One of the movies I was most looking forward to in our unit of study of the early 20th Century, was The Spirit of St. Louis.  This great movie stars Jimmy Stewart, who incidentally flew planes in WWII for America! I heard that Stewart sought this part!  As in all his movies, he did a terrific job in this part. And we had fun reading about and watching this movie about Charles Lindbergh.

     One reason we enjoy Charles Lindbergh, is that he he trained at Brook's Field in San Antonio, Texas, after WWI. (I grew up in San Antonio and my husband and kids lived there many years.)  This is hysterically shown in the movie by his arrival with his broken down and beat up biwing airplane, that he flew onto the base flightline, in front of a training instructor who prided himself, as all TI's do, on everything being spit and polish.  (My dad used to be a USAF TI so I know a little about this!)

     The story amazingly shows Lindbergh's dream, among others, to be the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping. What was the motivation?  A man who owned hotels in New York City, promised $25,000 to the first pilot to fly between New York City and Paris, France nonstop.  The race was on! (By the way, the name of one of his hotels was Lafayette! The kids and I read this in one of our books and we were laughing!  See, Lafayette was so wonderful, his name has been placed everywhere!)

      The movie shows how Lindbergh was financed, how the name of the plane, Spirit of St. Louis, was obtained, and how the plane was made from scratch, specifically for this flight, to be as light as possible to hold as much fuel as possible, to fly across the dangerous ocean.  

      Watching the flight was an edge of the seat experience, as Lindbergh fought sleep deprivation and climate elements.  His arrival in Paris, the city of lights, was a beauty to behold and the joy of the French people was fun to watch, although their exuberance wrecked his plane, which you can see today (repaired!) in the Smithsonian!