HOWARD SUTHERLAND writes:

Man in the Sky sounds like a movie I need to see. I’m a great Jack Hawkins fan, to begin with. Another movie that brings out that vanished man’s world of flying is 1957’s Zero Hour!, starring Sterling Hayden, Dana Andrews and others. Here is the New York Times’s favorable review of it; times have changed since 1957.

In Zero Hour!, a former fighter pilot who has developed a fear of flying has to take control of an airliner (he has never flown large aircraft) on a trans-Canada flight after the crew are taken ill and bring her safely down, which he does with the assistance of a hard-bitten airline chief pilot in the control tower – who just happens to know of our reluctant hero’s wartime mishap. Manly men doing manly things in a manly fashion (in one man’s case, with considerable trepidation; in the other’s, with equal skepticism).

If the plot line sounds familiar, that’s because Zero Hour! is the played-straight model for 1980’s blockbuster comedy Airplane!, which lifts a lot of dialogue verbatim from Zero Hour! Actually, if one is familiar with Airplane! (and who isn’t?) it isn’t all that easy to watch Zero Hour! without cracking up, especially watching the hard-as-nails Hayden delivering with complete seriousness what became Robert Stack’s Airplane! lines. Still, a good movie in its own right. I was about to say a great one to call up through Netflix and watch with a large pizza, but I’m not sure you would approve of that.

                                                               — Comments —

Charlie Kennedy writes:

I understand that the makers of Airplane! bought the rights to Zero Hour so they would be legally free to use big chunks of its script verbatim. It really is impossible to watch this movie without thinking constantly of Airplane!

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