Zero Hour! (1957)

I was only a few minutes into Zero Hour! when I recognized the name Ted Striker or, as it is spelled in the movie, Ted Stryker. The name of the protagonist of this 1957 thriller, as played by Dana Andrews, is the same as the protagonist of 1980’s Airplane!, as played by Robert Hays. Surely, that’s just a coincidence, I thought. But as the movie played on, I recognized a myriad of other similarities. So, I paused the movie and did some quick fact-checking. And, sure enough, I discovered that Zero Hour! was, in fact, the source material for the majority of Airplane!‘s script.

I’d always assumed that the 1980 comedy was riffing on the Airport movies of the 1970s. And, it was, to an extent. But Airplane! is a de facto remake of Zero Hour! (Even the exclamation mark in the title was a take on the earlier movie.) So, once I resumed watching Zero Hour!, it was hard to not compare it to its more recent version.

Lt. Ted Stryker (Andrews) is a former WWII fighter pilot. In the war, he was responsible for the death of six pilots when he accidentally commanded them to fly into the ground during bad weather. Suffering PTSD as a result, Ted has drifted from job to job and has had trouble keeping his marriage together. Coming home from a promising job interview, Ted finds a note from his wife, Ellen (Linda Darnell,) stating that’s she’s had enough. She’s leaving and taking their son, Joey, with her. Ted follows them to the airport, buys a ticket on their flight, and tries to persuade Ellen that she should come back to him.

Meanwhile, the plane — on its way to Vancouver — hits some troublesome weather. When food poisoning takes out both pilots, the remaining crew — which seems to consist of one stewardess named Janet (Peggy King) — tries to find someone onboard with flying experience. Of course, as luck should have it, only Ted Stryker can fly a plane. Can he face his fears and safely land the plane? Will he win back the respect of his wife? Will Joey visit the cockpit?

Admittedly, the plot of Zero Hour! exemplifies simplicity. The script was co-written by Arthur Hailey, who would go on to write Airport, the novel that would spawn the 1970s film franchise that I thought inspired Airplane! Unfortunately, it’s easy to see why so much of the dialogue of Airplane! was lifted verbatim from this film. Almost all of it is unintentionally hilarious. Even the line, “It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking” originates here. (And it’s almost as funny even in the serious context in which it is uttered.)

On its own merits, Zero Hour! is a perfectly serviceable B-movie thriller. Even with its laughable dialogue, overuse of airplane stock footage, and limited set design, strong performances from Dana Andrews and Sterling Hayden keep it interesting. But it really shines as the first part of a double feature with Airplane!