Lindbergh makes a fuss as he flies over the ocean to the amazement of millions! He lands in France, where theres thousands of people waiting for him at the airport at night. The crowds rush to meet him! This whole scene TOTALLY looks like something from Lost Horizon. From there, dignitary after dignitary in country after country throw heaps of praise on the guy, receiving medal after medal. People are excited too!! (check out the woman at the American embassy in London!) After going back home (he takes a ship!) the Americans are proud of him too, giving him a swell ticker tape parade AND another medal.

Nice work if you can get it!

What a treat it was to discover this actual footage of Lindbergh's 1927 flight while I am engrossed in reading A. Scott Berg's splendid biography. The silent, black and white images of young Lindbergh standing stoically with his mother before the flight, the plane in the air, and then the pilot standing with foreign and domestic dignitaries and thousands of admirers are memorable. The scenes are sometimes blurry and with little contrast but still dramatic for their authenticity and immediacy. Decades later, Charles Lindbergh met the astronauts of Apollo XI at a White House dinner with President Kennedy. In a subsequent letter to Neil Armstrong, Lindbergh commented "I wonder if you felt on the moon's surface as I did after landing at Paris in 1927--that I would like to have had more chance to look around."