Thanks for the memories!

Must See Movie...

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Friends since their WWII days as part of the Flying Tigers, Meeker's character is now a Lt. (I think) on the Salt Lake City police force while Janssen, whose character misses the good old days and feels somewhat disconnected with things as they are in the present day of 1973, is a radio station helicopter traffic announcer. During the course of his work one day, he spots a bank robbery in progress and, seeing the thieves take a young lady hostage and being aware that they will likely escape if he doesn't intervene, decides to follow them in his copter. Before long, he becomes much more involved with this scenario than he imagined he would be. The interchanges between Janssen and Meeker during the pursuit, as well as the final encounter between the forces of law & order and the criminals, are indeed memorable and worth a look.

I've seen "Birds of Prey" only once, decades ago, but I remember it as great fun. It's also a piece of cultural history. It first aired on TV in January 1973, as the U.S. war in Vietnam was officially rushing to an end, and it's a cops-and-robbers adventure about helicopters, the chariots of choice of that conflict.The setting is a big city in the American West. The villains are robbers -- Vietnam vets, perhaps? -- who make their getaway by chopper. The squabbling heroes are two middle-aged men who served together in World War II. One of them (played by Ralph Meeker) is now a successful bureaucrat, serving as the city's police chief. The other (played by David Janssen) is somewhere between a free spirit and a ne'er-do-well, a man who flies a traffic helicopter to earn a living but has never left behind the memories of the air war of his youth. When the robbers take to the skies, the battle of the generations is on.They didn't call such men such as Meeker's and Janssen's characters "the greatest generation" in 1973. They called them "the establishment." This movie is nostalgia for the simplicities of World War II before such nostalgia was fashionable.If the DVD version does indeed feature modern rock instead of the original movie's 1940s sound track, it's a shame. But maybe it's inevitable. Now that the World War II veterans have grown old and the Vietnam veterans have taken their place in the middle-aged zone, few viewers would recognize the great big band standards. Alas, time flies. Like a bird.

I'll add to the many comments here on this movie. It came at the tail-end of the "t.v. movie" phenomenon of the late 60's and early 70's which along with several other films from this period, elevated television from the droll tired formulas of the past to exciting "theatrical quality" (at least by early 70's standards!) films which featured intelligent scripting and veteran actors who were mostly underrated even when they weren't 'veteran'. David Janssen never escaped his "fugitive" typecasting but "Birds of Prey" was the finest film he made. To my buddy and I from those days this was the most incredible and exciting film on a small screen with the sudden interest in Heli's or "choppers" as they came to be called was directly the result of films like this one. Everybody was watching all those 'bitchin' assault helicopters from the Vietnam war era on the 6 o'clock news and this movie came at the end of the Vietnam conflict and is a period piece for that with a 'bad guy' who is an ex-Vietnam chopper pilot assisting in a robbery with a spectacular escape (for those days).As someone mentioned the score was 'replaced' from the swing-era big band stuff Harry listens to which is like the music running through his mind as he pursues these guys r e l e n t l e s s l y. It is integral to the story and somebody should have tried to get the music cleared for re-use in this classic movie. This happens all to often nowadays with these types of films from this era.The remake of this film is crap---it does not capture the flavor of the original. If this story intrigues you, check out this one which had incredible chopper stunts for those days and even today in some scenes.My buddy and I would watch this movie anytime they showed it--day or night. Then it sadly disappeared from syndication about 15 years ago.To all the 'youngins' out there it might seem like a bit of a yawn in light of all those Hollywood spectaculars but this movie is widely studied by budding film students for it's pacing and stunt work. It makes an old doddering grey-beard like myself forget his physical infirmities and remember the excitement of the post-nam era.This movie is a nostalgia trip for me but my wife is non-plussed. It's not a "chick-flick" then or now! Phil

...and then some. David Janssen plays a military-vet-turned-newschopper-pilot in Salt Lake City who happens upon a bank robbery involving the baddies, a female hostage and an Aerospatiale Llama; Thus, it's off to the rescue in his trusty Hughes 500D, tailing the baddies and along the way: Rescuing the female hostage, blockading a fuel truck on the freeway for a fill-up, and camping out under the stars in the desert wilds (Flying helos that low at night isn't entirely safe, as the Army can adequately prove). In the climactic ending, both helicopters duel it out at an abandoned desert airstrip where the baddies and law converge, and finally, David's character's Hughes 500 collides with the Llama in mid-air. But the story resumes in a dare-to-sequel ending as the awaiting baddies flee in a Cessna 206, with the law in hot pursuit. Excellent action/adventure movie from the '70s, should be archived alongside the greats as "Two-Lane Blacktop", "Vanishing Point" and "Duel".