Skyjacked (1972)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

John Guillermin

Writers:

David Harper (novel)
Stanley R. Greenberg (writer)

Release Date:

8 September 1972 (Finland)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The Sky's The Limit For Suspense

Plot:

A crazed Vietnam vet bomber hijacks a Boeing 707 in this disaster film filled with the usual early '70s stereotypes...

Plot Keywords:

Disaster Film | Disaster | Vietnam | Suspense | Airplane

Cast

Charlton Heston	...	Capt. Henry 'Hank' O'Hara
Yvette Mimieux	...	Angela Thacher
James Brolin	...	Jerome K. Weber
Claude Akins	...	Sgt. Ben Puzo
Jeanne Crain	...	Mrs. Clara Shaw
Susan Dey	...	Elly Brewster
Roosevelt Grier	...	Gary Brown
Mariette Hartley	...	Harriet Stevens
Walter Pidgeon	...	Sen. Arne Lindner
Ken Swofford	...	John Bimonte
Leslie Uggams	...	Lovejoy Wells
Ross Elliott	...	Harold Shaw
Nicholas Hammond	...	Peter Lindner
Mike Henry	...	Sam Allen
Jayson Kane	...	William Reading (as Jayson William Kane)

Also Known As:

Sky Terror (USA) (TV title)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The 'Global Airways' plane used in the movie was a World Airways Boeing 707 (N374WA). World Airways home base at the time was Oakland Metropolitan Airport, where just about all of the airport scenes in the movie were filmed.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: A Boeing 707 has ten cockpit windows, including two smaller "eyebrow" windows above each pilot. These windows are seen in all exterior shots, and in some of the fighter fly-bys shot from the airliner cockpit. Through most of the movie, however, the interior arrangement of the cockpit windows includes one full-sized window in the cockpit ceiling above each pilot. No airliner matches this window configuration, revealing the cockpit to be an elaborate set.

Quotes:

[first lines]
John Bimonte: [Hank is doing his walk-around the aircraft] Hey, Hank! Ready to go.
Capt. Henry 'Hank' O'Hara: Wrong! You got a broken cowling latch here.
John Bimonte: What the hell? I'll get right on it.
Capt. Henry 'Hank' O'Hara: Take all the time you want, John. You got 10 minutes.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Drive-In (1976)

Stay on standby

This review contains all elements of the (ha, ha) plot, so proceed accordingly.

Movie is a subpar entry in the glory days of the disaster movie. I saw all of them and know their casts by heart; if an Oscar winnner was in peril, I was in the audience.

This is not as laughably bad as "The Concorde - Airport '79" and certainly not as much fun as "Airport '77". Cast is a curious mix of screen vets (Heston, Crain, Pigeon), TV actors (Brolin, Dey, Akins and Hartley) and a football player (Grier) in for good measure.

Movie begins with a Mystery Person buying lipstick in the airport gift shop. Soon after, Jeanne Crain is seen applying lipstick. If anyone thinks there is the slightest chance that she is responsible for the peril the passengers will endure, then you need to see more movies. With that gimmick in place, the movie then does not tip its hand anymore until the actual culprit is revealed. Standard flashbacks try to explain why this mad bomber is aboard. In addition to that misfortune, Mariette Hartley is heavily pregnant (three guesses how that concludes), Crain's husband forgot to mail their flight insurance, and there is a mid-air collision with a smaller aircraft. Oh, and its raining too. All the characters seem to know one another by name, even though that familiarity is never established.

The cast goes from horrible (Brolin, who chews on all available scenery) to wooden (Chuck Heston, who coaxes real sympathy with the line "My foot's asleep"!) to supremely beautiful (Yvette Mimieux is a welcome sight as a the most beautiful stewardess who ever lived). Mimieux is a godess of the silver screen and is worth seeing anywhere, anytime.

The only other thing to recommend is the glance and remark given by Leslie Uggams as she departs the plane.