Post by t-bob on Dec 9, 2014 1:48:34 GMT -5
Unlucky-in-love Danny Morgan (Rhys Ifans) ties helium balloons to a deck chair as a party joke but accidentally gets untethered and ends up floating high across Australia. Eventually, he crash lands and is rescued by small-town traffic cop Glenda (Miranda Otto). Danny is greatly appreciated by the townspeople for being inventive and clever, and he and Glenda begin a whimsical romance. When his past comes back to haunt him, his new life gives him strength to face it.
There really was a Danny Deckchair. His name was Larry Walters, and the Web site snopes.com reports that on July 2, 1982, he "filled 45 weather balloons with helium and tethered them in four tiers to an aluminum lawn chair he purchased at Sears for $110, loading his makeshift aircraft with a large bottle of soda, milk jugs full of water for ballast, a pellet gun, a portable CB radio, an altimeter and a camera." The pellet gun was to shoot at balloons when he wanted to come down. That worked fine until he dropped the gun.
His flight was all too successful, the site says; he was seen by commercial airline pilots at 16,000 feet above Long Beach, was a guest of the Carson and Letterman shows, received an award from the Bonehead Club of Dallas, and was fined by the FAA for, among other transgressions, "operating a civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an air-worthiness certificate."
There really was a Danny Deckchair. His name was Larry Walters, and the Web site snopes.com reports that on July 2, 1982, he "filled 45 weather balloons with helium and tethered them in four tiers to an aluminum lawn chair he purchased at Sears for $110, loading his makeshift aircraft with a large bottle of soda, milk jugs full of water for ballast, a pellet gun, a portable CB radio, an altimeter and a camera." The pellet gun was to shoot at balloons when he wanted to come down. That worked fine until he dropped the gun.
His flight was all too successful, the site says; he was seen by commercial airline pilots at 16,000 feet above Long Beach, was a guest of the Carson and Letterman shows, received an award from the Bonehead Club of Dallas, and was fined by the FAA for, among other transgressions, "operating a civil aircraft for which there is not currently in effect an air-worthiness certificate."
