Olympus69 From Canada, joined Jun 2002, 1737 posts, RR: 8 Posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 22 hours ago) and read 3699 times:
Seeing the topic about 'Airplane' reminded me that I was planning to start a topic about which movie created the now tired cliche of an airliner having to be landed by a non-pilot because the flight crew has been disabled in some way.
This probably goes back way too far for most people, but my candidate is a CBC TV play (nowadays it would be called a TV Movie) made in the mid 1950s, called (I think) 'Flight into Danger'. It may have even originated as a radio play. It concerned a planeload of football fans flying in a Canadair DC-4M 'North Star' to Vancouver for the annual Grey Cup game. The flight crew suffer from food poisoning and become incapacitated. The only pilot among the passengers is a former WW2 fighter pilot who hasn't flown a plane in many years and has lost confidence in his flying ability.
There were two interesting things about this story. One, the author of the play was Arthur Hailey who, many years later, wrote 'Airport'. I may be wrong here, but I think the fighter pilot was a former BBC actor named Barry Morse, who later went on to portray the police officer (I forget his name) who chased Guy Kimball (?) for a few years in 'The Fugitive'.
The story was later made into a quickly-forgotten Hollywood movie under a different title.
LoneStarMike From United States of America, joined Jul 2000, 3654 posts, RR: 38 Reply 3, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 21 hours ago) and read 3590 times:
I remember that movie. I think Lois Nettleton played the flight attendant in the movie. The book had a different title in the U.S. It was called Runway Zero Eight.
Zippyjet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 4743 posts, RR: 13 Reply 4, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 21 hours ago) and read 3581 times:
I remember a black and white moldy oldie called "Zero Hour." This cinematic tour de force was made in 1957 in beautiful black and white. This was the flick that Airplane was patterned after.
There was another airline disaster movie from like around 1961 also in beautiful black and white. I forgot its name but, it dealt with a bomb planted aboard a get this: "797!" It was an altitude explosive. If the bird got below a certain altitude, kaboom! They diverted to Denver's then new Stapleton Airport because it was at a high altitude. Throw in melodramatic 1950's style music and cliches and here was another cinematic tour de force. This one made me laugh because:
1. A "797?"
2. The plane's cabin was of a propliner; probably a DC-7.
3. And when they evacuated sliding out of the door aft cabin I spotted the signature DC-7 rear windows close together and of course the rounded prop
plane tail.
CVGpilot From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 588 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 3553 times:
What was the name of the movie about that flight that went to Hawiie and half the top fusalage broke off, I belive it was a 737???
YOW4NOW From Canada, joined Jan 2004, 45 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 3503 times:
I remember reading that book back in grade 10 as well. Runway Zero Eight!
I suppose the writers to "Airplane" took their script from this book. Pilots get ill from food poisoning, only person to fly the plane ex wwII fighter pilot (the age difference leaves something to be desired, though)
Just another note about Airplane, the movie. Anyone else ever notice that the sound heard throughout the airplane scenes had the sound of a prop airplane? They were on a jet, apparently!
Whauet From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 44 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 3484 times:
YOW4NOW... Yes, the prop sound for a jet was intentional -- quite a bit of the movie had some subtle (and not so subtle) facets that only those who have an aviation knowledge would pick up on....
N202PA From United States of America, joined Jun 2000, 1550 posts, RR: 4 Reply 9, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 3475 times:
According to the Zuckers' DVD commentary for Airplane!, Zero Hour was the film that most of Airplane! was based upon, including several scenes of dialogue taken directly from the first movie.
LoneStarMike From United States of America, joined Jul 2000, 3654 posts, RR: 38 Reply 10, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 3463 times:
What was the name of the movie about that flight that went to Hawiie and half the top fusalage broke off, I belive it was a 737???
That was Miracle Landing based on the true story of Aloha Flight 243.
YOW4NOW From Canada, joined Jan 2004, 45 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 3448 times:
YOW4NOW... Yes, the prop sound for a jet was intentional -- quite a bit of the movie had some subtle (and not so subtle) facets that only those who have an aviation knowledge would pick up on....
I remember mentioning this annoomility to a friend of mine. He looked at me in astonishment. After working for Transport Canada for so long, having watched the movie for so long, he never noticed! I felt so special!
Olympus69 From Canada, joined Jun 2002, 1737 posts, RR: 8 Reply 12, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 22 hours ago) and read 3347 times:
I just checked 'Zero Hour' in Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. Made in 1957, starring Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell and Sterling Hayden. Based on Arthur Hailey teleplay about potential airplane disaster when pilots are felled by ptomaine poisining. Remade for TV in 1971 as 'Terror in the Sky' and then spoofed in 1980 as 'Airplane!'
I guess 'Runway zero eight' was the US title for the original play.
TNboy From Australia, joined Mar 2002, 1131 posts, RR: 21 Reply 13, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 3321 times:
There was a movie based on the Neville Shute (or Ernest K Gann??) book "No Highway in the Sky" and I think starred James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. It was about an airliner that had metal fatigue problems. I think it was early fifties, and in black and white. But that is really stretching my memory, and I may have it wrong.
Cheers
Bill
TxAgKuwait From United States of America, joined Aug 1999, 1803 posts, RR: 47 Reply 14, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 3306 times:
The Jimmy Stewart movie sounds like "Fate is the Hunter"
Dana Andrews was also in the classic "The Crowded Sky" which was made, as I recall, in either '55 or '56. It also had, if I remember correctly, Robert Stack (or maybe it was Efrem Zimbalist Jr), Troy Donahue, and Rhonda Fleming.
The crash landing scene which supposedly took place just outside Abilene, TX (Dyess AFB) was noteworthy for the mountains in the background. Special effects??? well, a plastic DC-7 model sliding along a sidewalk covered with shaving cream describes it.
And as far back as '54 we had John Wayne in "The High and The Mighty". Excellent movie in every respect.
Iflyatldl From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 1936 posts, RR: 4 Reply 15, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 3235 times:
I remember all the movies mentioned- I remember one movie had the spinning prop come off the engine(DC-7 I'm guessing) and tore into the fuselage and had the passenger sucked out; which one was that?
Ah, Summer, Fenway Park, Boston Red Sox and Beer.....
Olympus69 From Canada, joined Jun 2002, 1737 posts, RR: 8 Reply 17, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago) and read 3134 times:
Let's straighten some of these movies out.
'No Highway in the Sky', starring Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich is a British film, made in 1951, and was based on a novel by Nevil Shute. It was about metal fatigue.
'Fate is the Hunter', made in 1964, starred Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Rod Taylor and Susanne Plechette. It was based on a very small part of Ernest K. Gann's wonderful autobiography, with the same name.
'The Crowded Sky', 1960, Starred Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Ephram Zimbalist Jr., John Kerr, Troy Donahue and Keenan Wynn. It featured a collision between an airliner and a US Navy 2-seat fighter.
The one with the prop coming off - could that have been 1954's 'The High and the Mighty'? It's been so long since I saw that John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, film, that I've forgotten some of the details. It was based on an Ernest K. Gann novel, and it's been tied up in litigation for so long that it's never appeared on video.
Wideman From United States of America, joined Feb 2001, 4 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 7 hours ago) and read 3021 times:
There's an amazing movie called Phone Call from a Stranger that featured not 1, but 2 airplane mishaps, both with the same plane. A plane takes off, runs into some sort of bad weather and miraculously lands in some out of the way place where, equally miraculously, there's a coffee shop. The passengers all get to chat with each other for several hours while the pilot repairs the damaged aircraft. The flight resumes, runs into more bad weather, and crashes, killing everyone aboard except for 1 passenger, who remarkably escapes unscathed. He then contacts the relatives of the other passengers, telling them of how wonderful their (dead) loved ones are.
The graphics were laughable, but the movie had a great cast. Gary Merrill was the guy who survived, and other people in the movie were (a very young) Shelley Winters, Keenan Wynn, and a few other notables.
Quetzalcoatl From Mexico, joined Dec 2003, 91 posts, RR: 0 Reply 19, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 2971 times:
There was a Mexican movie made in 1947 called "A volar Joven!" (sorry, have no adequate translation for that tittle), featuring Mario Moreno "Cantinflas" as a student in a flight academy, who mistakenly takes another student (Angel Garaza) on a plane, each thinking each other is the instructor. They are landed by one of the instructors on the airport, via radio instructions.
Both actors were fine comedians, so the climactic scene (both of them in the plane, trying to land) took many days to complete , because they couldn't stop laughing at each other, or so they say.
OPNLguy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 20, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 2938 times:
A couple of notes..
Zippyjet:
The movie you're thinking of with the bomb aboard set to go off at a certain altitude (and why they diverted to Denver) was "The Doomsday Flight" from 1966. See the particulars at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060333/
Olympus69:
I don't recall whether a prop came off in "The High and the Mighty" or not (about the only thing I recall is the navigator's wind/groundspeed error and its effect on their fuel usage, and them barely making the airport), but I know "The Crowded Sky" had a scene with one. After Zimbalist collided with Andrew's aircraft, the #2 engine threw its prop, which went into the fuselage, and tore a hole which sucked out the F/E. They made an emergency landing at Dyess AFB in Texas.
Some casting director had a sense of irony and cast Zimbalist and Andrews in another midair collision scenario, namely "Airport 1975" in which Andrews' Beech Baron collides with Zimbalist's 747...
Iflyatldl From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 1936 posts, RR: 4 Reply 21, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 2903 times:
It's a bummer that none of these movies are on video. If they were, I'd find those suckers!
Ah, Summer, Fenway Park, Boston Red Sox and Beer.....
Tom in NO From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 7194 posts, RR: 40 Reply 22, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 6 hours ago) and read 2871 times:
The actual movie title of the movie with the fighter pilot who landed the airplance was "Terror in the Sky". Doug McClure played the part of the pilot, Lois Nettleton was the stewardess, and Roddy McDowell played the doctor. Here's a link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067844.
Tom at MSY
Note: my mom went to school with Doug McClure (Occidental College in Glendale, CA); Jim Mora, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Mandan (Soap), and Frank Zappa were all there at the same time (another story)
"The criminal ineptitude makes you furious"-Bruce Springsteen, after seeing firsthand the damage from Hurricane Katrina
Iflyatldl From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 1936 posts, RR: 4 Reply 23, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 5 hours ago) and read 2849 times:
OPNLguy:
"The Crowded Sky" was the one with the mid-air colision with the fighter and the prop being thrown and landing at the air base in Texas. Just had my memory jogged!
Ah, Summer, Fenway Park, Boston Red Sox and Beer.....
OPNLguy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 24, posted (9 years 5 months 2 weeks 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 2815 times:
Like I said, The "High and the Mighty" might have had one also (something had to cause their initial problem) but I knew for sure "The Crowded Sky" did.
And for anyone interested, I heard a rumor recently that said (supposedly) that the Wayne family has agreed to release "The High and the Mighty" on video sometime this year, so as to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its theatrical release. I emphasize that's just a rumor, so don't run out and demand that your local video place order you one...
25 AvObserver: "...Barry Morse, who later went on to portray the police officer (I forget his name) who chased Guy Kimball (?) for a few years in 'The Fugitive'." So
26 Olympus69: The actual movie title of the movie with the fighter pilot who landed the airplance was "Terror in the Sky" Tom, That was the 1971 remake for TV of th
27 Olympus69: AvObserver, Thanks for that correction. I put a '?' after the name Guy Kimball because I wasn't sure of the name. I wish I had been able to chat with
28 Olympus69: OPNLguy, I guess I was wrong about losing a prop in 'The High and the Mighty', though I can't remember what did cause the original problem. That's gre
29 OPNLguy: >>>I guess I was wrong about losing a prop in 'The High and the Mighty', though I can't remember what did cause the original problem. Oh, you may well
30 Olympus69: There was another Ernie K. Gann movie in the early 1950s that also starred John Wayne - 'Island in the Sky'. This one was about the search for a USAAF
31 AvObserver: "...Barry Morse. My memories of him go back to 1947 when he played the part of a James Bond type character on a BBC radio series." Olympus69... Yes, h
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