Zero Hour! (1957)

One of my all time favorites.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Okay, its not possible to write an unbiased review,the story and so much of the script are in Airplane that your mind automatically fills in the missing parts and thus it becomes hilarious.It wasn't mean to be, it would be melodramatically over the top for anyone who hasn't seen Airplane because subtleness was not included in this picture. The musical cues alone would push it to the edge.Watch it for a black & white good time.

I haven't seen Zero Hour's irreverent offspring Airplane (1980), so I have to judge this movie on its own merits. In short, it's a white-knuckler all the way. The passenger plane's on a cross-Canada flight when the pilots and some passengers are incapacitated by bad food. Looks like doomsday unless someone among them has flight experience and can step forward. A former WWII pilot, Lieutenant Stryker (Andrews), is conscripted. Trouble is he's still traumatized by combat experience and doubts his piloting abilities, especially with a big jet. Still, there's no one else. Now all the passengers and crew depend upon him to bring the plane down safely in Vancouver amid blinding fog and rain. So, he'll need all the help he can get, especially from the Vancouver flight tower and the commanding Capt. Treleaven (Hayden). But will that be enough.As some sage once pointed out, there's a close relation between comedy and tragedy. I can see why the producers of Airplane parodied the relentless heavy breathing of this movie in their comedy classic. What with all the interactions between passengers, crew, and tower, there's lots of material to comically exaggerate. Nonetheless, the performances here are effective if mostly unvarying. Andrews gets not a single smile, while Darnell, as Stryker's wife, scowls throughout. In fact, the movie's downside may be that same unrelenting grimness, which is apt for the material but a one-note for audiences.On the upside is the way some hardier passengers respond to the emergency, showing the skill and heart of a random American public. Then too, if Stryker succeeds, he may overcome his crippling self-doubt stemming from a WWII deadly misjudgment that cost the lives of fellow pilots. Thus Stryker's very much a flawed hero, a good dramatic note. All in all, the movie's a genuine, if unrelieved, thriller that deserves more reshowing than it's gotten. But then Airplane has likely taken whatever thunder Zero had. Nonetheless, this 82-minute suspense can still stand on its own.

It seems impossible now to review or comment on this suspense favourite without mentioning the comedy classic "Airplane!", which came along 23 years later and quite effectively spoofed this film. In fact, if you're like this viewer and have seen "Airplane!" multiple times, you'll be amazed at how faithful Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker were to the story here, and how many lines are lifted verbatim from this script. Of course, you'll also be conditioned to expect the zingers to happen as well.Still, regardless of whether or not this story *had* ever been spoofed, it really is a tense, effective, and sweat inducing thriller, highly quotable, and appropriately atmospheric. Hall Bartlett - who also wrote the screenplay with producer John Champion and story author Arthur Hailey - does a masterful job with the direction, getting lots of mileage out of a minimum of sets.The acting is sincere all the way down the line as Dana Andrews stars in the film as Ted Stryker, war veteran and former pilot who can't get over his wartime trauma. Teds' fed-up wife Ellen (Linda Darnell) takes off with their young son (Ray Ferrell), and he follows them onto a plane where the flight crew (among them, football great Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch as the pilot) and several of the passengers fall victim to food poisoning. It's up to the neurotic Ted to pilot the plane through a heavy storm to make it to an airport in time to save the afflicted people.One particular element that should be of delight to any Canadian viewer is the fact that this tale takes place in Canada and the air above it. My own hometown is mentioned repeatedly.The solid cast also includes Sterling Hayden as Captain Treleaven, the cranky guy (and old wartime comrade of Teds') who must talk our hero through the situation, Geoffrey Toone as the dedicated doctor, Jerry Paris as passenger Tony Decker, Peggy King as his stewardess girlfriend Janet Turner, Charles Quinlivan as ground controller Harry Burdick, and Steve London as co-pilot Walt Stewart.Highly entertaining all the way through, and at just over 81 minutes, it doesn't go on any longer than it really should, or waste any time.Eight out of 10.

If, and it's a big if, you can watch this analytically as a separate viewing experience from the re-imagining of it as Airplane! than this is a competently made drama perfect for the lower half of the bill at a Saturday matinée. Dana Andrews moves through the picture with grim determination and that ultimate block of wood actor Sterling Hayden is even more constricted than usual. Lloyd Bridges didn't have to change much in his performance to parody him! Linda Darnell, in her second to last film, really doesn't have much too work with in her part but she is fine offering a quiet show of strength and support when needed. However as you watch even if you are trying to be detached and see it apart from the spoof a line will pop up like "Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit smoking." and it takes you right out of the movie. Still a good view.