It's remarkable to be watching what appears to be the main theme behind the parody movie, "Airplane". I'm enjoying the film on two levels, the story in its period along with the characters, and as the basis of a very wonderful parody...
shareActually, "Airplane" was parodying "Airport", the hugely successful movie made in 1970 much more than this movie. However; this film was one of the first "disaster" air epics if you want to look at it that way and definitely predated Airport.
Lorelei
"I don't take this sh*t from friends--only lovers."
However in this movie you will see the scene where all the emergency vehicles are enroute to the runway, in Airplane they have those vehicles, plus beer trucks, concrete trucks etc.
I think that Airplane was really a complilation of all the prior airplane disaster movies.
All opinions are well reasoned and thought out, any similarity to reality is pure coindicence.
Actually, I've read that "Airplane!" was created as a parody of the 1957 film, "Zero Hour", in which crew and passengers are victims of food poisoning, and a passanger (also named "Ted Stryker") takes over the controls....but it is hard to watch "THATM" and not think of "Airplane!"--especially w/Robert Stack in both films....
shareYou are right the movie Airplane, it is a direct parody of Zero Hour. I think the people who made Airplane gave that movie credit. Zero Hour was written by Arthur Hailey, who actually wrote Airport. I believe the name of the characters in Zero Hour even have similer names. That is the movie I wish they will put out on DVD or even VHS.
shareI just sat down and started watching The High and the Mighty and also saw the connections to Airplane. I am a big fan of Airplane and one night came across Zero Hour. After looking it up on IMDB, I found out about ZH. I then googled it and was able to locate a copy on VHS that I purchased from a place in Canada. Unfortunately, I do not remember the source. Just wanted to let you know, if you search you might be able to get a copy.
I am looking at it too. It is not suppose to be funny, but it is because when I heard Robert Stack reminincing about his past while the navigator is talking about his hussy wife, it reminds me of Airplane. So it was hilarious. I have been cracking up ever since. All we need is one of the passengers and the stewardess taking over the plane.
I understand that Airplane is a direct parody of Zero Hour but this sure comes close enough. I am looking at another flashback, this time it is the navigator looking at his wife talking to him on a tray. Oh boy now he admits he has made a mistake about the fuel and the milage. All heck is probably going to break loose soon. LOL Oh BTW did you notice how that woman aged from the 8 year old piture? Not me. She looks the same to me. Plus he has grey hair, so he is no spring chicken either. Who is he looking for a real "little girl" like he is calling her?
Might have been a topnotch thriller for its unsophisticated time, but a what a cliche-ridden cavalcade of stereotyped malarky it is now! I get the feeling the screenwriter never got out of Manhattan and based everything on his own tunnel vision perception of "drama over the high seas".
"Can't find my shoe, Clyde. Believe the dog got it."
Onehipdad,
This movie came out in 1956. It was the granddaddy of later airplane disaster movies. How then could they have a cliched script? I believe they paved the way for the other movies, set the standard so to speak and basically they threw the book away after this classic. BTW, enough cliches in my post? ;-)
Airplane was based on several aircraft disaster movies. Beside the High and the Mighty, Zero Hour and Fate is the Hunter were also used for ideas. I would say most of it was taken from Zero Hour
shareSorry Trashcann...I don't see any of "fate is the hunter in THATM....other than both books were written by Ernest K. Gann.
BTW: The film "Fate is the Hunter" has NOTHING to do with the book which was Gann's aeronautical autobiography...aside from the title and a couple of ideas Gann touches on briefly (like accident investigation and a fatalistic view that the title implies)in his book).
If you don't like the FITH film, I can recommend still highly the book...a real classic for aviation buffs (and anyone who enjoys good writing) and a great look at the early days of airlines.
Trashcann is right about Airplane being a parody of Zero Hour. Many scenes from Zero Hour are spoofed almost verbatim in Airplane. The scene with Peter Graves and Joey in the cockpit, for example. Anyway, Zero Hour is good for a chuckle to anyone who has memorized Airplane.
They took the script from Zero Hour and rewrote is as a comedy. Airplane! was a "parody" of many films including Robert Stack getting slapped and the screaming woman from TH&THM.
shareActually, Airplane! spoofed both of Arthur Hailey's novels -- "Runway Zero-Eight," on which the film, "Zero Hour" was based, and "Airport!" with the same name as the movie, as well as all of the sequels.
Actually, I read the book, "Runway Zero-Eight," as a kid and enjoyed it a lot -- so you can imagine my glee when they made a movie of it.
However, TH&TM, made a much bigger impression on me than ZH because it was intended to be a drama from the beginning, and it had everything we come to expect in a disaster movie.
I will always remember the scene with the passenger's luggage being thrown out the door.
I have to agree. Watching this reminds me more of Airplane than most of the others and the fact Robert Stack is in it makes it even more so. Kind of funny, but yeah this has got to be at least one of the movies Airplane was parodying.
Kind of hard to take it seriously after seeing Airplane.
Funny in a wrong sort of way.
They who give up liberty to
obtain a temporary safety deserve
neither liberty or safety
I just saw the movie today, and I could not keep a straight face. For almost every scene in this movie, I had images of a parallel scene in Airplane!.
Overall, it was a good movie. I loved the way people 'dressed up' for airflight back then. The Technicolor was great. The acting was good, but at times a little campy.
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Agree. If you have seen 'Airplane!' more than once, you will want to see 'Zero Hour!' at least once. ZH does have large chunks of dialogue lifted out of it and put into A!. It is fun to watch ZH and supply the missing gags from A! as you go. Thus:
MAN TALKING DOWN PILOT(grimly): All right, flying a plane is just like riding a bicycle....
VIEWER(sotto voce): ....it's just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.
MAN: .....you never really forget how.
I have ordered the Migh and the Heighty, am looking forward to it. I didn't know Wayne made a disaster movie. And Robert Stack is in it? and panics, and gets slapped? Maybe the A! people knew about this, and were thrilled when they were able to get Stack for their own movie. But maybe not; in the special edition DVD, the directors say they weren't going to have a slap, that was suggested by the actress in the hysterical-woman part.
I was in hysterics when the pilot said "This one's a sweater," and when Sally (I think that was her name) was putting on makeup.
A passion junkie's fix is never satisfied -The Goo Goo Dolls/Strange Love
Just saw "The High and The Mighty" --- It's hard to believe that the makers of "Airplane" didn't use some of the nuts and bolts from this movie as a source of parody. I not saying that it was the primary source -but too much of the atmosphere of Airplane (in a twisted form) can be found in THATM.
shareYep, I found myself chuckling quite a few times watching scenes in this that were obviously the foundation for some of the scenes in Airplane. Airplane's "McCroskey" (Loyd Bridges) and THATM's "Tim Garfield" (Regis Toomey) were almost an exact match. Pacing around, confronted by the reporters, looking at the window, etc. I was almost waiting for him to light his cigar and mumble "I picked a bad time to quit cigars." And I expected Stephen Stucker to unplug the runway lights after they requested the them turned up 'full blast'. And then there were the crash vehicles rolling out onto the field, etc. Those plus all those character flash backs... lots of similarities.
Considering that they studied this film, "Zero Hour" (which I have yet to see), and several other films to write Airplane, hat's off to Jim Abrahams & David Zucker for being able to remain composed enough to finish it, (I and ordinary mortals would have died laughing and never gotten it done.)
Yes, indeed.
I became enthralled with THatM quite a few years ago. Got the book in hardback and it's falling apart now.
I'm now very glad I did when I did for the additional reason that it's easy to see how people who've seen "Airplane!" would have a hard time putting the comedy aside to appreciate THatM seriously.
You're also correct (as is acknowledged on the "Airplane!" trivia track) that the makers of the comedy drew from several sources, including THatM, though the central one was "Zero Hour."
Must have read dozens of posts by youngsters who either can't pay attention long enough or were disappointed because nobody in THATM blew up any automobiles. About five years ago I had to start walking out of movie theaters; just not enough content in there to keep an observant brain alive. Now that the lost art of making films has been replaced by machines (and, apparently, viewed by machines), the hokey old movies have taken on a new appeal. I saw THATM over a dozen times back in the 50's, and I just watched my DVD copy today for about the 8th or 9th time since I bought it. Yes, all the nice little dramas that lesser filmmakers have copied for the past half-century do look like cliches today. And why wouldn't they? It's a cliche to say that old flicks like this were made for grownups who've been around the block a few times. New viewers like to say there's "no action" (meaning, I think, that there are sequences in this movie in which no camera movement or cuts occur for well over two minutes, which can be a severe ordeal for ADD victims who've been over-programmed by MTV, and which pose acting and production challenges that I seriously doubt most of today's performers and film makers could withstand).
I must confess that I walked out on Airport! after the first hour. It was an unbearably paltry joke of poor movie making, and I felt really embarrassed for Charlton Heston, who must have known from the start that movies of that ilk were far, far beneath him. I chuckled a bit at Airplane!, which did have its moments but which, I'm afraid, but a bit too juvenile for my taste. I even had the temerity to walk out on "The Bourne Identity" after Bourne's teentsy little sedan just scooted merrily away from a wreck with three autos more than eight times its weight (and they say THATM is "unbelievable"? No more so than Star Wars).
Most youngsters don't care for this film, and I can understand that. But I do see dozens of remarks here revealing that many viewers simply weren't (or probably couldn't) pay attention. So for those who might enjoy this antique, here's what I see: while many of its characters and plot mechanics have become cliche since 1954, much of it was not so routine in 1954. I continue to marvel at many aspects of this movie: Wellman's directing and sense of dramatic timing are impeccable. The performances seem meticulously arranged and even seem, incredibly, rather sophisticated to anyone who remembers what the average 1954 blockbusters looked like. The cinematography still stands out, even among many film historians, as a series of photographic gems and one of the first successful efforts at overcoming the almost criminal proportions of dumb film formats like CinemaScope. Tiomkins' score can be faulted at times for sheer bombast (well, but that's the "sound" that Warner Brothers insisted on in those days), but when the score is good it's very nearly mesmerizing. Of course, it's difficult to pay attention to the old film nowadays because the characters mostly kept their clothes on and didn't bother quite so much with sex (I believe emotions and the subtleties of relationship were a little more complicated back then).
I'll admit, THATM is corn. But as someone -- a youngster, actually -- once remarked to me, "Yeah, but it's GOOD corn!". Many people like this movie not because it's sensational and techno-whatsis, but because it's one of those exceptional films in which just about every moment, including the corny ones, are quite well done. Now and then, today, you see a few movies that can make that claim. The same was true 55 years ago.
Another reason for watching this movie: the color restoral is visually stunning. If you watch it on a well-calibrated CRT or projection setup, you'll see what I mean. If you're watching this DVD on a cheap Sanyo or an LCD, you're wasting your time.
Nitpicky
cliche and corn is one thing, but I have an easier time believing in characters and suspending disbelief when I watch an mgm musical from the 30's, than I do from this movie. it was the overly forced and god awful dialogue that killed it for me. Call it a product of the times and talk about how this was 1954 till you're blue in the face, but I watch tons of movies from the 40's and 50's and I don't have the problem with those movies that I do with this one
shareI haven't seen Zero Hour and as a fan of Airplane! I now know I should. I'm sure you are all correct about it having been the main source material but the above poster is right about The High and the Mighty having provided much of the atmosphere.
I'd like to add one thing I noticed. Right when the plane is touching down at the end of both movies, a women's chorus is chanting in the background. In Airplane! (of course) this goes on too long and is pretty screechy and exaggerated. The parallel is unmistakable.
It's hard to take this movie seriously if you see Airplane before you see it. Robert Stack is the problem.
No, the movie that Airplane lampoons is Zero Hour. They not only share a nearly identical plot, but many lines of dialogue, but there are a few scenes that look to be taken from this film, such as the emergency vehicles "racing" into position..
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