Zero Hour! (1957)

Having recently rewatched Airplane!, it occurred to me that I still had not seen the movie that directly inspired it, 1957's Zero Hour! starring Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell. Zero Hour! was based on a story by Arthur Hailey, who later gave us the novel Airport. It's also a movie that's practically impossible to watch with a straight face today.

Zero Hour! concerns Ted Striker(Andrews), who leads a World War II bombing raid into disaster, costing the lives of six men. No mention is made if one of them happened to be named George Zipp, but we'll assume so. He moves back to Canada and in 1956 is on the verge of getting a new job, his 13th in ten years. When he gets home, he finds that his wife (Darnell) is leaving on a plane for Vancouver with his little boy, planning to leave him forever. He buys a last second ticket for the flight (you could do that in those days) and gets onboard, hoping to convince his wife to change her mind. Disaster falls when everyone who eats fish--including the crew and Striker's young son--gets a bad case of food poisoning. Doctor Baird (Geoffrey Toone) informs Striker that he's their only hope. Vancouver Airport head Harry Burdick (Charles Quinlivan) brings in Captain Martin Trevealan (Sterling Hayden) to try to talk Striker down. Trevealan and Striker flew together during the war and have some animosity towards one another. Can Striker get the plane safely down and save all the passengers? Or will he crack up under pressure and crash the plane into the mountains? The people are getting sicker, the fogger is getting thicker, and Leon is getting larger.

I always heard that Airplane! cribbed a lot from this movie. Just how much was cribbed wasn't made clear until I actually watched it. You may have heard that ZAZ took scenes, situations, and dialogue from Zero Hour! for Airplane!, but what you may not know is just how dead on.

Elaine's line about not being able to love someone you don't respect? Check.
The doctor's line about not only finding someone who can fly this plane but who didn't have fish for dinner? Check.
Striker's line about "I may bend your precious airplane but I'll get her down"? check
"You'll have to talk him right down to the ground"? Check

And so on and so forth. I freely admit that I had to stop the movie for a couple of minutes from laughing so hard when I heard the "looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking" line here. I'm talking word for word here.

Mind you, Zero Hour! is not intended to be a comedy. If you can actually put Airplane! out of your head, it's a tight little thriller. The cast is good and everyone does their parts professionally, even sincerely. Andrews and Darnell were always good actors and they do their jobs well here. It's not that this is a bad movie at all. It's a decent--I would even say pretty good--movie at that.

The problem is, anyone who has seen Airplane! any number of times is bound to finish the jokes as soon as they start hearing the lines. When Burdick says, "Hey, Johnny, hope about some coffee", you can't help but say to yourself "No thanks" even if Johnny doesn't say it in this movie. When Darnell is working the radio and describing the flying conditions to Hayden, you almost expect Andrews to say "It's a damn good thing he doesn't know how much I hate his guts" and her to repeat it. When the plane captain's wife shows up in the tower at the end of the movie, you expect her to start groping Hayden as he's trying to talk Andrews down.

I almost feel guilty about laughing at this movie. But I guess in 2014, it just can't be helped. If you've never seen Airplane!--and there are such people I am told--you'll probably appreciate this more as the thriller it's intended to be. If you have seen Airplane!, you'll still want to see this just to see where the idea came from. Like I said, it's a good movie and well worth watching at least once.

Yes, I am serious about that. And don't call me Shirley.