Captain Frank Towns (James Stewart) and boozing navigator Lew (Richard Attenborough) pilot an old Fairchild C-82A Packet cargo plane toward Benghazi. Their passengers include oil field workers (Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, George Kennedy), a pair of British soldiers (Peter Finch, Ronald Fraser) and the pompous Heinrich Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger).

The plane flies into a sandstorm and when it loses both engines, is forced down into the Sahara Desert. Two passengers die in the landing, the radio is kaput and the plane is too damaged to fly. Towns appears certain of a rescue, but after four days, it becomes apparent that the storm blew them too far off course for anyone to locate them.

The British captain decides he’ll walk the 106 miles to the nearest outpost, ignoring all common sense that such a feat means certain death. Dorfmann has good news. He enthusiastically announces that, according to his calculations as an aircraft designer, all the tools and components necessary to build a replacement plane are right here.

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Towns asks him if that’s supposed to be funny, but a doctor (Christian Marquand) suggests that, at worst, this will give the men something to do other than watch each other die. With only 12 more days of drinking water remaining, construction of a new plane begins. Towns and Dorfmann butt heads, more men die and a party of Arabs appear over the dunes, but this is far from a good thing.

Directed by Robert Aldrich and adapted by Lukas Heller from the novel by Trevor Dudley Smith, The Flight of the Phoenix is hands down one of the great action films of the 1960s. It features none of the violence the World War II pics of the day fell back on, but focuses on man versus nature and is unexpectedly rousing from start to finish.

Though designed over 40 years ago, the look of the film – courtesy Joseph Biroc’s lighting – is still sharp enough to cut glass. This was Aldrich’s first color picture and the desert canvas looks as vivid (“In DeLuxe!” the ads promised) as Lawrence of Arabia or Raiders of the Lost Ark. The decision to shoot in color over black and white was well suited to the material.

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The script is rich in psychological complexity, examining the composure of each of the survivors. Finch’s character maintains order and protocol, regardless of how ridiculous it seems. Lew wants to accommodate everyone. Towns is old school, too stubborn to admit when he’s wrong. He also resents “the little men with slide rules and computers,” setting up a terrific rivalry with Dorfmann.

Dorfmann. Now here is one of the best “champagne villains” in film. Driven to see his design a success, oblivious to whose feelings get hurt or who dies in the process, his character also comes with a classic twist. He’s ridiculed at first, but even after gaining some respect, remains a great ball busting prick. One of the Brits offers, “That’s cunning. Sometimes I wonder why you chaps never won the war.” Dorfmann’s retort: “I wasn’t involved.”

2004 remake featured Dennis Quaid and Gionvanni Ribisi in the Stewart and Kruger parts, but was contemporized to include a woman and ethnic minorities among the survivors. Despite adding gunplay, it failed at the box office. This is truly an action yarn of another time and defies an update. The suspense Aldrich generates by showing the men on pins and needles as Jimmy Stewart attempts to fire up the engine is worth a rental alone.