Zero Hour! *** (1957, Dana Andrews, Sterling Hayden, Linda Darnell) – Classic Movie Review 671

The 1957 film Zero Hour! screenplay is used almost verbatim for its much more famous spoof Airplane!, including the hero being named Ted Striker.

Dana Andrews stars in the 1957 drama film Zero Hour! as a disturbed, scared-to-fly former World War Two airman aboard an airplane when a Canadian airline crew and its passengers succumb to food poisoning and he has to man up and save the day when the pilot can’t fly the aircraft.

This 1957 forerunner of the 1970s vogue for disaster movies has been spoofed so often that it is sometimes hard to take seriously, most notably of course in 1980’s Airplane!, in a case of the send-up becoming much more famous than the original.

But still Zero Hour! works quite nicely as a tense, modest thriller and remains entertaining and suspenseful thanks to the rock-solid playing and Arthur Hailey’s effective story based on his own teleplay for his 1956 original television drama Flight into Danger, with James Doohan. Hailey co-writes the screenplay with the director Hall Bartlett.

Zero Hour! boasts one of those Fifties B-movie casts that made many of those films of the era so special. Underrated star Dana Andrews is a stalwart hero as Lieutenant Ted Stryker, Sterling Hayden gives a sterling turn as the ground controller Captain Martin Treleaven, and Linda Darnell is useful as Stryker’s wife Ellen Stryker.

Also in the cast are Elroy Hirsch as the pilot Captain Bill Wilson, Jerry Paris as Tony Decker, Geoffrey Toone as Dr Baird, Peggy King as stewardess Janet Turner, Charles Quinlivan as Harry Burdick, John Ashley as a pop star, Willis Bouchey, David Thursby and Hope Summers.

It was shot from 8 May 1957 to 28 May 1957, with retakes on 23 and 24 July 1957. The main location is Santa Ana, California. Nightclub and TV performer Peggy King makes her feature film debut, also recording the song Zero Hour for Columbia Records.

Vancouver-born Star Trek actor James Doohan played Ted Stryker in Hailey’s original 1956 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation teleplay Flight into Danger. Hailey later wrote a 1958 novel version with John Castle titled Flight Into Danger: Runway Zero-Eight.

The film was remade as the 1971 TV movie Terror in the Sky, a Movie of the Week special, with Doug McClure in the Ted Stryker role but renamed George Spencer.

Because Zero Hour! and Airplane! were both Paramount features, David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams were able to use the Zero Hour! screenplay almost verbatim for Airplane!, including the hero being named Ted Striker.

Born on April 5 1920 in Luton, England, Hailey became a full-time author in 1956 after the success of Flight into Danger. Sticking with the theme, Hailey also wrote the novel Airport (the basis of the movie series) as well as Hotel, which spawned a TV movie and series. Hailey, who died of a stroke in his sleep aged 84 on November 24 2004, said: ‘I don’t think I have really invented anybody. I have drawn on life.’

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 671 derekwinnert.com

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