Zero Hour! (1957)

Director:

Hall Bartlett

Writers:

Arthur Hailey (screenplay) &
Hall Bartlett (screenplay) ...
(more)

Release Date:

13 November 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

It Builds to the Tensest 50 Minutes in the History of the Screen!

Plot:

A routine flight turns into a major emergency as passengers and crew succumb to food poisoning - is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane...

Plot Keywords:

Airplane | Pilot | Food Poisoning | Disaster | Airport

Cast

Dana Andrews	...	Lt. Ted Stryker
Linda Darnell	...	Ellen Stryker
Sterling Hayden	...	Capt. Martin Treleaven
Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch	...	Capt. Bill Wilson
Geoffrey Toone	...	Dr. Baird
Jerry Paris	...	Tony Decker
Peggy King	...	Stewardess Janet Turner
Charles Quinlivan	...	Harry Burdick
Patricia Tiernan	...	Mrs. Joan Wilson (as Carole Eden)
Steve London	...	First Officer Walt Stewart
Jo Ann Wade	...	Treleaven's Baby Sitter
Raymond Ferrell	...	Joey Stryker
John Ashley	...	TV Singer
Willis Bouchey	...	British Army Doctor
Robert Stevenson	...	Air Traffic Controller
Maxine Cooper	...	Sick Woman on Plane
Mary Newton	...	Mrs. Purty, Landlady
David Thursby	...	Whitmond the Argo Fan
Will Sage	...	Vancouver Radar Controller
Noel Drayton	...	Vancouver Control Man
Will J. White	...	Vancouver Policeman (as Will White)
Fintan Meyler	...	Hysterical Woman
Hope Summers	...	Mrs. Summers
Larry Thor	...	Vancouver Radio Dispatcher
Richard Keith	...	Station Manager
Russell Thorson	...	Vancouver Flight Dispatcher
Arthur Hanson	...	Reporter
Roy Gordon	...	Frank Graham
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Woody Chambliss	...	Whitmond's Drinking Buddy (uncredited)
William Conrad	...	Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Duane Grey	...	Plane Passenger (uncredited)
S. John Launer	...	Vancouver Switchboard Operator (uncredited)
William H. O'Brien	...	Nightclub Waiter (uncredited)
Katherine Warren	...	Mrs. Purdy (uncredited)
John Zaremba	...	Passenger with Sick Wife (uncredited)

Directed by
Hall Bartlett

Writing credits
Arthur Hailey		(screenplay) &
Hall Bartlett		(screenplay) &
John C. Champion		(screenplay) (as John Champion)
Arthur Hailey		(teleplay "Flight Into Danger")

Produced by
John C. Champion	....	producer
Hall Bartlett	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Ted Dale

Cinematography by
John F. Warren		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
John C. Fuller

Production Design by
Boris Leven

Set Decoration by
Ross Dowd

Makeup Department
Steve Drumm	....	makeup artist
Kay Shea	....	hair stylist
Lillian Shore	....	hair stylist

Production Management
Lee Lukather	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Buddy Messinger	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Art Department
Tom Coleman	....	property master
Ben Mantz	....	sketch artist

Sound Department
Lyle Figland	....	sound recordist
Charles Grenzbach	....	sound recordist

Special Effects by
Norman O'Skeete	....	special effects
Al Henley	....	special effects (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
John P. Fulton	....	special photographic effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Thomas Morris	....	camera operator (uncredited)
Gene Polito	....	assistant camera (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Eddie Armand	....	wardrobe (as Eddie Armand Scheffer)
Joan Joseff	....	costume jeweller (uncredited)

Music Department
Ted Dale	....	conductor

Other crew
Newt Arnold	....	assistant to producer
Wink Blair	....	executive secretary
Harold Cope	....	technical advisor
Joan Eremin	....	script supervisor (as Joan Eremin Buck)
Paul Mantz	....	night aerial footage (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Bartlett-Champion Productions
• Carmel Productions
• Delta Enterprises Inc.
• Paramount Pictures

Distributors

• Paramount Pictures (1957) (USA) (theatrical)
• Warner Home Video (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Warner Bros. Television (????) (USA) (TV) (syndication)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

81 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Norway:16 | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #18728) | Sweden:15

Company:

Bartlett-Champion Productions

Trivia:

Actress Linda Darnell, who played Ellen Stryker, was actually married to an airline pilot in real life at the time the movie was filmed.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When Ted Stryker is flashing back to his men crashing their planes into the ground, the scenes show planes with German insignia on their wings. Stryker was in the Canadian Air Force.

Quotes:

Dr. Baird:Our survival hinges on one thing - finding someone who not only can fly this plane, but didn't have fish for dinner.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "NCIS: Lost and Found (#5.9)" (2007)

Soundtrack:

The Gliss Jump

Reviewing 'Zero Hour!' On Its Own Terms

Since every other reviewer here has commented on the relation between 'Zero Hour!' and its latter-day spoof 'Airplane!', let me be the first to contribute a review of 'Zero Hour!' on its own terms.

First, 'Zero Hour!' was obviously shot on a low budget. It uses a lot of stock footage - much of which is badly varied, mismatched as, for example, the airliner in the film is a four-engined DC-4 which, in the film's cuts to stock footage not only appears as a DC-4 in three different airline paint/livery schemes, but it's also represented in still other stock shots by footage of a twin-engined DC-3 and a twin-engined Convair. At the crash landing ending the model used is of a four-engined airliner which is not a DC-4 (it looks like a post-WWII British airliner whose maker/name/identification escapes me at present). Another key to the low budget is the film's inexpensive (I'm trying to be charitable) sets; and at one point a close-up of the plane's instruments are not airplane instruments at all, but a cheaply mocked-up row of three generic panel lamps above which is hand-painted LEFT-NOSE-RIGHT to represent the cockpit's landing gear lock-down indicators. One of the aerial shots of the DC-4, which appears in the film as the aircraft is on final approach, also presents a gaffe: in this stock shot the airliner's Number 4 engine's propeller is feathered - stopped! - which is absurd because in the plot the DC-4 suffers no engine failures.

Worse, though, than 'Zero Hour!'s' jumble of airliner stock footage are the obvious models used for the film's introductory combat sequence. The credits open over fine stock footage of early WWII Spitfire Mk I's in formation. But this footage gives way to models-on-wires "bathtub" shots, and I believe most, if not all, of these shots of model Spitfires and Messerschmitts were simply lifted from an earlier film (which may have been 1956's 'Reach For The Sky'). Worse still, some of the close-ups of what are supposed to be the Canadian squadron's Spitfires actually show actors (who are unrecognizable in their face-covering goggles and oxygen masks) seated in the cockpits of full-size Messerschmitt models! In one egregiously inaccurate (and thus confusion-making) small-model shot a Messerschmitt in Nazi insignia actually represents the crash of a Canadian Spitfire. But this sequence gets even worse than that: at one point it cuts to a model shot - of static-suspended models wobbled by off-screen fans - of a radial-engined Curtiss Hawk 75 painted in French Air Force camouflage and insignia (which, we are supposed to believe, is one of the in-line engined Canadian Spitfires!) "pursuing" a Messerschmitt model! The acting here is not bad - some of it is actually quite good, especially from the splendid, but chronically under-appreciated and underrated, Dana Andrews. It's the cheesy Arthur Hailey dialogue that's the real culprit that robs 'Zero Hour!' of enduring appeal (and which, I'd argue, together with the unintentionally comical plane-switching stock footage, most inspired the later spoof movie); but the cheesy dialogue's not helped, at a few points, by rapid, hectic, less than first-class editing that also betrays the low-budget on which 'Zero Hour' was produced.

The score isn't great, yet it's actually rather good - especially for a suspense film of its time. Some of the makeup is overdone - especially the excessive perspiration on the faces of the ill and the panicking aircrew and passengers and on the anxious ground controllers, which was apparently applied with a surfeit of zeal. Women's hairstyles here are reserved, but expertly done; and the costuming is quite good for a low-budget effort. Also, one of the airline office men begins the film, before he's been through any of the suspenseful trials that ensue, already wearing much more than a five o'clock shadow of whiskers: in 1957 this was most definitely not a tonsorial custom, especially for airline/technical employees - in those days a man's boss could and would call him on the carpet for having had the bad manners to have come to work so direly unshaven.

Former pro football star Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch is a trifle stiff as the captain of the airliner; but then a lot of athletes-turned-actors of that day were also rather wooden in their acting (Chuck Connors comes foremost to mind, especially in his earliest, bit parts). The rest of the supporting cast is comprised chiefly of Canadian talent who do a solid job (notwithstanding that they too labored under the often cheesy lines they were given to read) of moving the story forward and fleshing it out as well as can be expected in a low-budget film.

On its own terms, then, on the IMDb house scale of ten, I believe I have to give 'Zero Hour' 6 stars.