Zero Hour!

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?

Zero Hour! surprised me. Given that Airplane spoofs it, I thought it would be a hokey "Camp classic" - instead its a low-budget, tight little thriller, that lasts 85 minutes and kept me entertained. Zero Hour doesn't spend much time on character development. At the 12 minutes mark we're in the air and at the 22 minute mark we've got the bad fish and the crisis occurs.

Andrews does a bang up job in the lead role as "Ted Stryker" and is very good as the former pilot whose lost his confidence. Also good are Darnell and Hayden. Of course, its hard not to react to so many of the lines which Airplane turned into punch lines but the lines themselves aren't that bad. For example the innocuous line : "He's a menace to everything in the Air" is made into a laugh by adding the line: "Yes, Birds too".

Probably the only dreary part of the movie is Jerry Paris as the "Comedy" relief. And that's the one part that Airplane didn't spoof.

Rating - ***