Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) on Netflix
NR19971h 17mDocumentary
Dieter Dengler, a German-American Navy pilot, was shot down over Laos in 1966 and taken prisoner. Three decades later he returns with a filmmaker to revisit the places where he was held.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb8.0/107,561 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dieter Dengler grew up in postwar Germany and decided to become a pilot after watching an Allied fighter-bomber fly over his house. At eighteen he emigrated to the United States. The Air Force gave him no pilot's slot in two years of service, so he left, attended college and joined the Navy. He flew a Douglas A-1 Skyraider. On 1 February 1966 he launched from the carrier Ranger on a mission near the Laotian border, lost his flight in poor visibility and was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Laos. The Pathet Lao captured him and handed him to North Vietnamese soldiers, who held him handcuffed in a bamboo camp. Three decades later he returns to Laos and Thailand, where local villagers play his captors in re-enactments while Dengler retraces his steps and describes what he endured.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Werner Herzog took Dieter Dengler back to Laos and Thailand three decades after his escape, hired locals to play his captors, and had Dengler retrace his steps while describing what he went through; this footage makes up most of the middle of the film.
SPOILER
A postscript made from footage of Dieter Dengler's funeral in 2001 was later added to Little Dieter Needs to Fly, so the documentary closes on the funeral of the man whose story it tells.
