Shakes on a plane… Murder on Flight 502 (1975) Take 2

 

Apparently this was the tenth most highly-rated screening on American TVs from November 17–23 in 1975 and you can well understand why it failed to fly higher although neither did it really dive-bomb… Nowadays it’s almost impossible to watch this film without thinking about other films with Robert Stack in them, as the pilot of a 747 passenger jet and – I swear – playing the role in exactly the same way as he does in Airplane! (1980). People talk about Leslie Nielsen’s way with comedy but Mr Stack had the chops too… or should that be “chocks”? 

This ABC TV Movie of the Week was a Spelling-Goldberg Production and, like so many from that era, I probably experienced it at the time as a young teen watching with my family. It has that familiarity not just because of the sequence of now cliched events and dialogue but also because the pattern of the narrative is perhaps dimly remembered or at least predictable for those of us who lived through the seventies. 

If the venue of choice for classic murder mysteries was the old dark house or English country house then by this stage the giant planes that represented the perfecting of the global travel boom were now the ideal setting: people already nervous of long haul flying could find that extra frisson of fear from the prospect of deadly dealings in First Class… I mean, what could be more disturbing to have the people you had to trust the most be potentially your killer?

So much drama in such a confined space...

Written by David P. Harmon possibly after a sweaty and very brief elevator pitch with Aaron Spelling the film is efficiently directed by George McCowan who had recently finished the third and final iteration of the Magnificent Seven Extended Universe. It’s a moderately tense affair that, in the manner of these things, creates a lot of room for the impressive array of stellar talent to interact and create characters in whom we are invested even if the idea of Sonny Bono chatting up your 15-year-old daughter is a bit “of its time”. 

If you are going to watch this film, and it is in fairly good condition on YouTube, I would recommend watching it with friends or family as it is the kind of artefact that will spark debate amongst young and old…

It begins on a flight from Newark Airport to London – back in the days of the Special Relationship – with a prank from lovable former Partridge Family irritant, Danny Bonaduce as spoilt brat Millard Kensington, who leaves a suspicious package back in the passenger lounge which causes alarm but soon he is chided for his larking by Captain Larkin (Robert Stack) who all but ruffles his hair and =asks him if he’s ever seen wrestling… But, this false alarm is soon followed by genuine concern after Safety official Robert Davenport (George Maharis) receives a letter saying that there is to be a series of murders on the plane.

Walter Pidgeon,Theodore Bikel, Molly Picon and Danny Bonaduce

Whilst Davenport immediately begins a forensic examination of the backgrounds of his passengers, telling his assistant to put their names in alphabetical order – not mean task in the days before Excel and booking software, and a signal that they will be taking every possible measure to find the oddball with a reason to kill. Oddly, for a plane capable of holding 350 passengers, we are limited to the relatively small first class area and the 747’s legendary upstairs bar which seems sadly unoccupied. 

Over the next hour or so a series of nailed on possibles present themselves: the frankly foreign Otto Gruenwaldt (Theodore Bikel) who holds an unfair grudge against Dr. Kenyon Walker (the legendary Ralph Bellamy who worked with both Jean Harlow and Julia Roberts – that is quite some career!) who he blames for his wife’s death. Otto has a cardiac arrest and Captain Larkin must trust him to not kill his potential murderer… 

Then there is the aforementioned pop star Jack Marshall (Sonny Bono) who is being blamed by a couple Ray (Dane Clark) and Claire Garwood (Laraine Day) for the drug death of their daughter. Ray looks fit to burst but is this another high-altitude red herring? Then there’s the shifty Paul Barons (Fernando Lamas) who is engaged in a discussion with his neighbour, Dorothy Saunders (Polly Bergen) a rather tipsy but observant crime novelist who is either trying to woo him or investigate him.

Hugh O'Brian and Farrah Fawcett

There’s more Hollywood royalty as Walter Pidgeon’s Charlie Parkins befriends his seat-mate Molly Picon as Ida Goldman whose career goes even further back than Bellamy’s, her first film being in the silent era in the Austrian film, Lock up Your Daughters (1922) with future Hitchcock blond Anny Ondra (star of Blackmail, the first British talkie). I genuinely love watching them work and they bring out the darker edges and wisdom required for this context.

Thank goodness there’s a policeman on board, as soon the murders do begin and Detective Myerson (Hugh O'Brian, as typecast as Stack…) has to begin the investigation as a false priest is found life-less in the dumb waiter. There’s more to follow and the tension builds as even an air stewardess, Vera Franklin (Brooke Adams) is murdered? What and who is connecting this all together and will anyone make it alive to Heathrow??

Sonny Bono and Elizabeth Stack

Dusty Verdict: Of course Murder on Flight 502 is absolutely worth watching if you’re in the mood. My daughter enjoyed its serious silliness and she wasn’t born until the Jumbo Jets were all but retired from service. But it’s still a fun family experience with a storied cast and a plot that could easily work in a country house, a remote island or even a quiet village in Midsomer.

We also have a Stack family outing with his wife Rosemarie and daughter Elizabeth as Marilyn Stonehurst the teenager being chatted up by Sonny Bono’s musical letch. Then there’s an early Farrah Fawcett as Karen White, a resourceful stewardess who gives an eye-catching performance with the teeth and hair that would establish her as one of the Seventies’ sexual super-powers. She could act and went on to show it more after the Angel years with Emmys to prove it!

Not an essential film but a warm hug of nostalgia from a time when shakes on a plane were less frequent… and not just in Boeing’s case.

Turbulence in First Class... Murder on Flight 502 (1975)

Ah, the 1970s. An era when you could barely move for all-star disaster epics, and even the television networks wanted a piece of the "jumbo jet in peril" pie. Produced by the legendary Aaron Spelling, Murder on Flight 502 is less of a high-altitude thriller and more of a cozy, if slightly blood-stained, whodunit that feels like a dry run for the disaster movie parodies that would follow a few years later.

 

The premise is pure pulp: a 747 departs New York for London, only for a mysterious note to be discovered in the airport lounge warning that a series of murders will occur before the plane touches down at Heathrow. It’s the kind of high-concept hook that Spelling excelled at, even if the budget here clearly didn't extend much further than a few sets of vintage TWA uniforms and a very crowded first-class cabin.

 

The cast is a real "who’s who" of the era’s small-screen royalty:

 

Robert Stack is the ultimate authority figure as Captain Larkin. It’s impossible to watch him here without seeing the blueprint for his role in Airplane!—his delivery is so stiff and serious it almost circles back around to being hilarious. 

 

 

Farrah Fawcett-Majors pops up as a stewardess just before she became a household name. She’s charming enough, though the script gives her a rather peculiar secret that pays off in a late-film twist.

 

Sonny Bono and Danny Bonaduce provide the character "flavor," with Bono in particular proving he was always a more capable actor than people gave him credit for.

 

The film suffers from a bit of "TV movie pacing"—it takes nearly an hour for the actual killing to start—but when it does, the mystery is handled with a certain level of Agatha Christie-style charm. There are red herrings galore, including a "priest" who isn't what he seems and a detective with a very personal vendetta.

 

 

I got you babe... (maybe)

 

Dusty Verdict: It’s a keeper for those who miss the days of the "Movie of the Week." It won't win any awards for suspense, but for a rainy Sunday afternoon, it’s a lovely bit of nostalgic fluff. Watch it for the incredible 70s decor, the glamorous cast, and the joy of seeing Robert Stack treat a smoke bomb like a national emergency.

 

The film is often found on YouTube or budget DVD collections; worth it for the fashion crimes alone!

 

 

This is a guest post from filmologist and Seventies' computer connoisseur, Dr Albert Insteen.

 

 

 

"Surely you could see this coming?" "Yes and don't call me Shirley..."

 

Get Hunter… The Rumour (1970)

This was a very important film for me, it got me into terrible trouble with Fleet Street…

Mike Hodges, BFI 2022.

Wikipedia might well have Mike Hodges making his feature film debut with the colossal Get Carter (1971) but here he is a year earlier making not one but two interesting feature length efforts for ITV Playhouse which hinted at the themes and the edginess his masterwork would soon contain. ITV Playhouse was an anthology series that ran from 1967 to 1983 and featured original ideas from the likes of Dennis Potter as well as Hodges who was working mainly in television production at the time as he moved into direction. He’d already tried one screenplay for Armchair Theatre and Suspect (1969) then Rumour (1970), made for Thames Television, helped launch Euston Films who would produce The Sweeney, Minder and many more.

In a 2021 interview with the BFI, the director said The Rumour had been instrumental in getting him the directing job for Get Carter having impressed not just that film’s producer, Michael Klinger, but also another ground-breaking filmmaker:

It was experimental filmmaking, in many ways, by the standards at the time… Malcolm McDowell was working with Stanley Kubrick, and Stanley saw it and came in the next morning when they were shooting… Clockwork Orange. He said to Malcolm that he’d just seen this film and he was very impressed by it… You have to be rather arrogant to think like this, but Malcolm told me that Stanley really thought it was a great film. 

It's true that The Rumour has an edge that is more cinematic than its TV origins and, not knowing of its background, I was surprised when an ad-break popped up. Hodges camera is tight to the action and holding his protagonist firmly centre stage even through the passers-by at Euston Station, his car windscreen, foliage and other ambient foreground materials. It creates the impression of Hunter at the heart of the story but also pushing himself forward no matter the risks… this is his journalistic instinct being revived and his time to face the music after too long in his discomfort zone the Fleet Street hack he’d probably always feared he would become.

The character is propelled through the film in the same irresistible way as Carter on his quest, and as cynical tabloid showbiz journo Sam Hunter (Michael Coles) starts the film speaking into his Dictaphone as he drives his pink 1950 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 Imperial Sedan towards the Blackwall Tunnel. This image is repeated over and over throughout the film driving us onwards until we eventually catch up with the full sequence and its significance is revealed. It’s a clever device and chilling in its way.

After this opening we see the Cadillac coming across the raised section at the A40 – the Westway Marylebone Flyover - then turn off the Marylebone Road down to Euston – via Camden (sadly there’s no Reel Streets breakdown at this stage!) – where he is due for a 2:00 PM meeting. All of this is soundtracked by the Moody Blues singing The Best Way to Travel from the album In Search of the Lost Chord (1968) … yesterday’s psychedelia already yellowing and curled up like so much tabloid pages with Hunter’s trade taking his readers on a magical mystery tour every day.

And you can fly

High as a kite if you want to

Faster than light if you want to

Speeding through the universe

Thinking is the best way to travel…

In Euston, he’s watched by two shifty looking men as he goes to the John Menzies in the central part of the concourse and glances at the sports headlines on the back pages of the Evening Standard where news is to be found of Alloway Lad winning the Brighton Cup – John Hayward riding the horse to success on 9^th August 1969. The front page announces that there’s “a serious crime every 25 seconds…” “Broken Britain” eh? We already have the Raymond Chandler vibe and the sense that there are plans already in motion.

Michael Coles and Vivienne Chandler

A young woman enters the station at dead-on time, Liza Curtis (Vivienne Chandler) and, as she and Sam sit down for a drink one of the men takes photographs, the black and white images clicking into view, another story in the making. She reveals that she is, as they used to say, a high-class call girl and that there are photographs of her and an MP, Julian Crawford (Jim Delaney), as well as others in compromising positions, which are being used to blackmail Crawford is being blackmailed. She wants out and to sell her story to Hunter’s paper, as king for £50,000 which, he splutters, they wouldn’t pay her even if she was the virgin Mary.

Probably your kind of journalism isn’t worth censoring, try writing the truth about something worthwhile Mr Hunter! You may get a surprise.

Next up for Sam is a reception for a new book launch, The Great Conspiracy from Pulitzer Prize winner Professor Arthur Kook (David Cargill) at Madame Tussaud’s. An inebriated Sam dismisses the “phoney American instant intellectuals” and his thesis which he hasn’t even read but is soon put in his place after accusing the Professor’s “research” as a means to make money.

Hidges often shoots his characters framed in their surroundings

After getting a call to visit Liza urgently, Sam arrives at her Mayfair flat where, once again the two men in black are outside as events are soundtracked by Bach’s Toccata in Fugue. Inside the flat Sam finds Liza has been suffocated in plastic with the radio blurting out Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in counterpoint to the horror in front of him. He takes her notebook and the key to a Euston safety deposit box and makes good his escape. His next stop is the premier of The Battle of Britain (released on 15^th September for those keeping track of the filming sequence…) in which we again here his glib Fleet Street copy for the event… again counterpoint, as the connection between his reality at that point and the world-weary ligger couldn’t be bigger. He phones the police anonymously.

Awaken by a call about the murder at 4:00AM, Sam feigns ignorance as he’s told that she died of an overdose… clearly this was not the case, something is not adding up despite his headline “Call Girl Suicide Shock”. He sneaks into the apartment but gets thrown out by the police who reiterate the cause of death, although he spots the name tag that he had found on the corpse.

I tell you what, rumours hurt people… a lethal weapon, unfortunately Fleet Street thrive on it.

One of the watchers...

There’s further suspicion when, having collected the photographs from Euston, Sam tries to get his editor Mike Weston (James Donnelly) interested but the possibility of organised and influential opposition makes him wary. Sam gets agreement to follow up on leads and heads off to interview the deceased’s mother… It’s probably no coincidence that Mike’s an Aussie and that he gets complained about later by one of the old guard, as a certain Rupert Murdoch had just acquired the News of the World, followed closely by The Sun.

As my car slithered to a halt outside the peeling door, urchins and children crowded round me asking for money. This is Gangland. Here the notorious Kray brothers operated. Here Diana Webb, alias Lisa Curtis grew up. Here I found her 46-year-old mother… I approached the door and was fearful of the tragic story it would open up to me…”

Hodges punctuates the film with Hunter’s composing his copy on his dictaphone and the disconnection between his words and the actually shows not only the dubious art of the gutter journalist but also the sad realities that it feeds off, no more so when he goes to visit the dead woman’s mother who he skilfully manipulates to find out as much information as possible. The total absence of any “street urchins” when his car pulls up is one of the film’s most telling moments. Hunter is telling tales but he’s also moving back to being a journalist and has found a story that needs uncovering.

Sam and Betty (Joyce Blair, sister of Lionel...)

He goes to Liza’s old workplaces, a strip joint run by old flame Betty Jacobs (Joyce Blair) and then a hostess bar where he “interviews” Sally (Clovissa Newcombe) a friend of hers and we get to see an artiste performing (Jill Chartell billed as a belly dancer). The men in black follow him each step of the way as do the police who break into his flat and, as he calls Mike to help, we see that his boss is sleeping with his wife Anne (Colette O'Neil). There are so many twists and turns, the pace is breathless and you’re constantly trying to second guess as we work with Sam as he runs headlong into the heart of the issue.

Is he just being manipulated through, have the people who hired the shadowy men picked the right target to propagate the “rumours” they want? Will Hunter get to the real truth and, will he or the story survive the attentions of the men in black? Hodges offers us tantalising hope at the end, a valediction of the role a free press can play in holding powerful men to account… and uncertain ending though and the doubts persist to this day: how can press rumour be made reality?

In a 2021 interview with Samira Ahmed at the BFI, Hodges talked about The Rumour was partly influenced by the treatment of Stephen Ward during the Profumo Crisis and how the establishment covers its tracks and manipulates. Working on World in Action, Hodges had encountered the showbiz reporters and saw a lot of sleazy work, “… most of it lies – none of it has changed, nothing’s changed… – I just wanted to make a film about it.”

Before mobile phones... there were dictaphones.

Dusty Verdict: I can see why Kubrick was impressed with Hodges’ film and the director’s very deliberate and high content approach to crafting this hard-hitting and unorthodox narrative. There's so much craft in Hodges script and direction: he doesn’t run head on at his targets and leaves it for the audience to decide on the moral weight of the characters. Sam Hunter is a hard man to sympathise with and yet we end up rooting for him all the same as he battles against the dishonesty of his own and his trade.

Michael Coles gives a superb performance, visceral, nervy and cocky, and is in virtually every shot, the narrative wound taught round his character like a noose. The only question is, can he write his way out of it?

And now the erm thoughts of Chairman Sam. As I speed through the City with its monolithic Victorian buildings towering above me, I wondered if the rich and illustrious bankers and merchants who inhabit these parts ever pause in the relentless business of making money ever pause and think of the sad, sordid poverty-stricken areas on their doorsteps?

 

You can find both The Rumour and Suspect on the Network DVD set, Euston Films Presents Armchair Cinema which includes lots of other goodies. It’s out of print but copies are still to be found on eBay and elsewhere. 

No street urchins as Sam arrives in the Eastend...

Euston Films began here!