Murder on Flight 502 (TV 1975)

Left in the lounge for first-class passengers, a letter warns of murders on Flight 502 -- and the warning is received a day early.

Director:

George McCowan

Writer:

David P. Harmon

Stars:

Ralph Bellamy, Polly Bergen, Theodore Bikel

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ralph Bellamy	...	Dr. Kenyon Walker
Polly Bergen	...	Mona Briarly
Theodore Bikel	...	Otto Gruenwaldt
Sonny Bono	...	Jack Marshall
Dane Clark	...	Ray Garwood
Laraine Day	...	Claire Garwood
Fernando Lamas	...	Paul Barons
George Maharis	...	Robert Davenport
Farrah Fawcett	...	Karen White (as Farrah Fawcett-Majors)
Hugh O'Brian	...	Detective Daniel Myerson
Molly Picon	...	Ida Goldman
Walter Pidgeon	...	Charlie Parkins
Robert Stack	...	Captain Larkin
Brooke Adams	...	Vera Franklin
Danny Bonaduce	...	Millard Kensington

Storyline

A jumbo jet leaves New York. After the plane has departed, a note is found in the first class lounge with an ominous message left by a passenger threatening to kill some of the passengers. At first it is thought to be a sick joke, but soon a man posing as a priest and a stewardess are killed. It is up to the captain to find the killer before the body count increases.

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Plot Keywords:

passenger | note | murder | killer | airport | 

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Taglines:

The wrong seat number could mean you Die!

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 November 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

Dai kûkô 75: Sukai panikku

Company Credits

Production Co:

Spelling-Goldberg Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The uniforms worn by the airlines female crew members are actual TWA Stewardess uniforms worn during the winter months from 1968-1971. The same uniforms can be seen at the end of Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can".

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Goofs

The passengers are supposedly sitting in the First Class lounge at JFK, although the Theme Building at LAX is clearly visible in the background.

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Connections

Referenced in Airplane! (1980)

User Reviews

Tacky whodunit at 38,000 ft.

747 en-route to London from New York is discovered to have a psychopath on board. Spelling-Goldberg TV-movie apes the theatrical plane-disaster films which were all the rage throughout the 1970s. The cast is a bizarre mixture of old and new faces, with Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Brooke Adams as stewardesses, Sonny Bono as a has-been musician, Polly Bergen as a flirtatious, drunken writer, Molly Picon and Walter Pidgeon as chummy oldsters, Hugh O'Brian (looking like Hugh Hefner) as a police detective, Danny Bonaduce as a 13-year-old prankster, and Robert Stack in the Charlton Heston role of the no-nonsense pilot (there are two other Stacks listed in the credits, perhaps making this a family affair). The low-budget doesn't allow the performers much to room to emote, with most of the in-flight action confined to First Class and the cockpit. There's also some hideous stock footage of emergency vehicles on the ground, as well as tiresome sidebars to George Maharis playing a security chief at Kennedy Airport with a toothache. The mystery surrounding stolen money gets muddled up alongside chatter about a bank robbery and a cop who was murdered, and a plot twist involving Farrah's character is just shucked off at the end. There's dumb-fun in watching this thing play out--if you're not too demanding--though one persistent question remains: why was the priest wearing fingernail polish?