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juliezhou

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1986 [top gun]
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Washington Post report

'Top Gun': Where the Flyboys Are

By Carla Hall

May 19, 1986

If you had your choice of ways to get to a party celebrating the opening of "Top Gun," a movie about Navy fighter pilots, you'd come in a fighter plane, right? And you'd just pull up to the door, wouldn't you?

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mike Denkler and Lt. Dave Pine pointed to an F14 fighter plane parked in the spotlight at National Airport a few feet behind waiters serving drinks to tuxedoed guests.

"That's our plane," Denkler said. "We flew it here."

The planes were the guests of honor last night -- two Navy fighters and an attack plane parked in the spotlight outside a U.S. Air hangar at National Airport and guarded by Navy men.

Tom Cruise, the star of "Top Gun," the dazzlingly photographed movie about fighter pilots at the Navy's elite Fighter Weapons School (known as "Top Gun"), and Secretary of the Navy John Lehman chatted for the cameras in front of the F14.

"We're putting a strong arm on him to sign him up," said Lehman to Cruise's sister Lee Anne, one of a dozen relatives Cruise brought with him to last night's Kennedy Center screening and airport party for his new movie. "Everyone at Miramar the California naval air station says he's a natural."

"Somehow I believe it," said Lee Anne.

Not that Cruise looked like a Navy man any longer -- he was wearing a fashionably loose-fitting version of a tuxedo with string tie and his grandmother's diamond stud earring in one ear ("She gave it to me," he said).

But he was getting rave reviews for his work on the film -- as was the film itself -- among this crowd of military folk, many of them pilots.

"I had a lot of dreams when I was a kid of flying jet planes," Cruise, 24, said later. He spent five months working on this film, he said. "I'm still hoping for my shuttle ride. I'd be first in line."

Lehman said Cruise went through some training so he could "do basic operations of systems." However, all the flight sequences shown in the film were performed by actual pilots -- instructors at Top Gun -- who are credited at the end of the film.

If there were ever a crowd to love a film in love with flight, it was this group assembled in formal dress on a balmy night with the sounds and sights of National's Sunday evening air traffic in the background.

The screening at the Kennedy Center and the party later at the airport were given in honor of the Association of Naval Aviation, commemorating 75 years of naval aviation. At the Kennedy Center earlier in the evening, there were a military band and the pilots of the Navy's Blue Angels as guests.

The Navy gave full cooperation to Paramount Pictures, which made the film. Paramount Chairman Frank Mancuso was present last night along with the two producers, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, director Tony Scott, and one of the film's costars, Val Kilmer, who plays a RIO (radar intercept officer) in the film -- the person who sits in the back seat of a fighter plane and operates the weapons system.

"I was so excited I could hardly stay in my seat," said Lehman. "I think it's going to be a blockbuster, a good old-fashioned rumbumptuous adventure story not cluttered up with a lot of plot." Lehman, himself a pilot, said, "That's the first time a movie has ever caught the real violence of air-to-air maneuvering -- everything going on at once, everyone on the radio at once."

The film got high marks from Navy fliers who good-naturedly accepted some Hollywood touches. "I thought they captured the personality and the flying and the photography was excellent," says Air Force Brig. Gen. Russ Davis of the D.C. Air National Guard. "We don't fly quite that close in combat," he pointed out. "We fly more extended but you couldn't capture that all on one screen."

"I didn't think anything could be louder than the Marines -- but that sound system," chuckled Navy Vice Adm. Bruce Demars, head of the submarine force at the Pentagon. "I have to figure out what to do like this for the 100th anniversary of submarines. We've got 14 more years."

Denkler, who flew the F14 here and is stationed at Oceanic Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, is a real-life RIO and a former instructor at Top Gun. "I wouldn't want to do anything else," said Denkler, 35. "Would you like to fly in the back of one of those things? Yes, you would. It's a unique way to make a living."

Even actress Mimi Rogers, who was there last night as Cruise's date, would have to agree. She's seen the movie three times. "It makes me insane. I'm salivating to get into an F14."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/05/19/top-gun-where-the-flyboys-are/f263e4c5-453c-4efa-a283-9ae9e109501f/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7

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30 years ago, ‘Top Gun’ premiered, and it was a really, really big deal

By Amy Argetsinger

May 19, 2016 at 11:54 a.m. EDT

It may be hard to believe, kids, but 30 years ago, there was no one cooler than Tom Cruise. He had been a star ascendant for a couple years, but the opening of his first genuine blockbuster, “Top Gun” on May 19, 1986 was a major, major event.

The story of a gifted but reckless Navy pilot who learns important lessons about teamwork and love, “Top Gun” triggered unlikely crazes for bomber jackets, aviator shades, joining the Navy, and Val Kilmer. It launched both Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan well before “ER” or “When Harry Met Sally.” It forever overshadowed the subsequent career of a formidable Juilliard-trained stage actress named Kelly McGillis, here stuck in the role of an exasperated girlfriend. And it sent young Gen-Xers into adulthood under the grave misunderstanding that “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” is a seriously romantic song (did no one listen to the lyrics?).

But mostly it established Cruise as a bona fide A-lister — not just another moody Brat Packer holding down teen roles, but an action-adventure leading man for a couple decades to come.

He was the center of attention at a splashy premiere party held at Washington’s National Airport after a screening at the Kennedy Center. He brought a dozen family members and then-girlfriend Mimi Rogers (the one who introduced him to Scientology; they would marry the following year, though they were done by 1989). According to Washington Post reporter Carla Hall, he wore “a fashionably loose-fitting version of a tuxedo with string tie and his grandmother’s diamond stud earring in one ear.” (String tie — yes, kind of like Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. It was a 1986 thing.)

Cruise mingled with various military brass and Washington luminaries, including then-Navy Secretary John Lehman, who gave our reporter his two-second review of the movie:

“I think it’s going to be a blockbuster,” Lehman told the Post. “A good old-fashioned rumbumptuous adventure story not cluttered up with a lot of plot.”

Well, he was right on all counts there! Truth be told, “Top Gun” is not a very good movie; for all the thrilling action, beautiful photography and enchanting camaraderie among shirtless men, it was fairly lacking in the departments of plot, dialogue and character development.

The Post’s critic at the time, Paul Attanasio did a very deft job of diagnosing everything that was both terrible and irresistible about “Top Gun,” and we have republished his review here. And before you get defensive and say, “What does this guy know about making good movies?” — well, a year later, Attanansio left the Post to go to Hollywood. He’s the writer behind movies like “Donnie Brasco,” “The Sum of All Fears,” and “Quiz Show,” for which he got an Oscar nomination; he was also the producer of the long-running hit TV series “House.” So there. His review begins below.

‘Top Gun’: Where the Flyboys Are; The Film: Despite Dazzle, It’s Stuck on the Ground

By Paul Attanasio

Washington Post Staff Writer

May 19, 1986

“Top Gun,” the latest film from producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (via director Tony Scott), throbs with eye-filling visuals, kinetic rock ‘n’ roll, a remarkable cast and the polish of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking at its most accomplished, all of which is largely lost on a story that leaves the audience totally uninvolved, and a script almost childlike in its attempts at manipulation. If “Top Gun” succeeds, it’s on the surface, where it’s a pure projection of swagger, a kind of mad, gorgeous hymn to testosterone.

Set at the Navy’s dogfighting school in California, the movie centers on Pete (Maverick) Mitchell (Tom Cruise), who comes to the school with great reflexes and a bad attitude. Maverick is arrogant and dangerous, given to maneuvers that throw the textbook out with the afterburners. He’s mischievous, too — he likes to “buzz” the tower in his supersonic fighter, and make snotty remarks in class.

In short, he has a lot of growing up to do. A devil-may-care seducer, he learns about women through an affair with the older Charlie (Kelly McGillis), an instructor at the school. A reckless daredevil, he comes to terms with death (through an aerial accident that kills one of his classmates) and his own past. His father, who was also a flier, disappeared, and since the government won’t tell Maverick what happened, he suspects disgrace. Finally, as a self-styled (you guessed it) “maverick” who goes it alone, he learns the value of team play when he’s finally thrust into combat.

The movie, in short, hits its emotional marks, but it does so with such insistence that it feels less like real life than an object lesson in the architecture of the blockbuster. The script (by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. along with Warren Skaaren, who is credited as associate producer) is blueprinted to death — we recognize Maverick as the Man Who Goes It Alone, and we know from the start that he’s Going to Discover That He Can’t. If there’s any hook to get the audience to care about Maverick, the screen writers throw it in. As a result, you don’t care about him very much.

The things that happen in “Top Gun” don’t grow out of the story — you can feel them being stuck in there to move the story along. Whatever mystery there is goes no place — when you finally find out what happened to Maverick’s father, the “ghost” who pursues him, it’s just a fizzle. And the movie’s moralism is annoying — who wants Maverick to grow up, anyway? He’s more fun when he’s immature, full of spunk and razzle-dazzle.

On the level of dialogue, “Top Gun” has its moments, but it’s mostly a dogfight of dumb double-entendres on a military theme (a singles bar is a “target-rich environment”) and recruitment-poster puffery (“You’re America’s best — make us proud”). Worse still are the colloquies between Cruise and McGillis, in which the screen writers’ version of a Tracy-and-Hepburn contentiousness becomes a one-upmanship of still more double-entendres, as well as some hooters no actress should ever be made to say (“When I first met you, you were larger than life . . .”).

Altogether, the romance is dead from the start — while the movie’s intentions are honorable, in making Charlie an astrophysicist instead of another teen-movie bimbo, she hardly figures in the story in any important way. From a narrative standpoint, she’s still a bimbo — a bimbo with a PhD. Scott’s at a loss in pacing the romance — he mistakes slowness for intensity — and there’s no chemistry at all between Cruise and McGillis. On the one hand, she’s just too much woman for him (she needs a Harrison Ford, or a Jack Nicholson); on the other, Cruise is so clearly the movie’s center that what’s left for her is a series of indulgent smiles and slow burns. She’s Margaret Dumont with great legs.

What hurts is that the love story could have easily been left out — the real romance in “Top Gun” is between the men and the men, the men and the planes, and the camera with both. Cruise combines the piercing blue eyes of Paul Newman with Nicholson’s killer smile. In “Top Gun” he’s got the crazy intensity of a cornered wolf, but it’s somehow not a threatening intensity — he’s a nice-guy version of the psychopathic cadet he created in “Taps.”

On a dramatic level, the movie’s best moments are between Cruise and Anthony Edwards, as his flying partner Goose, a gangly, good-humored actor who aerates the entire movie whenever he’s on screen. Edwards is to “Top Gun” what bubbles are to Perrier Jouet, and he’s perfectly matched with Meg Ryan, who, as his wife, makes her debut as a delightful wacko with a head like scrambled eggs. Maverick and Goose hang around in the locker room with the other pilots (including Val Kilmer, surprisingly effective as the dour Iceman), half-naked and trading insults, and although the banter isn’t much more than the verbal equivalent of towel snapping, the movie feels real and alive here.

Cruise and the others, all heavily Nautilized, glisten with sweat and strut around like an army of ****s of the walk. They’re fun to look at without wearing the self-consciousness of, say, a Bruce Weber photograph. Whatever you think of Tony Scott, he does know how to make a pretty picture. The real joy of “Top Gun” is purely esthetic: an F14 lifting off a carrier deck, like a spider airborne on a summer breeze, against a backdrop that Scott has hand-painted with graduated filters — brick-red skies and a steely, barely blue ocean. Generally, Scott’s visual strategy is to drain some colors and supercharge others — sand that’s not tawny, but golden, bushes that aren’t green, but emerald — so that “Top Gun” has the flat-out gorgeousness of an old ’50s postcard, the brio of pop art.

The photography of the aerial combat excites you — jets slash diagonally across the screen, engines booming on the sound track, with Harold Faltermeyer’s fun Farfisa and synthesizer score running beneath it all like a fever — but it doesn’t draw you in. Hobbled by its script, there isn’t much genuine emotion in “Top Gun.” For much of the movie, the only thing at stake is a trophy: It might as well be the Michigan-Ohio State game. When the plot finally thickens, the villain is an unidentified country (we only know they fly MiGs), and while the filmmakers’ intentions in not giving us another sneering Hun or slathering Oriental are, again, honorable — at least this isn’t “Rambo” — they hardly substitute anything in the villain’s place. The confrontation is within Cruise’s character, but it stays inside — you’re never allowed to share it.

“Top Gun” is a lot like Nicholas Ray’s “Flying Leathernecks” — a similarly didactic film with which it actually compares favorably — or any number of Howard Hawks movies that find men together, testing their character in a land of extremes. Yet it falls short, not because Scott isn’t Hawks (although there is that), but simply because the characters are so much younger. “Top Gun” isn’t about men hewing to a code in the face of adversity, it’s about boys adopting a code that men feed them. That isn’t machismo — it’s just hormones.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/05/19/30-years-ago-top-gun-premiered-and-it-was-a-really-really-big-deal/



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Variety report

Inside the Original ‘Top Gun’: How Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer Assembled the 1986 Tom Cruise Classic

By Cynthia Littleton

May.30, 2022

The original “Top Gun” is a study in Hollywood moviemaking of a certain era — an era captured in the pages of Variety as the movie was birthed starting in mid-1983 until its triumphant release by Paramount Pictures three years later.

The movie came together during the period when Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were at the peak of their powers as red-hot producers of culture-shaking films such as 1983’s “Flashdance” and 1984’s “Beverly Hills Cop.” The film that the pair crafted with numerous screenwriters (more on that in the clips), director Tony Scott and veteran producer Bill Badalato launched Tom Cruise to a new level of stardom and created a legacy sturdy enough for Cruise, Bruckheimer and Paramount to leap back to the top of the box office nearly 40 years later with the long-delayed, made-for-movie-screens sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.”

As demonstrated by the steady pace of news about “Top Gun,” Simpson and Bruckheimer had a ton of clout with Paramount and the industry at the time. They even were able to control the rights to the soundtrack for the film — something they learned from the success of “Flashdance” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” Simpson-Bruckheimer Prods. cut a deal with Columbia Records for the soundtrack that spent several weeks at No. 1 in the summer of 1986 and yielded hits for Kenny Loggins (“‘Danger Zone”), Berlin (“Take My Breath Away”) and Harold Faltermeyer (“Top Gun Anthem,” “Memories”).

A trip through the Variety archives shows the first reference to the movie in nascent form came about two months after California magazine published the article that inspired the movie. “Top Guns,” penned by Ehud Yonay, told the story of derring-do by top-tier young pilots at the Naval Air Station Miramar training facility near San Diego.

The project was mentioned as one of several in development in the Aug. 3, 1983 edition of Daily Variety, which included a page 1 story about Simpson and Bruckheimer signing a rich new three-year production pact with Paramount, which was eager to keep its dynamic duo on the Melrose lot. (In classic slate-story fashion, the other early-gestating projects cited are worth a read-through for ’80s movie obsessives.)

The “Top Gun”-related clips shared here follow the nuts-and-bolts process of assembling a movie, from landing Cruise and director Tony Scott to the hurdles in selecting the film’s female lead to the tragic 1985 death of ace pilot Art Scholl, who crashed while capturing aerial footage for the movie.

A look back at the transactional history of “Top Gun” also adds telling details to the legend of the late Don Simpson. Variety’s coverage of the voluble producer is a window on how the master showman worked every lever — he was on the phone with Variety‘s Army Archerd at least once a week — to lay the groundwork for a blockbuster that would stand the test of time.

Simpson had his demons that led to his death in January 1996 at the age of 52. But before tales of his personal behavior overtook his professional accomplishments, he spent years as a movie marketing and advertising executive. He knew what to do with a massive hit. And he had a lot of thoughts about what it takes to make a great movie.

As Simpson told Variety in August 1983 when he and Bruckheimer inked what would be a fruitful, multi-picture deal with Paramount:

Interestingly, all of the 11 films Simpson and Bruckheimer now have in development are original ideas rather than scripts based on novels or film remakes. “One of the problems and reasons behind movies failing is that they’re not based on new ideas, ” Simpson offered. “We have much more on the upside working this way and I think our personal aptitude is more in that area.”

August 3, 1983: 'Top Gun' the Movie is Born

The first reference to “Top Gun” as a movie project came in the Aug. 3, 1983, edition of Daily Variety.

Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer parlayed their success with “Flashdance” into a lucrative multi-picture deal with Paramount Pictures — a pact that would pay off nicely for both sides with “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Top Gun,” for starters.

The above-the-fold page 1 story in Variety cemented their status as hot-shot movie producers. It’s full of pearls of wisdom from Simpson, who had previously been president of production at Paramount before stepping down to produce “Flashdance.”

The story also features Paramount president Michael Eisner vowing that the pair would “be productive in both films and television.” What’s more, Eisner assured, in a quote that is now a time capsule, the TV marketplace was wide open for the pair: “We have two of the three networks interested in them (Simpson and Bruckheimer) as a team,” Eisner told Daily Variety‘s Steven Ginsberg.

(Bruckheimer, of course, was destined for big things in TV, but it would take another 17 years before he found his first smash hit, CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”)

Read the story in two parts below.

The first Variety story to reference original “Top Gun” movie was published Aug. 3, 1983

December 7, 1984: 'Top Guns' Gets the Greenlight

Paramount Pictures gave Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer an early holiday gift in December 1984 with the formal greenlight for what was dubbed “Top Guns,” as the tale was titled in the original 1983 magazine article on the Miramar Naval Air Station, aka “Fightertown, U.S.A.” It’s no coincidence that the good news came to Simpson and Bruckheimer as the pair’s Eddie Murphy starrer “Beverly Hills Cop” was beginning its strong run that same month.

Simpson vowed to Variety that the movie about hot-shot naval aviators would be akin to “this generation’s ‘From Here to Eternity.’ ”

Read the story below.

March 28, 1985: 'Top Gun' Lands Its Star and Director

A new regime at Paramount Pictures (Michael Eisner had moved on to run Disney by this point) threw even more money at Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer in 1985, as “Top Gun” readied for lensing and as “Beverly Hills Cop” fired up the box office. News that the producers had landed Tom Cruise to star and Tony Scott to direct made page 1 on March 28, 1985.

Read the story below.

May 20, 1985: 'Top Gun' Gets a Quick Rewrite

Producer Don Simpson kept beloved Variety columnist Army Archerd regularly apprised of the trajectory of “Top Gun.” Here it’s clear he was doing some proactive damage control on rumors that the studio was unhappy with the script just as filming was about to begin.

Read the story below.

June 3, 1985: Casting Call for 'Top Gun' Female Lead

“Available part: 26-28, femme, physics proficiency, intelligent, starring role.”

With cameras getting ready to roll in San Diego, Paramount sought submissions for the female lead on “Top Gun” as late as the June 3, 1985, edition of Daily Variety.

But in reality, the “Top Gun” team wasn’t waiting on general submissions to land in Marge Simpkin’s office at Paramount. Two days after that item ran, Variety columnist Army Archerd reported in “Just for Variety” that Kelly McGillis had landed the plum part opposite Tom Cruise.

McGillis was on a roll in her career at the time, coming off a well-reviewed performance with Harrison Ford in 1985’s “Witness.” But she did not return for sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.”

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September 18, 1985: Top Hollywood Pilot Killed While Working on 'Top Gun'

“Top Gun” came face-to-face with the danger of flying during production when veteran Hollywood film pilot Art Scholl was killed while shooting second-unit aerial footage for director Tony Scott.

Daily Variety, in the Sept. 18, 1985, edition, reported that Scholl, 53, was believed to have died after his “prop-driven biplane crashed into the sea off the northern coast of San Diego.” A Paramount rep told Variety that Scholl had been working with a remote control camera.

Scholl’s previous credits include 1983’s “Blue Thunder” and “The Right Stuff” and 1975’s “The Great Waldo Pepper,” among other films. He was survived by his wife, Judy, and two sons, David and John.

Read the story below.

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May 9, 1986: 'Top Gun' Review -- 'Revved-Up But Empty Entertainment'

Let’s be frank: Variety did not love “Top Gun” on first viewing. Our reviewer deemed it “revved-up but empty entertainment” and observed that “watching the film is like wearing a Walkman” thanks to its propulsive soundtrack. But we did allow that “audiences prepared to go with it will be taken for a thrilling ride in the wide blue yonder.” (According to Variety‘s unusual custom back then, the reviewer stayed mostly anonymous under the abbreviated byline “Jagr.”)

Read Variety‘s original “Top Gun” review in two parts.

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May 21, 1986: 'Top Gun' Soars at the Box Office

The verdict was in after opening weekend. “Top Gun” was a hit.

Variety reported on the film’s “big bow,” which ranked as the second-best of the year and helped boost overall receipts over the previous weekend by 37%. Simpson/Bruckheimer Productions and Paramount Pictures also made sure the industry didn’t miss the big numbers with a double-truck grosses ad that featured an instantly iconic shot of star Tom Cruise.

See the story and advertisement below.

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January-March 1987: 'Top Gun' FYC Ads

“Top Gun” lived up to its name and stayed aloft as the top-grossing movie of 1986. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount Pictures took a shot at the Oscar race, but they were practical.

Variety‘s pages during the heat of the early 1987 campaign season (for movies released in 1986) demonstrate that Team “Top Gun” wisely focused its efforts on competing in song and score categories as well as film editing. The movie wound up earning a total of four Academy Award nominations: for sound, film editing, sound effects editing and original song, for tunesmiths Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for “Take My Breath Away,” as performed by Berlin. The film’s sole win came for song.

Here’s a sampling of “Top Gun” For Your Consideration ads.

https://variety.com/lists/top-gun-1986-tom-cruise-jerry-bruckheimer-don-simpson-paramount/january-march-1987-top-gun-fyc-ads/



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“I didn’t have a vision of what I was doing other than just doing soft porn,” Scott, recalled with a laugh in an interview featured in the film’s 30th anniversary Blu-ray/DVD.

Now famous for his provocative fashion and celebrity photography, Bruce Weber’s first book “Looking Good: A Guide for Men” served as inspiration for the look of the Navy pilots depicted in “Top Gun.”

“I always suspected Tom Cruise might have cooked my volleyball close-ups,” Kilmer lightheartedly recalled in another DVD interview. “If you notice, I don’t have any.” Cooked means the frames were either over or underdeveloped. “I think Tom went in there, a little payola [to get them excised] because I looked good.”

top gun volleyball scene

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Volleyball-5.png

https://www.thewrap.com/top-gun-a-short-history-of-the-volleyball-scene-photos/



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The movie is set inSan Diego, home of the 11th Naval District HQ, one of the world’s largest navy bases, on Route 5, 120 miles south ofLos Angeles. The Navy calls it Fighter Weapons School. The flyers call it Top Gun. Well, ‘TOPGUN’ base (it’s actually one word), isMarine Corps Air Station MiramarinSan Diego. You can tour the facility.

Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Goose (Anthony Edwards) embarrass instructor Charlie Blackwood (McGillis) with a spectacularly tuneless rendition ofYou’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, supposedly in theMiramar Officers’ Club, MCAS Miramar, Building 4472, Anderson Avenue,San Diego.

In fact, the bar interior is theMississippi Roomof the boutiqueLafayette Hotel,2223 El Cajon BoulevardinUniversity Heights, to the north of the city.

In 1996, the Navy Fighter Weapons School relocated to theUS Naval Air Station Fallon, east of the town ofFallon, onI-50,Nevada. The control tower buzzed by Maverick is atFallon, and much of the aerial footage of the film was shot here.

Top Gun filming location: Kansas City BBQ, West Harbor Drive, San Diego

Top Gun filming location: Kansas City BBQ, West Harbor Drive, San Diego

Top Gun filming location: Kansas City BBQ, West Harbor Drive, San Diego

Kansas City BBQ, West Harbor Drive, San Diego |Photograph: Mal Davis

The flyers’ hangout, where Goose hammers outGreat Balls of Fireon the piano, and Maverick finally hooks up with Charlie, is theKansas City BBQ,600 West Harbor Driveat Kettner Boulevard, by the railroad tracks in downtownSan Diego. The bar is not shy about celebrating its role in the film.

Unfortunately the bar was seriously damaged by fire in 2008 and some irreplaceable memorablia was lost, but it's since been restored to its former glory.

Charlie’s beachfront home is102 South Pacific Streetat First Street, inOceanside, onI-5betweenLos AngelesandSan Diego.

Zooming off in a huff, Maverick’s bike speeds alongWest Laurel Street, just east of theSan Diego Freeway, leaping into the air atUnion Street, where Charlie catches up with him and makes a surprising admission.

The bar with the great view of the airport runway, where Charlie finds a morose Maverick after the death of Goose, was the Windsock Bar and Grill,2904 Pacific Highway. It was the upstairs bar of Jimsair Aviation, the private jet terminal alongsideSan Diego International Airport, but was torn down in 2002.

https://www.movie-locations.com//movies/t/Top-Gun.php



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Producer Jerry Bruckheimer on convincing Tom Cruise to sign on to "Top Gun" (1986) after his initial reluctance: "So they (the Navy) take Tom up there, and they do five Gs. They do barrel rolls, they do everything. He's heaving in the plane. He gets on the tarmac, runs to a pay phone ... and he said, 'I'm in. I'm doing the movie. I love it. This is great.'"

When Cruise went up in a real F-14 for the first time, he was with Lieutenant Commander Lloyd "Bozo" Abel. After Bozo did some maneuvers, Cruise finally had no choice but to reach for his sick bag. However, as he did so, Bozo did a maneuver that put Cruise's head to the floor of the ****pit as he struggled to activate the intercom to tell Bozo what was happening. When Bozo finally leveled the plane, Cruise hit the intercom and said, "Bozo, didn't you see I wasn't in your rear-view mirror?" Bozo replied, "Sorry, but then again, they don't call me 'Bozo' for nothing." Anthony (Goose) Edwards was reportedly the only actor who didn't vomit while in the fighter jets.

Cruise in 2012: "I always wanted to fly, and that was one of the reasons I did 'Top Gun.' I just never had the time to learn. Then I met Sydney Pollack. I was 19 or 20. He was editing 'Tootsie' (1982), and I'd just finished 'Risky Business' (1983). I got a meeting with Sydney that was supposed to be 20 minutes and ended up being over two hours. Outside of my admiration for him as a filmmaker, we talked about a big mutual interest that we had in aviation because I knew he flew. Sydney became a lifelong friend, and when we finished 'The Firm' (1993) together in 1993 or 1994, he gave me flying lessons as a gift. He said, 'I know how much you love flying. Take the time, right now, and do it, because otherwise you'll never get to it.' I had two kids by then, and I worked all the time. In a few months, I had my instrument rating and, a little while after that, I had my commercial rating. I trained mostly in aerobatics, because I wanted to fly the P-51. I was doing rolls, loops, all kinds of aerobatic maneuvers. My first airplane was called a Pitts, and then I flew a Marchetti. That's a third-world air force trainer they use in the Navy's TOPGUN schools for air-to-air combat. This was all in preparation to fly the Warbird, the P-51. I searched all over the world for my P-51 and found it in 2000."

Cruise had never ridden a motorcycle until this film. He went to House of Motorcycles in El Cajon, California, to learn. They taught him in the parking lot of their shop.

"Top Gun" was the highest grossing film of 1986. It took in 177 million dollars in the U.S. alone. I hear there was a sequel recently that did pretty well, too.

The real Top Gun School imposes a $5 fine to any staff member that quotes the film. (IMDb)



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SAN DIEGO -- Two Navy swim school instructors helped rescue actor Tom Cruise and a prop man in separate incidents in the water during the filming of the movie 'Top Gun' and have been given commendation medals.

Petty Officers Darryl Silva and John Butler helped Cruise when he ran into trouble in the water during filming off the shores of Point Loma in San Diego last July, the Navy said Tuesday.

Cruise was pulling in a mannequin with a water-logged parachute when a heavy current tangled the chute's lines on the actor's watch and arm and pulled him under.

Studio divers came to the surface and said they needed help. Silva said Cruise was under water about 40 seconds and was limp before he and Butler were able to pull him onto a raft.

Silva and Butler received Navy commendation medals, Ken Mitchell, spokesman for the North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, said.

But Silva said he was 'disappointed' the studio did not recognize his efforts. He said Cruise said, 'Thank you,' and went back to work about an hour later.

'You work super hard and the next day they don't even remember who rescued them,' Silva said.

Silva and Butler and two other swim instructors helped train Cruise and other actors for the film's rescue at sea scenes.

In another incident that same night, a Paramount Studio prop man fell between a pier and a tugboat as it was docking alongside the pier. Silva said he, Butler and the other swimming instructors pulled the man to safety.

Cruise stars in the movie as an F-14 pilot training for Fighter Weapons School.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/05/21/Actor-pulled-from-water-during-filming-incident/1203517032000/



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https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/top-gun-history.html

background information for Top Gun



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Inside the Original ‘Top Gun’: How Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer Assembled the 1986 Tom Cruise Classic

By Cynthia Littleton

May.30, 2022

The original “Top Gun” is a study in Hollywood moviemaking of a certain era — an era captured in the pages of Variety as the movie was birthed starting in mid-1983 until its triumphant release by Paramount Pictures three years later.

The movie came together during the period when Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer were at the peak of their powers as red-hot producers of culture-shaking films such as 1983’s “Flashdance” and 1984’s “Beverly Hills Cop.” The film that the pair crafted with numerous screenwriters (more on that in the clips), director Tony Scott and veteran producer Bill Badalato launched Tom Cruise to a new level of stardom and created a legacy sturdy enough for Cruise, Bruckheimer and Paramount to leap back to the top of the box office nearly 40 years later with the long-delayed, made -for-movie-screens sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.”

As demonstrated by the steady pace of news about “Top Gun,” Simpson and Bruckheimer had a ton of clout with Paramount and the industry at the time. They even were able to control the rights to the soundtrack for the film — something they learned from the success of “Flashdance” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” Simpson-Bruckheimer Prods. cut a deal with Columbia Records for the soundtrack that spent several weeks at No. 1 in the summer of 1986 and yielded hits for Kenny Loggins (“‘Danger Zone”), Berlin (“Take My Breath Away”) and Harold Faltermeyer (“Top Gun Anthem,” “Memories”).

A trip through the Variety archives shows the first reference to the movie in nascent form came about two months after California magazine published the article that inspired the movie. “Top Guns,” penned by Ehud Yonay, told the story of derring-do by top-tier young pilots at the Naval Air Station Miramar training facility near San Diego.

The project was mentioned as one of several in development in the Aug. 3, 1983 edition of Daily Variety, which included a page 1 story about Simpson and Bruckheimer signing a rich new three-year production pact with Paramount, which was eager to keep its dynamic duo on the Melrose lot. (In classic slate-story fashion, the other early-gestating projects cited are worth a read-through for ’80s movie obsessives.)

The “Top Gun”-related clips shared here follow the nuts-and-bolts process of assembling a movie, from landing Cruise and director Tony Scott to the hurdles in selecting the film’s female lead to the tragic 1985 death of ace pilot Art Scholl, who crashed while capturing aerial footage for the movie.

A look back at the transactional history of “Top Gun” also adds telling details to the legend of the late Don Simpson. Variety’s coverage of the voluble producer is a window on how the master showman worked every lever — he was on the phone with Variety‘s Army Archerd at least once a week — to lay the groundwork for a blockbuster that would stand the test of time.

Simpson had his demons that led to his death in January 1996 at the age of 52. But before tales of his personal behavior overtook his professional accomplishments, he spent years as a movie marketing and advertising executive. He knew what to do with a massive hit. And he had a lot of thoughts about what it takes to make a great movie.

As Simpson told Variety in August 1983 when he and Bruckheimer inked what would be a fruitful, multi-picture deal with Paramount:

Interestingly, all of the 11 films Simpson and Bruckheimer now have in development are original ideas rather than scripts based on novels or film remakes. “One of the problems and reasons behind movies failing is that they’re not based on new ideas,” Simpson offered. “We have much more on the upside working this way and I think our personal aptitude is more in that area.”

August 3, 1983: 'Top Gun' the Movie is Born

The first reference to “Top Gun” as a movie project came in the Aug. 3, 1983, edition of Daily Variety.

Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer parlayed their success with “Flashdance” into a lucrative multi-picture deal with Paramount Pictures — a pact that would pay off nicely for both sides with “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Top Gun,” for starters.

The above-the-fold page 1 story in Variety cemented their status as hot-shot movie producers. It’s full of pearls of wisdom from Simpson, who had previously been president of production at Paramount before stepping down to produce “Flashdance.”

The story also features Paramount president Michael Eisner vowing that the pair would “be productive in both films and television.” What’s more, Eisner assured, in a quote that is now a time capsule, the TV marketplace was wide open for the pair: “We have two of the three networks interested in them (Simpson and Bruckheimer) as a team,” Eisner told Daily Variety‘s Steven Ginsberg.

(Bruckheimer, of course, was destined for big things in TV, but it would take another 17 years before he found his first smash hit, CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”)

The first Variety story to reference original “Top Gun” movie was published Aug. 3, 1983

December 7, 1984: 'Top Guns' Gets the Greenlight

Paramount Pictures gave Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer an early holiday gift in December 1984 with the formal greenlight for what was dubbed “Top Guns,” as the tale was titled in the original 1983 magazine article on the Miramar Naval Air Station, aka “Fightertown, U.S.A.” It’s no coincidence that the good news came to Simpson and Bruckheimer as the pair’s Eddie Murphy starrer “Beverly Hills Cop” was beginning its strong run that same month.

Simpson vowed to Variety that the movie about hot-shot naval aviators would be akin to “this generation’s ‘From Here to Eternity.’ ”

March 28, 1985: 'Top Gun' Lands Its Star and Director

A new regime at Paramount Pictures (Michael Eisner had moved on to run Disney by this point) threw even more money at Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer in 1985, as “Top Gun” readied for lensing and as “Beverly Hills Cop” fired up the box office. News that the producers had landed Tom Cruise to star and Tony Scott to direct made page 1 on March 28, 1985.

May 20, 1985: 'Top Gun' Gets a Quick Rewrite

Producer Don Simpson kept beloved Variety columnist Army Archerd regularly apprised of the trajectory of “Top Gun.” Here it’s clear he was doing some proactive damage control on rumors that the studio was unhappy with the script just as filming was about to begin.

June 3, 1985: Casting Call for 'Top Gun' Female Lead

“Available part: 26-28, femme, physics proficiency, intelligent, starring role.”

With cameras getting ready to roll in San Diego, Paramount sought submissions for the female lead on “Top Gun” as late as the June 3, 1985, edition of Daily Variety.

But in reality, the “Top Gun” team wasn’t waiting on general submissions to land in Marge Simpkin’s office at Paramount. Two days after that item ran, Variety columnist Army Archerd reported in “Just for Variety” that Kelly McGillis had landed the plum part opposite Tom Cruise.

McGillis was on a roll in her career at the time, coming off a well-reviewed performance with Harrison Ford in 1985’s “Witness.” But she did not return for sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.”

September 18, 1985: Top Hollywood Pilot Killed While Working on 'Top Gun'

“Top Gun” came face-to-face with the danger of flying during production when veteran Hollywood film pilot Art Scholl was killed while shooting second-unit aerial footage for director Tony Scott.

Daily Variety, in the Sept. 18, 1985, edition, reported that Scholl, 53, was believed to have died after his “prop-driven biplane crashed into the sea off the northern coast of San Diego.” A Paramount rep told Variety that Scholl had been working with a remote control camera.

Scholl’s previous credits include 1983’s “Blue Thunder” and “The Right Stuff” and 1975’s “The Great Waldo Pepper,” among other films. He was survived by his wife, Judy, and two sons, David and John.

May 9, 1986: 'Top Gun' Review -- 'Revved-Up But Empty Entertainment'

Let’s be frank: Variety did not love “Top Gun” on first viewing. Our reviewer deemed it “revved-up but empty entertainment” and observed that “watching the film is like wearing a Walkman” thanks to its propulsive soundtrack. But we did allow that “audiences prepared to go with it will be taken for a thrilling ride in the wide blue yonder.” (According to Variety‘s unusual custom back then, the reviewer stayed mostly anonymous under the abbreviated byline “Jagr.”)

May 21, 1986: 'Top Gun' Soars at the Box Office

The verdict was in after opening weekend. “Top Gun” was a hit.

Variety reported on the film’s “big bow,” which ranked as the second-best of the year and helped boost overall receipts over the previous weekend by 37%. Simpson/Bruckheimer Productions and Paramount Pictures also made sure the industry didn’t miss the big numbers with a double-truck grosses ad that featured an instantly iconic shot of star Tom Cruise.

January-March 1987: 'Top Gun' FYC Ads

“Top Gun” lived up to its name and stayed aloft as the top-grossing movie of 1986. Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer and Paramount Pictures took a shot at the Oscar race, but they were practical.

Variety‘s pages during the heat of the early 1987 campaign season (for movies released in 1986) demonstrate that Team “Top Gun” wisely focused its efforts on competing in song and score categories as well as film editing. The movie wound up earning a total of four Academy Award nominations: for sound, film editing, sound effects editing and original song, for tunesmiths Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for “Take My Breath Away,” as performed by Berlin. The film’s sole win came for song.

https://variety.com/lists/top-gun-1986-tom-cruise-jerry-bruckheimer-don-simpson-paramount/january-march-1987-top-gun-fyc-ads/



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1984.12.07 Variety: Par greenlights Top Gun pic

1984.12.07 top gun green light.jpg

1984.12.07 top gun green light-2.JPG



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