Zero Hour: The Aviation Thriller Behind Airplane
A former military pilot boards a passenger flight hoping to save his marriage. Instead, he must take the controls when food poisoning incapacitates the pilots. That emergency drives Zero Hour, the 1957 aviation thriller whose plot and dialogue later became the foundation of Airplane. Dana Andrews plays Ted Stryker, a man burdened by wartime guilt and afraid to fly again.
Arthur Hailey first developed the situation for Flight into Danger, a Canadian television play broadcast in 1956. James Doohan played George Spencer, the earlier version of the central character. For the feature adaptation, Hall Bartlett directed from a screenplay he wrote with Hailey and John Champion. Paramount released the film, with Linda Darnell playing Stryker's wife Ellen and Sterling Hayden playing Captain Martin Treleaven. Principal filming took place in May 1957, with additional work in July, mainly in Santa Ana, California. Singer and television performer Peggy King played stewardess Janet Turner and also recorded a song tied to the release. William Conrad narrated the film. John F. Warren handled cinematography, John C. Fuller edited it, and Ted Dale and Arthur Hamilton received music credits.
Stryker's trouble in Zero Hour begins before he reaches the airport. During the closing days of the Second World War, a command decision led to the deaths of six members of his Royal Air Force fighter squadron. Years later in Winnipeg, guilt, depression and anxiety have kept him from flying and unsettled his working life. At home, he finds a note saying Ellen is taking their son Joey to Vancouver and leaving him. He rushes to board their flight and asks for another chance. Ellen's reply centers on lost respect.
Janet Turner serves a choice of lamb chops or grilled halibut aboard the flight. Passengers and the co-pilot begin to fall ill, and a doctor identifies the fish as the cause. The pilot also becomes too sick to fly, setting the autopilot before losing consciousness. Stryker is the only passenger with flying experience, but he has not flown for 10 years and has never handled an aircraft this large. Fog rules out landing at Calgary or other airports east of the Canadian Rockies. The flight must continue toward Vancouver, leaving a reluctant passenger with responsibility for the people aboard. The flight is operated by Cross-Canada Air Lines aboard a Douglas DC-4. The doctor aboard is Dr. Baird, played by Geoffrey Toone; Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch plays Captain Bill Wilson.
At Vancouver Airport, Treleaven is summoned to guide the landing. He was Stryker's superior during the war and blames him for the squadron deaths, so their working relationship begins under considerable strain. Ellen enters the cockpit to manage the radio while her husband learns the aircraft's controls with instructions from the ground. Vancouver is also covered in fog. Treleaven tells Stryker to circle until conditions improve, but the passengers need treatment urgently. Stryker chooses to land immediately. The landing is rough, yet no passengers are injured, and his actions regain the respect of both his wife and his former commander.
Jerry Zucker, David Zucker and Jim Abrahams based their parody Airplane on Zero Hour. They obtained the official remake rights for $2,500. Jerry Zucker described the thriller as a classically structured film. The new film appeared in 1980.
Critical reactions to the thriller differed. The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther praised its script. He singled out Dana Andrews and Sterling Hayden as first-rate, hard and unrelenting in their roles. TIME was less enthusiastic, calling the film an inflated version of the television play. Its assessment distinguished the moral struggle, which it thought came off fairly well, from a general situation it found patently contrived. Zero Hour was an American disaster film with an English-language script. Toone had previously played Treleaven in the American television remake of Flight into Danger on NBC. John Ashley has a small role as a pop star seen on television, with vocals provided by Duke Mitchell.
The aviation story also traveled through other adaptations. In 1971 it became the television movie Terror in the Sky, with Doug McClure playing the pilot character under his earlier name, George Spencer. Hailey and John Castle had developed a novel from the same plot in 1958, drawing more closely on the television version. Hailey later wrote Airport, published in 1968, which led to its own film franchise. That series also became material for Airplane and its sequel. The original feature was released on November 13, 1957, and runs 81 minutes.
- Zero Hour! - Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
- Airplane! - National Film Registry essay — www.loc.gov