Absolutely Fantastic

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This one is kind of "Airport" meets "Airplane", combining a mid-air emergency, (not the one in the actual "Airplane" which is based on another film from this period called "Zero Hour"), with goofy scenes involving the mostly silly passengers and their personal stories that would have looked appropriate in an "Airplane" film with no comic embellishments. The director chooses to introduce us to the passengers by zooming in on their faces, graying out the rest of the picture and having them speak their thoughts. There's also major flashbacks about the personal problems of the main characters. As mentioned in other reviews a couple of characters seem to be shouting their lines as if we- or they- were hearing impaired. And stewardess Ann Francis smiles sweetly and issues a wise-crack as the plane is going down. These elements of the film make it major candidate for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" or one of the Medved brother's books on the worst movies of all time. But that isn't what I remembered from this film many years after I first saw it. Ephraim Zimbalest Jr., the s tar of 77 Sunset Strip, and Troy Donahue, of "Surfside 6" and "A Summer Place" are in an Air Force jet flying west. As they were popular stars, one assumes they will make it though the picture. We are introduced to their back stories: a failed marriage and a pregnant girlfriend, (the same problem Troy had in "A Summer Place", the theme of which is played in a restaurant scene). These issues will go unresolved. Then suddenly the passenger plane flying east from the west coast shows up and the planes are coming right at each other. The smaller plane bounces off the bottom of the larger one, taking out an engine from the larger one, then tumbles away and explodes- an explosion that makes it clear that the Zimbalest and Donahue characters were killed instantly. This had the same impact on me that the realization that Janet Leigh's character in "Psycho" is really dead had on me. I just didn't expect it and so that stayed with me all these years. because of that, I just had to watch the film again and came to realize how silly the rest of it is. I wonder what I'll remember years from now?

And it isn't until all the necessary back stories are told that we get to the crux of the matter--the fact that an airliner and a two-man jet plane are on a collision course. DANA ANDREWS is the tense pilot at the controls of the airliner and EFREM ZIMBALIST, JR. is in the small plane with TROY DONAHUE.Unfortunately, none of the back stories are really interesting enough to invoke anything more than moderate interest, but at least we get to see ANNE FRANCIS as an attractive stewardess saddled with some bad dialogue and a lifeless romance with JOHN KERR.The story only gets into high gear late in the proceedings and by that time you'll notice that the storytelling technique is the same one used to even lesser advantage in THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY.Summing up: Nothing special but worth a look as an example of what eventually led to all those Airport movies of the '70s.Trivia note: A diner scene with Troy Donahue and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. has the juke box playing "The Theme from A Summer Place," Donahue's hit film from the year before.

One of the first modern day airline disaster movies, this 1961 film contains all the elements of suspense, humor and drama that one would expect of its genre. With the only drawback of a weak supporting cast, the story line is a solid one.In this film, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. plays a navy pilot on a collision course with a commercial jet piloted by Dana Andrews. Years later, in one of the later Airport series, the roles are reversed and Andrews plays the pilot of a small plane on a collision course with a commercial aircraft piloted by Efrem Zimbalist.Troy Donahue does a creditable job as a young sailor hitching a ride with Zimbalist to get home. An interesting device in this film is the close-up thought technique, particularly when used with the character played by Keenan Wynn.If you consider this film only among the other members of its generation, it comes out well.

The disaster does not occur until the last half-hour of this frenzied time capsule. With a motley group of passengers on an aircraft, including a stunning stewardess (Anne Francis) in love with the co-pilot (John Kerr), each time a passenger has thoughts, the camera zooms in for a closeup, with the actor's thoughts voiced in the background. It's a kick! My favorite character is Jean Willes, a beauty in the Ava Gardner mold, portraying a thrice-married woman who sits next to an old boyfriend (Keenan Wynn), who does not recognize her. She still is stewing even after the air disaster. When the aircraft is hit by a smaller plane, Francis advises passengers to get ready for a crash position, and to take false teeth out, even jokingly saying she won't tell anyone. All this when they don't even know that they will live or die! Trivia note: Dana Andrews pilots the big aircraft, while Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. commands the small plane; in 1974 their roles were reversed for the similar "Airport 1975."