s a good character and the way he is written serves our cheeseball story very well. If he was too perfect, and submissive to Julie, and totally understanding at all times – it would have been dumb. It might have worked on me as a 12 year old, but not as me now. But I like this guy. I feel for him. He’s got a life too, y’know, Gilstrap. You’re not the only person with problems.

And can I just say that I remember exactly how he stood and leaned in this scene. And may I also say that I love how his thighs look in those jeans.

Good lord. You should count your blessings, Gilstrap.

He’s all out of breath, and he has a million things going on, but he manages to say, “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

Then Gilstrap whines, “Then why did you blame me?”

Shut up, Gilstrap.

He reiterates, “I didn’t mean to.” And now comes his big moment – where he comes clean – about who he really is. The funniest thing (for Keith, Dan and myself) is that since this is a DVD made from an old VHS tape – it starts to get glitchy here – like the tape is old … and on his big line of confession, the tape speeds up a bit so that Ben Marley suddenly sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks. And it only happens on his big line!! We were HOWLING. We rewound it five times, and did multiple imitations of it. Normal deep voice – then Alvin and the Chipmunks for the big confession – then back to normal deep voice. It was hilarious!

He says, “I just came from the coaches office …” deep breath, then – in Alvin and the Chipmunks voice, “He kicked me off the team.”

Julie doesn’t know what to say. She may be thinking, “Why are you talking in that high fast voice all of a sudden??”

But finally she says, tentatively, “Well, if you never showed up for practice …”

Scott now flips out, angry, resentful, embarrassed. It’s his moment of truth. “What’s the point of going to practice if he never plays me anyway? You don’t know what it’s like sittin’ there on the bench and you’re no good and everybody knowin’ it.”

Julie says, “I DO know what it’s like.”

Scott won’t be swayed now. “It’s different. It’s just … you’re doin’ something. You’re flying an airplane!”

Julie says, “You’re a big part of that.”

Scott says, “I’m good at one thing, kay? Nothing.”

“That’s not true!” Julie says.

Scott is all restless and pissed, he’s kind of beside himself. He shouts, “I’m a lousy ballplayer!”

After all his talk to her, all his braggodocio … here is his truth. And I think on some level he did feel like he was “being nice” to the girl in the wheelchair … it felt good to be nice to her … but now that he knows she’s doing this crazy thing he can’t even imagine, and that she’s good at it … it makes him feel like a loser. And feeling like a loser in front of a girl in a wheelchair makes him feel even more like a loser. He wishes he were better at football, basically, so he at LEAST could have something going on in his life that could rival her flying an airplane. He has nothing to offer. Life sucks.

Julie says, “I don’t care about that!”

Scott moves off into the gym, pissed. He can’t get out of himself now. But then Julie says the line (and kind of badly, I might add, but let’s try to forgive her) that stops him in his tracks. She says, in a blunt flat voice which really has no resonance or depth or emotional complexity, “I care about you!”

But whatever. Scott kind of stops, his energy changes, and he looks at her and says – with total honesty – I love the moment still, “Why?”

He truly doesn’t get it. He’s a loser. Why would she – a freakin’ airline pilot – care about him? It’s ridiculous. It all sounds rather cheeseball and of course it is, but the way he plays the moment – soft and truly confused – is still effective.

Then comes the best line in the movie. It is not what we expect her to say. It is not what we expect her to feel. It is not at all what we think she will say. We think she’ll say, “Because you’re good and kind and you’ve been nice to me.” Or “Because you’ve been my friend when I really needed one” or some such chick-lit malarkey.

But no. She looks at him, and she seems to be deciding whether or not to say what she really thinks – and finally just goes for it.

She says, ” ‘Cause I think you’re a babe.”

HA!!! Keith, Dan and I all burst into laughter – I would say that that was probably the only really spontaneous moment that this ham-hocked script has … and it just worked. Dan was screaming. “She did NOT just say that!!”

I shouted (again, Sheila? With shouting at your hosts?), “He IS a babe! Look at him!”

We rewound to see it a couple of times, because it was so gratifying. Gilstrap calling Ben Marley a babe.

And his reaction is hysterical. She says it and he’s kind of stunned into silence, and then he starts to laugh, and looks away. Like … what?? He turns back to her and says, “Pardon me?” It was all just so charming.

Julie says, “You heard me.”

He’s still kind of laughing. She embarrassed him. But obviously he liked being called a babe. We can see his problems now … he feels like a loser, and now he realizes that he’s basically been chosen by this cool chick who is a pilot who also happens to be in a wheelchair. He feels flattered, but more than that: he’s psyched. Because he’s into her. So there’s all of that going on.

twitterpat.

The fight is over. They’re in a new realm, a kind of sexy romantic realm and he says to her, almost shy, “Can you dance in that thing?”

She nods.

Then comes, bar none, THE WEIRDEST MOMENT in the movie. Keith, Dan and I were like, “What the hell?” What was Ron Howard thinking? Ben Marley looks at her, and then slowly walks towards her … but it’s filmed so that he, and his naked chest, walk right into the camera. It’s such a “bow-chick-a-bow” moment and it comes out of NOWHERE … and while, sure, I’d love to see his naked chest at close range … it is SUCH a weird moment … almost creepy … like he’s about to walk over to Gilstrap, whip it out, and say, “Suck it, bitch.” (Not that I wouldn’t want to see something like that, but in Skyward?? What just happened?)

We were HOWLING. “Jesus, is this a porno movie all of a sudden?”

“Why did he make that choice?”

“That was so weird!”

“Bow-chick-a-BOW, chick-a-BOW …”

I can see what Howard was going for based on what the next scene is, which is the dance. Basically he had Ben Marley in his checked shirt come right to the camera until he blurred out – then that faded into the next scene – where he, now in a nice white shirt, walks away from the camera to join Suzy on the dance floor. So it’s meant to be a fade-out-fade-in situation, almost part of the same scene … but the way it’s done just looks so sexual and porn-y – we were dying.

The dance absolutely killed me as a young girl. I really never recovered. It was the most romantic thing I had ever seen in my life.

The dance is in the gym. And Waylon Jennings is singing that Rolling Stones song “The Way I Am” … kids are slow-dancing all over the place, and we see Scott, all dude-d up in his white Western shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots (HELP ME) – approach Julie, who is all dressed up, with strange little white ribbons in her hair (but they’re low in her hair … like down near her chin … it’s a very weird hairdo) … and, all tentative and embarrassed but determined NOT to be embarrassed – he sits on the arm of her wheelchair, and puts his arm around her. She rests her head on his chest, and – as the song plays – they slowly wheel around the gym. It sounds so stupid, but I swear – it’s not. It is, still, to my more jaded eyes, devastatingly romantic. She’s serious – Dan was like, “I’m getting sick of her now. You think she’d be excited – but no, she’s still morose” … and he is tender, and also … he’s playing something else … This isn’t just like slow-dancing with any girl, because – he’s doing something for the first time. He’s dancing with a girl in a wheelchair, in public, and he doesn’t want to mess up. You can see that self-consciousness on his face, but also seriousness. There’s depth here. Depth of feeling.

Now a word or two on the filming of this scene:

Howard is on firm ground here (after the “bow-chick-a-bow” mistake). There are a couple of things he adds in to the pot which make the scene work. If it was just closeups of the two of them circling, that would have been nice … but it wouldn’t have had that “oomph”. The two of them are engrossed in each other, and that’s all well and good – but Howard adds in shots of some of the other students, slow-dancing with each other, glancing over at the couple. One is the boy who had joked “Does she have a license to drive that thing” in the hallway – and he looks over – and sees them dancing, and kind of smiles. It’s cheesy, yes, but not TOO cheesy. He doesn’t BEAM upon the couple – it’s just that he sees what’s going on, and for a moment is elevated above his high-school concerns and thinks, “Well. That’s nice.”

Those couple of moments of students looking at them – and not judging or laughing or snickering – are lovely.

Howard also adds in a shot of Lisa Whelchel, slow-dancing with her boyfriend, and watching her sister dance with Scott on the dance floor – and she’s got this really emotional look on her face. Like she wants to cry. She’s happy for her sister. It’s a really nice addition to the scene.

And lastly: as they circle, Ron Howard has the camera move subtly down so that we can see Ben Marley sort of propelling them along, slowly, with his cowboy boot. NICE shot. I remember Dan and Keith both going, “Oh …” when they saw it, because it was effective. Subtle, not too much … just another level of reality to the moment.

And as we have seen with the Twilight books, if you hook in the 12-year-old set, you’re golden. Sometimes for life. There is nothing like the loyalty of a 12-year-old fangirl. Seriously. You condescend to that demographic at your own risk.

So Ron Howard, in his filming of the dance scene, really showed his talent – if you want to call it that – in the choices he made, where he placed the camera, when he cut away, how he chose to include onlookers. It’s a very nicely done scene, the best one in the movie, in terms of how it was filmed.

Swoon.

Next scene we’re back out at the airport, and Coop, Julie and Scott are standing by the old plane that Coop has been working on since the beginning. They’re all excited because it has been approved by the FAA, and Coop even had hand-controls put into the cockpit, so that when Julie is ready she’ll be able to fly THAT plane – a plot-development you could have seen from the beginning. Coop is happy – his life’s work is now complete, or some such bullshit like that – I don’t care about Coop … and they’re all just hanging around the airplane when Bette Davis bursts out of the restaurant, holding a piece of paper in her hand, and you just have a bad feeling about it. Uh-oh.

Gilstrap is about to be busted.

Julie calls out to Bette Davis, “Billie! We got FAA approval – I’ll be able to fly this plane soon!”

Bette snarls – yes, she SNARLS – “NOT if I have anything to say about it.”

She waves the paper in Julie’s face and says, “Who were you trying to fool here with these phony medical records?”

She is on fire with rage and betrayal. In the 110 Texas heat. It’s a beautiful sight.

Nothing to do but to come clean. Julie says, “My parents will never let me fly.”

Bette is having none of that. She says, bluntly, “I trusted you.”

Julie starts to cry. “I’m sorry!”

Bette storms off – back into the SHADE – because, after all, her sneakers are sticking to the tar, SHIT!

Coop, Scott and Julie are left in the aftermath of the confrontation, and Coop says (with a pause in between every line – Howard Hesseman just MILKS this thing): “Over on Main Street … there’s a doctor … he gives the medical exams … for all the pilots ….” Long long pause. Then: “Hell, she’s 16 now. She doesn’t need her parents’ permission to get a medical exam.”

Next scene is crucial. We assume that yes, Julie has gone to the FAA doctor dude, but now comes the moment of truth when she has to tell her parents what has been going on. No more avoiding. They need to know.

Time to grow up, Gilstrap. Take responsibility for your actions.

Her parents are in the kitchen and Julie comes in and says, “Can I talk to you?” Now the father (Clu Gulagher) doesn’t really stop what he’s doing (trying to fix the toaster) – because it seems that he does his best to not really be a part of his own family. That’s the sense I get. But Marion Ross stops and looks at her daughter, realizing that something is going on.

Julie starts with a very scary sentence (if you see it from her parents’ point of view): “You know all those mornings I got up early? And all those afternoons after school when I was supposed to be at the Y? I wasn’t.”

The two parents stop and stare at her. It’s terrifying. Marion Ross says, “What have you been doing?”

Then comes the big shocker, “Taking flying lessons.”

All hell freakin’ breaks LOOSE. Clu Gulagher puts down the damn toaster, Marion Ross almost leaps across the room to attack her own daughter – they had no idea what she was going to say but “taking flying lessons” wasn’t on their radar at all. They’re both like, “What? What?? What?”

Everyone starts to talk at once.

Julie is saying, “I’m really good! I’ll be ready to solo soon!”

Her father says, “You’ll do nothing of the sort, young lady.”

Uh-oh. At some point during the brou-haha, Lisa Whelchel comes into the kitchen to see what is going on – and I loved her moment here. Amidst the chaos, Marion Ross says to Lisa, in an aggrieved angry tone, “Julie has been taking flying lessons!” Lisa stops, stares at her sister, and then exclaims, “That is so GREAT!” (I love her. I love sisters. My sisters would do that for me, too.) But Marion Ross does not like to hear this. “It is not great, Lisa! She could get hurt!” Meanwhile, Julie and her father are shouting at each other. It’s amazing because he really has not been involved at all up until this point. He’s FURIOUS.

“I don’t know who these people are who have been teaching you – they should be arrested …”

Julie is shouting, “Come out and meet them, Dad! They’re wonderful! I WANT TO FLY. I AM GOING TO FLY.”

Etc. It’s an enormous family blowout, which ends with Julie racing off to her room in tears. She sits by her window, weeping, and her father comes in to talk to her. Now this is HIS big moment. After mumbling his incoherent way through the rest of the movie, he finally has something to say. He sits down on the bed and says gently, “I’m just trying to protect you, honey. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

She says, in tears, a mess, “You can’t protect me forever, Dad!”

She goes off on him. Finally. “Every time you look at me, Dad, you just see a crippled girl. You can’t deal with it. That’s why you’re never home, that’s why you’re always at the office – you can’t even look at me!”

He says, “I can’t let you get hurt, Julie.”

She shouts (and it’s a good line, although not really delivered well by Miss Gilstrap – she gets flat and monotone when she has to yell, a beginner’s mistake – but again, you forgive her, because you’re IN it by this point): “Dad, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT HURT IS.”

Still. A good line.

He says, “I’m sorry, honey. I can’t let you do it.” And he leaves the room.

Gilstrap knew that this would be the response to what she was doing. It was why she put it off. (This aspect of the movie really resonated for me too as a youngster – fearful that what I wanted to do would not be accepted or supported.) The next morning – before the sun has come up – we see Julie sitting at her desk (with the duck and five books) writing a note, which she then leaves on the dining room table. She goes outside and rolls off down the street. Obviously she is going to the airport – not even waiting for Scott to come pick her up.

Now we’re coming to the big finale. There’s lots of cross-cuts and back-and-forth, to up the stakes of what we are already seeing … You know, when she solos it has to be:

1. In secret
2. Flying the plane that Coop has been working on his whole life
3. with her parents rushing to the scene to try to stop her …
4. … only to arrive at the airport just as she takes off …

You know. That’s the kind of sequence we’re going for here.

She arrives at the airport before anyone is up. She’s not supposed to be there. But she is desperate, afraid, and very upset. She goes into the hangar by herself, where Coop’s plane is sitting, and tries to haul herself into the cockpit. You know, she’s out of her mind. But it’s scary, because she’s hanging on to the side of the airplane, and the wheelchair kind of rolls backward, leaving her suspended and unprotected. She tries to hang on but she falls – and the wheelchair knocks over a barrel, causing a big crash. This wakes up Coop, in the shack nearby, and he races to see what has happened – and finds Gilstrap, lying on the ground beside the airplane. He rushes to help her – and she is frantic – he’s carrying her back to the wheelchair, and she’s reaching her arms out to the plane, saying, “Put me in the plane, Coop – I have to go up – I have to go up – put me in the plane …”

At some point Billie arrives to see what the commotion is, and she stands there, looking at Julie with a soft expression of compassion – when she sees the state she is in. You know. Billie understands the need to “go up”. She gets it. Gilstrap is frantic. “My parents won’t let me fly. Please put me in the plane, Coop – I have to go up …”

Then comes Coop’s big moment. Which, frankly, I don’t care about – but it does become the only unresolved issue that Skyward leaves – which then becomes an important plot point in the abysmal Skyward Christmas, but I won’t get into that.

Julie rolls over to the plane, reaching up to it, and says, “Coop – take me up – please?”

Bette Davis, knowing what is coming, looks at Coop and doesn’t say a word.

Coop looks down at Julie and suddenly says, flatly, “I can’t fly.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to fly. I’ve never been able to fly.” Coop says with bitterness, the bitterness of the ages.

This is a tough admission to make, and Coop walks away, leaving Julie upset and confused. She says, “But what about all those stories you told me about what it’s like to fly?”

Coop, ashamed, says again, “I can’t fly.” Then he goes into this long monologue about how he joined the Air Force, but had to quit, and had this dream of barnstorming, but now it will never come true, and yadda yadda.

Here is where Suzy Gilstrap screams in his face, “YOU LIED.” – which was such an inadvertently funny moment that the three of us watching burst into laughter.

Like … is the worst thing about this moment, Gilstrap, that he lied? THAT’S what you’re mad about? You’re going to waste time feeling betrayed NOW?

Coop has now revealed his entire problem. He can’t fly, he’s afraid to fly, he’s never done anything with his life, but he loves flying – and so he lives at an airport and works on airplanes, hanging out only with pilots – but he himself has never learned to fly. It is a deeply shameful thing to admit. Bette Davis – who obviously has had years of knowledge about this fact – and lots of feelings about it too – stands by and looks at her friend. You can see her feeling for him. You can also see that she has probably pushed to teach him to fly for YEARS and he’s been too scared. There are no lines to suggest it but it’s all in Bette Davis’ face.

Coop says to her, “I told you those lies because I didnt want you to be discouraged – I wanted you to know that you were a flier.”

So basically I don’t care about Coop, let’s move on.

Coop can’t take her up but she’s ready to solo. She went to the FAA doctor, he signed off on her, the plane is ready and adjusted for her limitations (hand controls, etc.) – she’s got her certificate, and she doesn’t need her parents’ permission to fly solo since she’s 16 now. I guess that’s how it works. Whatevs. Don’t fact-check Skyward, you’ll ruin it. Thanks.

Bette Davis sees the desperation of Gilstrap and knows that she must “go up”, so she basically says, “Let’s get you in that plane and get you up there for your first solo flight.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.

Marion Ross, in her bathrobe, has woken up and gone into the kitchen. She goes to get something off the dining room table, sees the note, and picks it up to read it. At first she’s casual, but then she reads what it says – and bursts into action, screaming in alarm, “STEVE, SHE’S GONE TO FLY THAT PLANE!” running off to get her husband.

The entire family kicks into action. Lisa comes along (of course she does) – and they all run out to the car together, screaming and shouting, in their bathrobes. Scott is standing there at the curb, by his truck, no idea what is going on – and Clu Gulagher says to him, “Julie’s gone to fly that plane – I’ll talk to YOU later …”

Everyone leaps into their cars and peel off down the street.

It will now be a race to the finish. Can the Ward family arrive at the airport BEFORE Julie takes off in the airplane? HOW WILL IT END????

Back at the airport, Coop has settled Julie into the cockpit of his dream-airplane. The propellers are going, they’re getting ready …

Bette Davis comes over to the airplane and gives her some last-minute advice. Something about this plane being a “tail-dragger” like the one Julie learned on. Why they would allow a teenager in a wheelchair who has never flown solo before to basically TEST-DRIVE an antique airplane is one of the greatest mysteries of our time. But anyway, then – in a moving moment – you know, a big emotional moment – Bette Davis silently hands her pilot goggles (Red Baron pilot goggles) over to Gilstrap. Like, here you are, sweetheart, I’m passing the torch. They’re yours now.

Coop leans into the airplane and says some encouraging bullshit like, “Give her the ride of her life … Let’s see that girl fly …” or whatever.

Then we cut back to the Ward family (followed by Scott in his truck) racing to get to the airport in time. Scott is smiling, peering out his front window up at the sky, looking for the plane that he knows Julie will be flying – but her parents are much more nervous and agitated.

They MUST stop her from flying!

But Julie has already started to taxi down the runway, goggles on … everything is ‘CLEAR’ for her to go.

And just as she takes off into the air, we see the car and the truck peel into the parking lot and everyone leaps out at the same time. Bette Davis and Howard Hesseman are standing there, staring up, and then they turn to see the Ward parents barreling at them, screaming – “Get her down!”

Marion Ross is hysterical. “CALL HER ON THE RADIO – SOMETHING – MAKE HER COME DOWN FROM THERE!”

Clu Gulagher wants revenge. He shouts, “I don’t know who is responsible for this …”

Bette Davis barks over her shoulder, “I am.” (Ha!)

He stalks up to her and says, “I should have you arrested for this.”

She’s cool as a cuke. “Nobody’s going to be arrested. Julie is 16, she has her student license, she doesn’t need anyone’s permission to fly.”

Bette Davis says something like, “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

Clu Gulgaher grabs Howard Hesseman by his damn vest and shouts, “SHE IS A MINOR!”

I wish he would grab him by the vest and say, “BUTTON THIS THING UP, SON!”

They are about to get into some serious fisticuffs.

Meanwhile, we keep cutting back up to Julie – in the air – flying her first solo flight.

She is exhilarated.

The folks on the ground? Not so much.

The Ward parents are flipping out – and Bette Davis says the big line of the movie, and she says it with firmness and all of her movie-star power, “Mr. Ward, for the first time in her life Julie is doing what she wants to do.” Brief powerful pause. “And she’s damn good at it.”

Soaring violins.

SkyWARD Christmas
SuZY Gilstrap …

Davis turns back to watch her student fly solo.

Coop and Scott stand together, watching, chests on display, proud and happy.

And slowly, once they realize it is too late, and that their daughter is – holy shit – flying an airplane – the Ward parents slowly transform. They slowly move toward and stand by the abandoned wheelchair on the tarmac (the symbolism is a bit much) – staring up … Marion Ross is near tears. Clu Gulagher glances at his wife, like: “Please tell me how I am supposed to respond to this.”

Marion Ross grabs his arm, eyes still to the sky, and says, “That’s Julie. Flying!”

Violins soar even more.

Then suddenly, Marion Ross breaks out into a huge smile and starts waving frantically at her daughter up in the air. It’s a sweet moment. I love her. I’ve always loved her as an actress.

We see more shots of Julie swooping and turning and it does appear that she, Gilstrap, is actually the one in the plane. There’s obviously a real pilot there somewhere, hidden, but we see Gilstrap’s face – and the way it is filmed, from an adjacent airplane, makes it clear that we are seeing something real – not CGI or blue-screen … this is really happening.

We go back to the ground and get a big ol’ closeup of Lisa Whelchel, grinning ear to ear. I love that character.

And finally – slowly – lovingly – the camera moves in from above, slowly down to Bette Davis’ face. Our movie star. Great American movie actress and icon. Having her moment, which Ron Howard gives to her, in no uncertain terms. The movie ends with this shot:

Julie has now broken the barriers – with her parents, her own limitations – and it appears that she is now close to breaking the sound barrier too.

And that, dear readers, is Skyward – a movie that transported me into dreamland when I was 12 years old, which has stayed clear and vivid in my mind all these years – Ben Marley’s thighs! The way he threw his duffel bag! – and Glenn, a kind man in Texas, has made it possible for me to see it again – and again – and to share all these crazy screenshots with you.

Hopefully one day Skyward will be released for real.

It’s not a great movie, but it’s effective, in its way … and it’s wonderful to see Bette Davis, near the very end of her career, before the stroke which debilitated her, acting up a storm, and dominating the picture, like she should.

And naturally it’s been great to reacquaint myself with Ben Marley again.

So for now, let’s all remember to keep our eyes to the sky, and never forget that anything is possible.

Just ask Suzy Gilstrap.