Zero Hour! (1957)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) These days, Zero Hour! is far better known as the thriller that most inspired the classic spoof Airplane! —but the film’s intricate production history and influence are a far more interesting tangle of names and genres. Thanks to Wikipedia, here’s a summary: In 1955, thirtysomething Canadian writer Arthur Hailey, while flying commercially between Vancouver and Toronto, came up with the idea of a flying crew being incapacitated by food poisoning, forcing a traumatized veteran to pick up the controls to land safely. His script was sold to the then-new Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which turned it into a successful 1956 live television play named Flight into Danger. That led, a year later, to this American studio remake titled Zero Hour! But it doesn’t stop there — In 1958, the story was novelized as Flight Into Danger: Runway Zero-Eight; in 1971, turned into American TV movie Terror in the Sky. In parallel, Hailey became a writer of international best-selling fame, whose famously long novels offered lavish exposés of familiar industries—the best-known of them being 1968’s Airport, which led to the 1970 film of the same name that launched the disaster-movie subgenre of the following decade… which was spoofed by Airplane! which would launch the spoof subgenre of the 1980s–1990s.   Whew — talk about tangled webs. As for Zero Hour! itself, its viewing experience can feel scattered: While viewers having seen Airplane! will have fits of unintended grinning at seeing the raw material later parodied (down to character names, specific plot points, character dialogue and stylistic devices), the film itself does remain a solid airborne thriller. The late-1950s style makes it just bombastic enough to be good fodder for parody, but it’s also very much in-line with what was done at the time. The special effects shots obviously don’t pass muster these days, but they do add a bit to the period charm of the film. I remain impressed that the film, produced by an American studio, kept the Canadian nature of the film in featuring Canadian characters going to Vancouver on their ill-fated flight. It’s still moderately involving as the thrills escalate and the rather impressive plotting all neatly slots together in a very watchable whole. I wouldn’t expect any twenty-first century viewer to see Zero Hour! and follow it with a first viewing of Airplane!, but that would be an amazing experience. Otherwise, reactions to Zero Hour! are likely to be unintended — giggling in the wrong places, either by remembering the parody over the original, or simply reacting incredulously to the overblown style of late-1950s thrillers. I quite liked it, but I really can’t guarantee the same thing for anyone else.