This airplane disaster film is not particularly well executed and has as hokey and predictable a plot line as you could find. It's strangely watchable, though, due to its cast of players, a fairly impressive one, even if there is no one within the cast that ranks as a major star.
Guy Madison plays a man convicted of two murders (he's innocent, of course) who is being taken back to the States from Spain by FBI man George Raft. Madison's show biz girlfriend (Virginia Mayo), not knowing what's happening, sneaks herself onto the plane as well. There is also an opera prima donna (Ilona Massey), who craves attention, Margaret Lindsay in an almost bit part as a mother escorting her teen daughter, and Argentina Brunetti as a bubble headed, irritating busybody who wants to stage a marriage on the plane between Madison and Mayo.
Best of all, though, there's George Macready, he of the silken voice and creepy demeanor, who has managed to sneak a poison seeping bomb on board, in a stupid way to commit suicide, as this poison will seep through the plane's air system to eventually kill everyone aboard. Macready has killed his daughter we hear through the dialogue (no explanation why) and is now determined to knock off himself and his wife (Anna Lee), along with everybody else.
The most unintentionally hilarious scene in the film is when Macready introduces himself to Lindsay and her teen daughter (who is afraid of the gas seeping in) and asks if he can hold her and comfort her. Now just how many mothers are going to allow a creepy looking stranger with a smooth pervert voice to hold their teenager daughter in his lap? Well Lindsay does smilingly ("Darling, this nice man wants to hold you for a little while,") and the young teenage girl agrees to do so, willingly.
This is a surprisingly entertaining one in spite of all of the nonsense, partially because it is so dumb and partially because of the cast trying to take it seriously. Oh, did I mention the fact that Madison just happens to be a former airline pilot? Now take a wild guess how that fact may work itself into the plot line.
Great shades of much later and better films on air disasters, one serious and one that is surely not serious. I know, stop calling you "surely".
Guy Madison plays a man convicted of two murders (he's innocent, of course) who is being taken back to the States from Spain by FBI man George Raft. Madison's show biz girlfriend (Virginia Mayo), not knowing what's happening, sneaks herself onto the plane as well. There is also an opera prima donna (Ilona Massey), who craves attention, Margaret Lindsay in an almost bit part as a mother escorting her teen daughter, and Argentina Brunetti as a bubble headed, irritating busybody who wants to stage a marriage on the plane between Madison and Mayo.
Best of all, though, there's George Macready, he of the silken voice and creepy demeanor, who has managed to sneak a poison seeping bomb on board, in a stupid way to commit suicide, as this poison will seep through the plane's air system to eventually kill everyone aboard. Macready has killed his daughter we hear through the dialogue (no explanation why) and is now determined to knock off himself and his wife (Anna Lee), along with everybody else.
The most unintentionally hilarious scene in the film is when Macready introduces himself to Lindsay and her teen daughter (who is afraid of the gas seeping in) and asks if he can hold her and comfort her. Now just how many mothers are going to allow a creepy looking stranger with a smooth pervert voice to hold their teenager daughter in his lap? Well Lindsay does smilingly ("Darling, this nice man wants to hold you for a little while,") and the young teenage girl agrees to do so, willingly.
This is a surprisingly entertaining one in spite of all of the nonsense, partially because it is so dumb and partially because of the cast trying to take it seriously. Oh, did I mention the fact that Madison just happens to be a former airline pilot? Now take a wild guess how that fact may work itself into the plot line.
Great shades of much later and better films on air disasters, one serious and one that is surely not serious. I know, stop calling you "surely".