Zero Hour! (1957) · 8:28am Jul 30th, 2020
I get the feeling that Princess Luna has the worst job out of the princesses. I'm not talking about raising the moon and getting no real credit for it because apparently every horse in the land goes to bed at a sensible time. By the way what is a sensible time? I say go to bed when you're tired. Who cares if it's 10 pm or seventy five hours from now. But I digress.
Princess Luna has the worst job because she walks in other ponies dreams and I guess tries to help sort out there issues for better mental health. You know she's not visiting those ponies going through puberty though. I mean honestly that would be the worst. You hear what sounds like the signs of trauma throw open the door to some young colt's mind and see things that in a thousand years give you nightmares.
That's probably really why she through a fit. She needed time away from all the weird dreams the puberty set has. Honestly who can blame her? How could she look anyone else in the eye.
"Hi Princess Luna! Isn't it a fine day?"
"Baits I've seen more of your mother than I'd care to thanks to you! Go run some motel in the desert and stay away from me!" That's the rational answer I think.
In 1955 Arthur Hailey wrote a teleplay called Flight into Danger. It was super popular and was turned into a novel by a couple of different names and a movie of a couple of different names. Eventually he'd go on to write another novel called Airport that was also very popular and spawned a series of movies. That's not important right now. What is important is the fact that one of those movies was called Zero Hour!
Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews) is a former squadron leader who flew a doomed mission that led to several of the men under him to fly too ... low and crash. Now he's the only one who is keeping his war record alive and has been unable to commit to any sort of ... job. This sounds familiar doesn't it. Well, if it sounds familiar it's because in 1980 a little movie called Airplane! came out and is frankly Zero Hour! but with jokes. In fact many scenes of Airplane! have been cribbed from Zero Hour!
It's for that reason Airplane! won the best adapted screenplay from another medium award from the writers guild.
The thing about Zero Hour! though is that it's not a bad little drama. The cast is peppered with competent actors like Dana Andrews, Sterling Hayden and Linda Darnell. Like Airplane! it also has a then famous celebrity sports guy in one of the pilot seats in Elroy "Crazy Legs' Hirsch instead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The performances are solid throughout and it does have bits that are unintentionally funny. For example, at one point in order to stave off the food poisoning the doctor injects one of the pilots with morphine. I don't know how that's supposed to work but I kind of wanna fly with that doctor. Just saying. There's also this intoxicated Irish passenger who is just a delight and really loves Canadian football (the flight is from Winnipeg to Vancouver not Los Angeles to Chicago).
Anyway, I think that Zero Hour! deserves at least a little more recognition than it gets. The only real downside to this movie is that honestly if you've seen Airplane! you will be filling in all of the punchlines along the way. Even so, it's worth a watch.
Dead Bodies: 15
Breasts: 0
Airplanes being shot down
Airplanes crashing into the ground
Gratuitous use of a hand puppet
Gratuitous Elvis type of guy on the TV
Stock footage fu
Panicked female passenger fu
Different characters saying the lines you remember fu
Shout outs:
Dana Andrews as Ted Stryker the squadron leader who has PTSD and knows has to handle a plane that is, "Sluggish like a wet sponge."
Sterling Hayden as Captain Martin Treleaven who picked the wrong week to quit smoking.
Linda Darnell as Ellen Stryker who doesn't think Ted can fly the plane
David Thursby as Whitmond the guy who loves whiskey and Canadian football for saying, "They feed you lunch and then they want it back!"
Looks like I picked the wrong time to quit sniffing glue.
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Surely you can't be serious.
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I’m very serious. And don’t call me Shirley.
It's funny to think of a serious Airplane! The Airport movies hit in that similar area, though they're over-serious enough to be perfect for a night of B-movie riffing.
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Most of the disaster movies really are ripe for the picking that's for sure! It's kind of amazing who acted in a bunch of those movies too. I think one of the pseudo disaster movies Rollercoaster has one of the silliest ending where the hero pursues the villain over various rides. It's odd.