The Soviets have developed a revolutionary new jet fighter, called "Firefox". Naturally, the British are worried that the jet will be used as a first-strike weapon, as rumours say that the jet is indetectable on radar. They send ex-Vietnam War pilot Mitchell Gant on a covert mission into the Soviet Union to steal Firefox.
Written by
Murray Chapman
Plot Synopsis:
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A large Sikorsky helicopter flies over the Alaskan wilderness, its pilots looking for someone below. That someone, Major Mitchell Gant USAF (Rtd) (Clint Eastwood), hears the helicopter approaching and instantly breaks into a dead run back toward his cabin, where he takes a shotgun off its rack and cocks it. As the helicopter lands, Gant lapses into a post-traumatic memory of a nightmare that he lived through in Vietnam: shot down over the North in his A-4 jet, he was being taken to a prison camp when two Hueys machine-gunned his captors. Gant suffered personal trauma when an overflying A-4 dropped an incendiary on the site, killing a little girl who stood around too long, watching the battle. Back in the present, Captain Arthur Buckholz (David Huffman) pulls Gant out of his episode and apologizes for the unannounced visit.

The next several scenes are back-and-forth cuts between the conversation between Gant and Buckholz, and a briefing being run by Kenneth Aubrey (Freddie Jones) of the British SIS concerning the Soviet Union's latest fighter/interceptor: the Mikoyan-Gurevich "MiG" Model 31, given the codename "Firefox" by NATO. Its capabilities seem otherworldly: total stealth, twin engines each delivering 50,000 pounds of thrust, combat ceiling 100,000-plus feet, speed in excess of Mach 5 or even Mach 6 (and able to maintain it, no small feat), and a weapons and defense system able to read the pilot's thoughts and allow him to aim and fire his weapons without even having to press a button, thus affording him a 3- to 5-second reaction-time advantage over any opponent. NATO's decision is to send Gant in to steal a Firefox prototype right off the Soviet development base at Bilyarsk, hundreds of miles east of Moscow, near the Ural Mountains.

Gant resents the operation because he is being quite simply blackmailed; he has been allowed to live on government land which now will be sold out from under him if he does not agree to the mission. The NATO Air Force attache (Thomas Hill) resents it as well because Gant has no experience as a spy and, worse yet, is subject to post-traumatic stress disorder and may crack at any time. They use Gant for two reasons only: he speaks fluent Russian and happens to be a perfect fit for the pressure suit worn by the MiG-31's prime test pilot, Lt. Col. Yuriy Voskov (Kai Wulff).

Gant goes through several weeks of retraining, both in flying and in aerial combat, and briefings on his first required impersonation--as a corrupt businessman named Leon Sprague, known to be smuggling heroin into the Soviet Union. After his training is over he is sent to London where Aubrey gives him his final briefing on his objectives and he's disguised with a new haircut and a false mustache. Gant is also familiarized with the underground network group, who are mostly Russian Jews. Aubrey also hands him a one-way homing device disguised as a cheap transistor radio. What his handlers don't tell him, though, is that if anything compromises the mission, Gant will be left on his own.

Gant lands at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, blusters his way through an unannounced customs search, and manages to leave the airport--with the "radio." He takes a taxi to his rooms at the Hotel Moscow, puts the radio into his pocket, and waits. Outside he sees three Soviet soldiers goose-stepping in formation while patrolling.

In the meantime, at KGB Moscow Center on Dzerzhinsky Square, Colonel Kontarsky (Kenneth Colley) of the KGB finalizes his plans to safeguard the MiG-31 prior to its trials the next day which will be conducted for the Soviet First Secretary. He also orders his second-in-command, Dmitri Priabin (Oliver Cotton), to arrest some underground members at dawn, but not to move before then. Kontarsky in fact knows all about the spy network funneling information from Bilyarsk out of Russia--but even he does not know what the CIA and the SIS really have planned and as such, he does not want to totally disrupt the network, causing them to go further into hiding.

That night Gant walks out to the Krasnokholmsky Bridge, under instructions to be there at precisely 10:30 with the KGB shadowing him -- he is ordered not to lose the KGB tail. There he meets the real Leon Sprague (George Orrison), plus his Moscow network escort, Pavel Upenskoy (Warren Clarke), and two of his confederates. Upenskoy orders Sprague to take Gant's cigar away from him and start smoking it--and then, before Gant's horrified eyes, whips out a pipe and clubs Sprague to death, mutilating the man's face. He then demands that Gant surrender his false papers, which he plants on Sprague before throwing him into the Moscow River. The four men then race to the Paveletskaya Metro station, where Upenskoy hurriedly briefs Gant on his next impersonation: as Michael Lewis, American tourist registered at the Hotel Warsaw. The four then board a subway, though Gant nearly misses it, because his bad dream of the burning girl returns at just that moment.

The four ride the train to another station, but when they arrive the KGB is all over it. A KGB plainclothesman challenges Gant for identification, and Gant barely manages to convince him that he is who he says he is, and has to feign illness on account of the "rich food" at the Warsaw Hotel. Upenskoy, dissatisfied with Gant's performance, sends the flustered Gant into a nearby men's room to "get yourself together." But another KGB plainclothesman (Eugene Lipinski) follows Gant into the restroom, challenges him again, and then says that his papers are not in order. The plainclothesman reaches into his coat. Gant, thinking the man is going to draw a gun, grabs his arm and finds the man was only holding a wallet. Gant fights with the agent and kills him.

Upenskoy, rushing in at the last minute, is horrified. When the dead agent is discovered, the entire station will be locked down. He tells Gant to move quickly to the exit and angrily assures Gant this papers are, indeed, in order. Gant manages to leave the station, but only by cutting in line and acting like a clueless American. He, Upenskoy, and Upenskoy's colleagues barely manage to get to street level before whistles blow below, indicating that the KGB have found their dead detective and have sealed off the station.

Upenskoy takes Gant to a warehouse belonging to a light-delivery service, where Upenskoy gives Gant yet another identity: that of Boris Glazunov, resident of the Mira Prospekt and employed as "driver's mate" to Upenskoy. The next morning, a telephone rings--just once--and Upenskoy tells Gant that they must leave at once because "KGB assigned to the plane" are coming for Upenskoy. Upenskoy gives Gant a pistol with orders not to use it unless absolutely necessary.

Kontarsky, meanwhile, has word that Priabin has already picked up the real Boris Glazunov (Barrie Houghton) at his apartment, indicating the man in the van with Upenskoy is an imposter. Curious, Kontarsky orders a KGB tail team not to arrest Upenskoy but to tail him at a distance.

Upenskoy and Gant manage to get through a checkpoint, where they know that they must "pose" for a photograph that will be sent to Moscow Center. Afterward, Upenskoy tells Gant that Boris Glazunov was picked up, and that Gant needs to realize that he is now a man of mystery. Upenskoy has decided to assume that the KGB will merely wait to see what develops as they try to identify Gant, who to them is simply someone who pretended to be a Russian driver's mate for some reason still unknown to them.

In the meantime, Sprague's former business associate identifies the body of Sprague but notes that he was badly beaten, almost as though his assailant wanted to obscure his identity, a thing that Police Inspector Aleksei Tortyev (Hugh Fraser) is very curious about indeed. Kontarsky is also curious, and demands to know who the mystery man is with Upenskoy, and why an old man (Czeslaw Grocholski) arrested at the warehouse took a poison and the others are "holding out." Kontarsky still refuses simply to arrest Upenskoy, because he wants every member of the spy network, no matter what--this although his officers now suspect that the mystery man is a foreign agent. Priabin is also present, and voices his suspicion that Boris Glazunov, now their prisoner, is totally ignorant of the identity of his substitute and perhaps even of the substitution.

Upenskoy reaches Gant's next rendezvous point and orders Gant to jump from the van while it is in motion as soon as they round a curve. Gant thus succeeds jumping out undetected while Upenskoy leads the tail car away. Gant jogs down an incline and meets his next contact: Dr. Semelovsky (Ronald Lacey), a grumpy project scientist assigned to the MiG-31 program. Semelovsky hides Gant in his trunk and prepares to drive in to the base at Bilyarsk.

At Moscow Center, Boris Glazunov, refusing to the end to talk (or perhaps, as Priabin suspects, not knowing what to say or even what the KGB wants), dies under torture. Kontarsky, monumentally chagrined, now orders Upenskoy's van stopped.

Oblivious to the new developments, Semelovsky gets Gant inside the Bilyarsk compound (excusing his tardiness by pretending to have a dirty engine) and drives him to the scientists' quarters, where Gant now meets Dr. Pyotr Baranovich (Nigel Hawthorne) and his significant other, Natalya (Dimitra Arliss), who offer him his first meal of the day. Meanwhile, Upenskoy gets into a gunfight with the KGB tail team and manages to kill them--but not before they wound him. He crashes his van, abandons it, and sets out on foot, knowing that his life is forfeit but still determined to lead them away from Gant.

Baranovich outfits Gant as a Soviet Air Police officer and briefs him on how to bluff his way through a security gate, and on the location of the hangar and its facilities. He also tells Gant that he knows that he will die after Gant escapes with the plane--but any resentment he might feel toward the British SIS for ordering him to sacrifice himself, pales before his resentment of the KGB for making that sacrifice necessary, and for denying him his freedom.

At Moscow Center, Aleksei Tortyev asks Priabin to do him a favor: to ask for an identification of the man who landed at Sheremetyevo Airport posing as the dead Sprague. Tortyev thinks that this man is a foreign agent who substituted himself for Sprague. The technicians then surprise Tortyev and Priabin by saying that the man at Sheremetyevo is the same as the man who posed as Boris Glazunov and got out of Moscow on the way to Bilyarsk.

Natalya brings word that the guards at the gate have been reinforced--and almost has a heart attack to see Gant outfitted as a Soviet Air Policeman. Baranovich reveals more dire information: that the program has not merely one prototype, but two. The second jet has an advantage over the 1st; it can refuel in the air, whereas Gant must rendezvous with an American submarine on an ice floe off Russia's Arctic coast. Baranovich also explains that he and his small dissident crew intend to sacrifice themselves by destroying the second prototype in the hangar. Gant must, therefore, get the first prototype out of the hangar as soon as he hears the fire alarm. Baranovich also briefs Gant on the coordinates he must feed into the navigation computer, and the Firefox' weapons (four air-to-air missiles, two 50-millimeter cannons, and two flak layers, called "rearward defense pods" or "drone tail units") and thought-activated control systems--but also says that in order to work it, he must "think in Russian" and not try to think in English and translate.

Dmitri and Tortyev continue to discuss their lead. Tortyev then suggests that Dmitri search not for a seasoned spy, but for "a young fit man with brains"--i.e., an astronaut or a pilot. Dmitri agrees and commences a systematic search of their thousands of files on astronauts, Air Force pilots, etc.

Gant manages to get inside the security gate and, using his falsified rank, takes it on himself to order an extra K-9 patrol to search the forest bordering the fence. He then walks through the hangar and sees the Firefox for the first time. A colonel (actually Kontarsky, though neither man knows the other) accosts him, and Gant apprises him of his orders to the K-9 unit to search the forest. Gant then moves to the pilot's dressing room, and waits there for Voskov, whom he knocks senseless, binds, gags, and stuffs into a locker, having decided not to kill him because "Oh, hell, you didn't do anything." Gant then goes into the showers and waits, at one point demanding that he not be disturbed when other security personnel challenge him for identification. Gant, now impersonating Voskov, manages to keep them from seeing him face-to-face. (Kontarsky has in fact realized that his mystery man has penetrated the installation and ordered a search.) While he waits, he suffers another attack of his PTSD and sits helpless on the floor of the shower.

Back at Moscow Center, Priabin has now identified Gant from the pilot archive. He and Kontarsky speculate as to Gant's real plans: is he merely trying to inspect the plane up close? The two come to a terrifying realization that Gant means to steal the plane. Kontarsky immediately orders the arrest of Baranovich and the others--but just then the fire alarm rings; Baranovich and Semelovsky have started the fire that they hope will destroy the second prototype. The fire is put out before it can do any such damage. Semelovsky is shot down at once, and Baranovich manages to get off one round with a pistol before he and Natalya are also gunned down. The sound of the alarms in the hangar awaken Gant from his shock. The last thing that Baranovich sees before he dies is a black pressure-suited figure making its way to the first prototype.

Gant, like a man knowing what he is doing, walks over to the waiting plane, climbs aboard, hooks up, and starts going through a very accelerated pre-flight checklist. An officer challenges him for identification, and Gant first waves him off, but when the officer climbs to the cockpit Gant pushes him off the small ladder. Gant hurriedly completes his checklist--but when he raises his visor, Kontarsky recognizes him at once and orders the hangar doors shut. They are too late--Gant starts the engines and taxis out of the hangar at high speed. As the First Secretary's car arrives, Gant taxis to the end of the runway, and then takes off just as the First Secretary arrives. A few miles away, Upenskoy watches Gant fly overhead and then, with the K-9 patrols ready to apprehend him, shoots himself.

Gant first makes a deliberate close pass at an Aeroflot Ilyushin-model airliner, a deliberate strategy to confirm his heading traveling south, possibly to Turkey. He then begins a cockpit monologue--which turns into a dialogue with the First Secretary (Stefan Schnabel), who tries to persuade Gant to turn back and surrender, which Gant will not do. Gant finishes his conversation and then turns eastward, toward the Ural chain. The Soviet chiefs of staff, meanwhile, scramble all their air assets on the northern and southern borders and alert the Red Banner Fleets Northern and Southern. In a NATO war room, Aubrey and Buckholz realize, with great joy, that Gant has achieved liftoff.

Gant reaches the Urals, and then makes his first mistake: impelled by insatiable curiosity, he test-flies the Firefox at supersonic speeds, seeking to test the power of the plane and its Terrain-Following Radar system. The Soviets realize that he has misled them, as the Air Force chief-of-staff, General Vladimirov (Klaus Löwitsch), has already realized. Vladimirov reasons that Gant was simply too good to blunder into an Aeroflot's flight path by accident. Vladimirov now orders an elaborate plan to trap Gant at the northern end of the Urals, over the Gulf of Kara, where he believes that Gant may have a fueling rendezvous waiting for him on a sheet of ice. The Soviets think they have succeeded when they detect explosions over the Gulf (and so do Aubrey and Buckholz), but in fact Gant has devised a new strategy to elude them. He has downed another of their planes, a "Badger" recon plane, using the thought-controlled arsenal for the first time, and to good effect. This makes the Badger hotter than the Firefox and thus decoys the heat-seeking missiles the Soviets have fired after him.

Vladimirov is not so sure that they could defeat Gant as easily as that. Sure enough, Gant wastes his advantage by overflying an ELINT trawler. The First Secretary excoriates Vladimirov, but can do little else; he cannot fire him on short notice. Vladimirov now sets up an ambush with a Soviet guided-missile cruiser. But Gant defeats that ambush, too. First he flies straight toward the cruiser, at low altitude and supersonic speed. He destroys one MiL-24 Hind helicopter gunship, and flies directly over the ship. The sonic boom slams a second Hind to the flight deck, demolishing it. Four missiles fire after him in a tail chase. Gant knocks out two of them with one of his Rear Defense flak layers, and simply outraces the other two a supersonic speed until they run out of fuel and fall into the sea.

Back in Bilyarsk, Voskov has been found and has recovered, taking a final briefing from the First Secretary before taking off after Gant. Word comes that Gant has defeated the Russians yet again, and now Vladimirov plans to intercept Gant just short of the polar ice pack.

Gant now has another problem: he is running out of fuel, though he at least knows where his refueling point will be, since the homing device activated before he engaged the cruiser. Gant gains altitude and proceeds to glide in--and barely makes it to an ice floe before a US Navy Ohio-class submarine breaks through it to serve as Gant's refueling stop. He lands on the floe and taxis to the submarine, whose crew proceed to refuel him and replace the two missiles he has used.

Two Hinds make radar contact with the Americans and fly in to investigate. The Americans hurriedly finish the refueling and rearmament, steam a runway, and see Gant off before they then set up a mock weather station for the Soviets to reconnoiter. But what they don't know is that Vladimirov, loudly insistent, has prevailed upon his colleagues to send the second MiG after the radar contact.

After Gant takes off, he thinks he's home free when he suddenly sees two missiles locked onto him that appear to have come out of nowhere--and then spots the second Firefox in his rear-ward monitor. He out maneuvers the missiles and Voskov pursues Gant in a hypersonic aerial chase. Gant uses his air brakes to slip behind the other aircraft and he releases two missiles that immediately miss, and after a rolling loop Voskov and Gant's positions are reversed again. Gant dives toward the ground and skims low over the Arctic, but Voskov stays hard in pursuit, firing his MiG-31's nose-mounted cannons, to no effect. Gant now tries to shake Voskov by flying a slalom race through narrow ice canyons - yet Voskov still stays locked in close pursuit. After clearing and regaining altitude Voskov's Firefox fires his last two missiles, and Gant pulls into a high loop. As he comes out of the loop he goes into a flat tailspin and begins to suffer another delayed stress seizure, but he snaps out of it and releases his landing gear, adding drag enough to barely pull out of the flat spin before he crashes into the Earth.

Voskov, out of respect, salutes Gant one last time before dropping in behind Gant, preparing to make the kill. Gant recovers in time to reengage full speed as Voskov futilely fires his 50mm cannon. Gant attempts to fire the Rear Defense Pod but forgets to think in Russian. When he finally realizes it, he issues the command again in Russian and Voskov's aircraft is hit by the missile, exploding in flame.

Finally safe, Gant sets a course for the nearest NATO base in Western Europe.

The footage of the "Mother One" submarine breaking the surface is recycled from Ice Station Zebra (1968).
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Author Craig Thomas' 1983 sequel to "Firefox", the novel "Firefox Down", is dedicated to Clint Eastwood. The dedication reads: "For Clint Eastwood - pilot of the Firefox".
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The original plan was to use a Swedish JA 37 Viggen jet fighter as the Soviet aircraft, but the Swedish government refused permission.
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Novelist Craig Thomas and his wife visited the set in Vienna, Austria at the invitation of Clint Eastwood.
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Because his role in the movie required him to speak some Russian, Clint Eastwood prepared by studying the language with resources provided by the U.S. Military's Defense Language Institute.
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After making this movie, Clint Eastwood terminated his association with longtime Editor Ferris Webster for undisclosed reasons. Webster had worked exclusively for the star for a decade, and even moved up near Burney where Eastwood had a vacation house, thinking he would edit Malpaso movies for the rest of his life. "He died brokenhearted", said Producer Fritz Manes.
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The fictional MiG-31 bears a strong resemblance to an actual Soviet aircraft; The Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic airliner, nicknamed the "Konkordski" by the western aviation press. Production versions of the Tu-144 had their engine nacelles under the wing close to the center line of the aircraft, a double-delta wing layout with downward conical camber (similar to the Anglo-French Concorde), and retractable canard wings just behind the cockpit. The Tu-144's history is a bit of a spy story in itself, as many experts have alleged that its design was based on a set of early Concorde blueprints stolen from the French by the K.G.B.
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One of two Clint Eastwood movies released in 1982. The other was Honkytonk Man (1982). That movie was a box-office failure, but this movie was a box-office hit.
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In this movie (1982) General Vladimirov assures the First Secretary, "No pilot will risk the Moscow defenses, however invisible he might be." On May 28, 1987, a young German pilot flew his small plane five hundred miles into Soviet airspace and landed safely in Red Square. He was promptly arrested.
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A new special effects technique for the shooting of the flying sequences called "Reverse Bluescreen Photography" was developed by John Dykstra for this movie. Wikipedia.com states that the process involved "coating the model with phosphorus paint and photographing it first with strong lighting against a black background and then with ultraviolet light to create the necessary male and female mattes to separate the foreground model and the background footage. This enabled the shiny black model to be photographed flying against a clear blue sky and gleaming white snow; compare this with traditional bluescreen technique used in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)."
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Prior to the release of the movie, the cover art for the novel "Firefox" showed an aircraft similar to a MiG-25 Foxbat. After the release of the movie, the cover art was updated to reflect the design of the movie version of the aircraft. There really is a MiG-31, and it's a modified version of the MiG-25.
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At a budget of around twenty-one million dollars, this movie, in constant dollars, is one of the most expensive of Clint Eastwood's movies.
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The story is loosely based on an actual event in which a Soviet fighter pilot (Viktor Belenko) defected to Japan on September 6, 1976. Belenko was stationed in Chuguyekva, Primorsky Krai, RSFSR (Soviet Russia) where he flew a MiG-25 to Hakodate, Japan. During his defection, he brought the pilot's manual where the U.S. Air Force where American personnel evaluated and tested the aircraft. The U.S. Air Force determined that the MiG-25 was more of an interceptor rather than a fighter-bomber (which the F-15 Eagle had a superior edge, later demonstrated by the Israeli Air Force where it was used in combat against Syrian MiGs (they also operated the MiG-25) with no losses). {This may or may not be significant, the MiG-25 flown by the Syrians would have been the "export" model, the versions of military aircraft most major nations sell are of lower performance than the home models.} The captured MiG was later dismantled by the Japanese technicians and returned to the Soviet Union.
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Notable technical specifications of the MiG-31 Firefox plane were that it was capable of Mach 6 speed which is a velocity six times the speed of sound; was too fast to be detected by radar and as such was invisible to it; contained an ultra-sophisticated weapons attack system; had full nuclear capability, and took instructions controlled by the pilot's brainwaves which had to be configured via Russian thought processes.
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The cockpit section of the helicopter gunship chasing Gant is adapted from the Aerospatiale Gazelles used for the filming of Blue Thunder (1983).
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According to Clint Eastwood, one of the ducted fan, R/C filming models crashed into heavy rush-hour traffic, causing a significant traffic jam.
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A total of nine models of the Firefox were built. Six were used as miniatures for filming, two actually flew, and one was built to full-scale specifications. The full size model measured 66 (long) x 44 (wide) x 20 (high) feet, could taxi at thirty to forty miles per hour, and was constructed from a broadcast antenna radio station skeleton. Several flying shots from the movie were later re-used for Back to the Future Part II (1989).
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When the novel was written and this movie was in principal photography, Yuri Andropov was head of the K.G.B. Andropov then became C.P.S.U. General Secretary succeeding Leonid Brezhnev. As shooting had started, it was too late to re-cast the part of K.G.B. Chairman Andropov. When the movie was released, Andropov was no longer head of the K.G.B. Originally, Andropov was not well known, and casting Wolf Kahler, who did not look like him, was no issue then. But by the time the movie launched, Andropov had become well-known, with the actor in the movie bearing little physical resemblance to him.
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The real-life MiG-31 (Mikoyan-Gurevich 31) is not known as the "Firefox", but as the "Foxhound". It is similar in appearance to the MiG-25 from which it is believed to be based.
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The movie's Charity World Premiere was held in Washington, D.C., with proceeds aiding a military charity, and was attended by prominent U.S. Military figures.
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The Russian helicopters in the movie, known as the Mil-24 "Hind", were radio control scale models. Also, during the close-up scenes, the cockpit of one the helicopters was used before its major role in another action movie, and the television series Blue Thunder (1984). Only two were built and re-used as Russian helicopters again in the mini-series Amerika (1987).
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John Ratzenberger and Kenneth Colley appeared in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). In this movie, Ratzenberger played a junior officer on a U.S. submarine in the Arctic hiding from the Soviets, while in The Empire Strikes Back, he played a junior officer on the ice planet Hoth hiding from the Empire. Kenneth Colley played a Soviet Colonel in the "command center" looking for the heroes, while in The Empire Strikes Back, he played Admiral Piett, a high-ranking Imperial officer. He reprised this role in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).
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A promotional behind the scenes making-of documentary about this movie was made for television. Titled Clint Eastwood: Director (1982), the documentary is available on the DVD.
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The big, black, 1950s-looking sedan used by the K.G.B. is a "Gaz Chaika M13." This car was produced in Russia from 1959 to 1981. The car was not available to the general Russian public. It was used by government officials and dignitaries. It looks very similar to a mid 1950s Packard. The smaller car used later by the K.G.B. in the chase scene with the van is a "Volga".
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First movie as a Producer for Clint Eastwood though Eastwood had been an Executive Producer on three movies prior. The movie was also Eastwood's eighth as a Director.
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Fist fight snippets were lifted from this movie and used to portray a much younger Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) in flashback scenes in Trouble with the Curve (2012).
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In the Soviet war room, there are framed photos on the wall. One is Valentina Tereshkova (the first woman in space, a Russian), and the other is Yuri Gagarin (the first man in space, also a Russian).
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One of just a few of Clint Eastwood movies in the intrigue genre. The others being Absolute Power (1997), The Eiger Sanction (1975), and In the Line of Fire (1993).
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Atari released a LaserDisc coin-operated arcade game called "Firefox" in 1983.
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Mitchell Gant wears a black flight helmet, a reflection of Eastwood's years of playing gunfighters who wore dark or black hats. By contrast, Voskov wears a white helmet which was what many of Eastwood's gunfighter opponents wore.
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This movie was released five years after its source novel by Craig Thomas was published. In that year, a similarly themed and similarly titled movie called Foxbat (1977) was released. Many of the characters from the "Firefox" novel and "Firefox Down" returned in the novels "Winter Hawk" (1987) and "A Different War" (1997).
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After its first release, Clint Eastwood re-cut it by thirteen minutes. Sixteen minutes of footage was added to ABC's television version. A two hour and four minute version has aired on cable television. The full longest version runs two hours and seventeen minutes restored for video and later network television releases.
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In "Firefox Down", Craig Thomas' 1983 sequel to his novel, "Firefox", the MiG 31 is described as being like the one in this movie. A possible movie sequel, which perhaps would have been based on the book "Firefox Down", was never made.
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Thomas Hill (General Brown) and Freddie Jones (Kenneth Aubrey) played librarian Mr. Koreander in The Neverending Story film franchise, the former in the first two movies, and the latter in the third.
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The second of two times where Clint Eastwood plays a pilot. He did before in Tarantula (1955).
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Henry Gerp were all considered for the role of Mitchell Gant before Clint Eastwood was cast.
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Clint Eastwood's ninth movie for Warner Brothers.
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Ronald Lacey (Semelovsky) and Wolf Kahler (Andropov) appeared in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
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Two actors in this film, John Ratzenberger and Kenneth Colley both appeared in Star Wars - The Empire Strikes back which came out one year later. In this film Ratzenberger played a junior officer on a US submarine in the Arctic hiding from the Soviets while in Empire Strikes Back he played a junior officer on the ice planet Hoth hiding from the Empire. Kenneth Colley played a Soviet colonel in the "command center" looking for the heroes while in Empire Strikes Back he commands the command ship looking for the heroes.
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Fritz Manes: Clint Eastwood's regular producing partner as a Captain. The appearance was one of seven that Manes has made in Eastwood's movies.
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A sequel to Firefox was planned but never made. In the story Gant discovers that one of the second Firefox' cannon shots had grazed a fuel tank and he was forced to land on a frozen lake in Finland. As the plane was designed to deal with the most severe of Russian weather, it was equipped with baffles that could seal off the engines and other ports. Due to the thinness of the ice and the heat of the engines the Firefox broke through the ice and sank. From that point it was a race between the Russians who were in hot pursuit of the plane and the NATO allies to raise the plane, repair the fissure on the tank, drain and refuel, and to send it on its way.
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When Col. Kontarsky receives the sketch of Gant he recognizes "him" as the "GRU Officer" who confirmed the order to have the dogs search the tree line. GRU Officers were members of military intelligence and wore the standard uniforms of the Soviet Army, Red insignia and piping for most Army officers and light blue for Airborne. Yet Gant/Eastwood is wearing the same dark blue colors, only worn by the KGB, as Kontarsky. No KGB officer would mistake their own uniform for GRU. Additionally, GRU had no internal security function and held a deep rivalry with KGB, making it highly unlikely a GRU officer would be allowed near any KGB guarded project like the Mig-31.
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When Aubrey briefs Mitchel Gant about the homing device, he mentions that it will pick up Mother-1 within 100 miles. However, on board the Firefox when Gant's homing device picks up Mother-1, he is over 140 miles out.
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When Dr Semelovsky arrives at the checkpoint, he turns up late and a guard asks him why, the response from Dr Semelovsky is that the car broke down and the guard then checks the engine and comments that is filthy. The error is that when the guard asks to check the engine, he says "open the boot" instead of "open the bonnet" (where the car engine actually is).
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When the Firefox flies over the Russian cruiser which is then seen firing missiles at it, the cruiser is obviously an American cruiser, probably the Belknap Class.
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When Baranovich asks Gant if he smokes, Gant replies, "Not for years," yet earlier in the film he was smoking a cigar at the bridge.
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The Firefox rolls over the same guard twice when blasting out of the hanger.
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When Gant gives the command to fire the missiles, he uses the command "skaitie pierva rakieta" which translates roughly as "Launch First Missile." However, this is the only command that is given (i.e. he does not give a command to launch the second, third, or fourth missiles) to launch all his ordinance.
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After the explosion in the hangar, you can see Mr. Gant in the shower during the alarm. A few moments later he's seen in his pilot's uniform heading toward the "Firefox". It's very unlikely that Mr. Gant can go from the shower to wearing a pilot's uniform in the hanger area in such a short period of time.
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After Gant takes off from the ice after refueling, he retracts the front stabilizers of the Firefox into a "V" shape. The next shot of the plane shows them out at 90 degrees again. This is actually a shot of Col. Voskov's Firefox in pursuit of Gant. However, during the climatic dogfight, Gant does indeed extend the forward wings to their full, 90 degree extension.
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When Aubrey briefs Mitchell Gant on how the KGB is "slow to awaken", Gant's hair goes from being disheveled to combed, to disheveled between the wide-angle and close-up shots.
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As Eastwood's character is taxiing to leave the Russian base, it is pitch dark, and the Firefox has headlights on, but one moment later as the First Secretary's car is arriving, the sky brightens up considerably. Thought we know that Gant arrived at the base in the middle of the night and stole the plane close to dawn, the sky could not brighten nearly as much in such a short time.
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Gant is shown in the cockpit of a white T-38A jet fighter trainer, and then it immediately cuts to a blue-camouflaged aggressor squadron F-5 Freedom Fighter. This happens twice in the training sequence.
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When the Firefox crosses over the Missle cruiser Riga the sky is clear. However, when we see the view of the missiles from behind the Firefox the sky is suddenly cloudy.
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The number on the side of the submarine conning tower is visible when the sub is below the ice pack but has vanished when the sub is above the ice.
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When the subway stops for the first time, there's an older man with gray hair leaving the train. Then as the subway moves again, you can see the man is still sitting in the wagon.
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When the submarine goes up to break through the ice, you can see an antenna or periscope sticking out above the submarine. When seconds later it's broken through the ice and at the surface no antenna or periscope is visible.
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In the scene where Pytor Baranovich is in the Firefox, Colonel Kontarsky is staring at him, at a short distance away from the Firefox plane. Baranovich looks at him with his head turned to the left. But when the camera has a closer shot of Colonel Kontarsky looking at Baranovich, Baranovich is looking back at him, this time with his head turned to the right.
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When he exits the Subway you can see on the other Side still written "Suedtirolerplatz" and you see a map of the Vienna subway net.
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When the Soviet "hotline" phone sounds in an extreme close-up, we see the GTE logo on the bottom of the phone...
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The speaker phone box in Col. Kontarsky's office has AT&T on it, highly unlikely in the USSR.
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There's no Kirov str. within walking range by Kolomenskaya metro station.
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When driving away from the airport, there is a sign from an Austrian automobile club visible for a short period.
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After the Firefox is stolen, General Vladimirov explains to the First Secretary that in order to maximize fuel range, Gant will have to control his speed and fly low to conserve fuel. The part about controlling his speed is true enough: speed, particularly with afterburners, is the enemy of fuel consumption, but flying low is exactly the opposite of what he should do. Airplanes - jets, in particular - burn far less fuel at higher altitudes where the air is thin than down low where it is much denser.
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Through all the movie Soviet officials keep demanding papers - VASHI BUMAGI (your papers), whilst correct way to demand them in Russian is VASHI DOCUMENTY - your docs (ID).
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When the sub crew hooks up the SPR (Single Point Refueling) connectors, they twist the handles to lock the connector and then move away. This was only half of the movements required to transfer fuel. There is an arm the must be pushed forward after the connection is made which opens a valve inside to allow fuel to flow. The crew doesn't move these arms, so no fuel would flow into the aircraft.
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Russian words on Firefox's screen related to the ammo are messy and the last one has nothing to do with it.
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When Gant sets the co-ordinates for home, the display shows C - 70' 42 2, B - 80' 18 0. Firstly it should show 70° 42' 2" and 80° 18' 8" - the first figure in a co-ordinate is degrees, not minutes. A co-ordinate in minutes only makes no sense. We can assume that the C and B refer to North and East (Severo and Vostok in Russian, but Russian S looks like C, and Russian V looks like B). The co-ordinates 70° 42' 2" N and 80° 18' 8" E are in the permafrost forest about 80 miles from the Kara Sea, which about where Gant may well have been when he downed the enemy Firefox, in which case the error is that he claimed to have set the co-ordinates, whereas the display still shows where he is now. His nearest US destination would be Clear AFB in Alaska, at 64° 17' 27" N, 149° 10' 48" W, a distance of 2,817 miles, a tight but not impossible run skirting the geographic North Pole, given that it was stated in the film that the Firefox has a 3,000 mile range. A slightly shorter run would be to the NATO base at Thule, Greenland operated by the US 821st Air Base Group. At 76° 31' 52" N, 68° 42' 11" W, the distance is only 2,182 miles, although he remains in Russian airspace longer on this flightpath, and despite his speed, may be vulnerable to Russian ground-to-air defenses.
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When the US submarine, code name "Mother 1" surfaces, you see an underwater shot of the vessel pushing out air from the ballast tanks in order to surface. This is actually the exact opposite of how a submersible works. Air would not be taken from the ballast tanks but instead pumped in.
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The missiles that were "borrowed" from the MIG 25 in Syria were too small. The missiles carried by the MIG 25 are roughly 15 feet long and weight close to a ton and would not be able to be carried by hand as the crew of the sub is seen doing.
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"Speed is in excess of Mach 5, even Mach 6 and able to maintain it. Our best body design begins to melt at Mach 3." The SR-71 Blackbird had a cruising speed of Mach 3.2 and could achieve even faster speeds without "melting".
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The Aeroflot plane that Gant buzzes shortly after stealing Firefox from the Soviet airbase is clearly a Boeing 727 as opposed to the similarly configured Tupolev Tu-154 that would've been flying in the Aeroflot fleet at the time. Also, the plane's livery features a wide red stripe down the fuselage, whereas all Aeroflot liveries throughout the Cold War have been blue.
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The term First Secretary was only used from 1953 to 1966 for Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Prior to and after those years, the correct term was General Secretary.
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The Firefox is described as being able to reach "Mach 5, even Mach 6, and maintain it." However, the overall design of the aircraft is not nearly aerodynamic enough for such speeds. Experimental Mach 6 aircraft flown by NASA resemble surfboards with fins, not the design sported by the Firefox. Also, the aircraft is powered by turbine engines, which are unable to operate above speeds much higher than Mach 3 (the real life SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world, used turbojet/ramjet engines and was able to reach speeds of only Mach 3.35, about half the Firefox's top speed).
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The altimeter settings in the Firefox are in Inches of Mercury (inhg). The Russians use Milimeters of Mercury (mmhg).
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The shots of the altimeter in the Firefox show a different altimeter setting on every shot. This would not happen on any flight.
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There're no lavatories for the public in Moscow metro. Original 80's Moscow metro trains are also much older then the ones in the movie.
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All of the air control/defense technicians manning the various consoles at Bilyarsk wear the proper shoulder badges, but they all wear the distinctive dark blue collar flashes and shoulder boards with the Cyrillic characters "GB" for KGB. KGB troops would never be trained or assigned to such purely technical air force duties. These personnel should be wearing the same light blue piping and flashes as the air force generals commanding the center.
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When speaking to the other Soviet officers right before entering the hangar, Gant speaks in Russian. However, his accent is quite atrocious and he would make the guards and officers more suspicious, especially since they were already searching for him.
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In the Soviet Union no foreign car were used by state ownedcompanies like delivery service. But despite having Soviet's offroader UAZ logo on the hood and similarity with UAZ 452 in general, they do drive a foreign delivery car from Moscow to Bilyarsk.
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Whenever the Firefox launches a missile, it shows a single launch from the Firefox's weapon's display, yet from the target view, two balls of light representing the missiles are showing - no air-to-air missile, known or unknown, can split mid-flight, let alone track the same target twice.
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When the Russian Hind helicopters fly over Mother 1 (US sub in the Pole). The close up of the Russian cockpit is actually the airframe of Blue Thunder, not a Hind.
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After the Firefox has landed on the ice floe, he asks the sub commander to steam off a 3,000 foot runway in the three minutes he has until the Soviet investigative forces arrive. There is no way that the sub crew could steam a section of ice that long in three minutes, let alone go back to the sub, find the hoses, hook them up, let alone have 3,000 feet of steaming hose, let alone having enough pressure to do the job.
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The entire performance of the "thought guided" missile system that was highly touted was never realized as the breakthrough it was, albeit it totally unrealistic. His contact inside the U.S.S.R. even said, "now, you don't even have to push a button...", yet in the first battle scene inside the Firefox, Gant is manually arming the weapons systems, with the gun firing (red) button, no less. Additionally, we are told at the beginning that the "sensors inside the helmet" automatically seek out and detect threats according to the pilot's thoughts, yet in the final scenes, it is a long, drawn-out dogfight. If what was true about the thought-guided threat attack system, the second prototype that was attacking Gant would have never survived after the first missile attack. Instead, Gant is taking evasive action for minute after minute, needlessly flying through mountains, doing barrel rolls and all kinds of acrobatic maneuvers. Yet, he did not think to launch the "rearward" missile until after he recovered from his flat spin by lowering the landing gear?
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Stealing the second prototype instead of the first one would have been a better idea seeing as the second prototype can refuel in midair but the first prototype can't and blowing up the hanger with the rear defense pod would guarantee the destruction of the other prototype.
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When taking off from the ice floe, the Firefox has its air brakes fully extended, a highly inefficient way to take off.
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After the interrogated detainee is 'killed' during the interrogation, one of the veins on the actors neck highly visibly continues to show a pulse.
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On the way from the airport several non-Soviet cars are visible parked one by one along the road. Highly unlikable in the Soviet 80's.
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As the Firefox is taxiing away from the submarine after refueling, you can catch a glimpse of daylight through the fuselage of the airplane mock-up.
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After one of the metro trains pulls out of the station in 'Moscow', the German word 'KURZZUG' (=short train) is clearly visible on the wall behind it - indicating that a German-speaking country (in fact Austria) was used to double for the USSR.
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When Gant is walking towards his hotel (Moscow) we can see Red Square with St. Basil's cathedral at the background which is obviously a picture, not a real thing, and of poor quality besides. Moreover, there's no hotel by Red Square in the direction he was walking. Hotel Moscow is situated at the opposite side, about 2km distance from the point of "shooting".
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Wires supporting the MiG-31 model are clearly visible in a close-up just when the plane touches down on the glacier.
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