Man, when I pick a bad movie I go all out, no half measures. The title sounded promising : "The Horror at 37,000 Feet" (1973), a made-for-TV flick with an all-star cast. The movie-of-the-week format on the big three networks turned out some great horror films in the 1970s, but this wasn't one of 'em. I found it on the Youtube channel of Spooky Movie Dave; it sounded familiar. Had I seen it back in '73, when it first aired? I couldn't remember. Now I'm thinking not, because I'd never forget something this awful.
Roy Thinnes (legendary star of "The Invaders") plays an architect who has chartered a jumbo jet in order to transport a heavy piece of cargo from England to the States. It's an ancient stone altar from a Druidic site of worship that was situated on his wife's estate. He's saving the altar from demolition, the estate is being subdivided for condominiums.
The flight takes place on the night of Midsummer's Eve, a pagan holiday that we in America would call the Summer Solstice. Well, tonight just happens to be the night before the Solstice. Anyhow, the flight takes off with Chuck Connors at the controls. Russell Johnson is his navigator. When you've got The Rifleman and The Professor in the cockpit, everything should be steady eddy, and at first, it is - right up until they get the plane to altitude. At 37,000 feet, the odometer stops advancing. Connors thinks it's broken, but The Professor checks his coordinates and they indicate the same anomaly, no forward motion. The control tower at Heathrow reports a headwind, but more calculations imply that it would have to be blowing at 600+ miles per hour to cancel out the jet's airspeed. Connors requests and is given permission to turn around and fly back to the airport, but after he makes his u-turn, the same thing happens. The odometer remains unchanged. The plane is not moving.
"It seems like we're caught in a vortex"!, says Connors. Will the script get caught in one too?
Meanwhile, back in First Class, a Strange Englishwoman (Tammy Grimes) confronts Thinnes about his cargo. "You're the one who's causing this problem". Thinnes pretends not to know the woman, but he's actually very familiar with her. She's the head of a local historical group that protested his removal of the altar. She's aware of it's Druidic history and has the aura of a witch herself.
So far, you have all the makings of a scary TV movie, and as I say, there were some great ones in the 1970s. Remember "The Night Stalker"? Or how about "Night Terror" with Valerie Harper and Richard Romanus? I didn't sleep after watching that one! There were a couple of excellent werewolf fims, too, "Moon of the Wolf" with Bradford Dillman, and "Scream of the Wolf" with Clint Walker. And lot of others, many of them produced by Dan Curtis. Right up to this point, "37,000 Feet" is looking pretty horrific, too. The filmmakers appear to have an actual 747 interior as their set. The garish red lighting in the cockpit looks straight out of Hammer Studios. The first 20 minutes is top notch.
After the English Witch Lady confronts Roy Thinnes, we cut to the cargo hold. Something is banging on the inside of the container holding the altar. The aluminum walls are being punched outward. There's a doggie down there, in a cage. He's barking his head off. A rip opens in the container wall and a mist begins to escape. Whatever it is, it's mighty cold. The next we see of the dog, he's frozen solid. Frost is covering his fur.
A stewardess (Darlene Carr, remember her, from "Streets of San Francisco"?) sees the mist rising in the cargo elevator. When she opens the door to investigate, she gets sucked in. The door jams shut and she nearly freezes to death. The Professor pulls her to safety, but then makes the mistake of going down into the hold to investigate. Moments later, he turns into a popsicle, just like the dog.
Right around this time, William Shatner takes over the picture. He's already been introduced, but we don't really know who he is. He's got sideburns and '70s hair. He's traveling with a pixieish young woman (Lyn Loring, the real life wife of Roy Thinnes). She has an acoustic guitar she's brought aboard. Are they folk singers? Could be. Shatner is waxing philosophical. He's drinking way too much and is full of ennui. The pixie worships him. Are they man and wife? We just don't know. But Shatner's character, whoever he is, begins to dominate the proceedings, and the results ain't pretty. Remember how we said he was really good in "Incubus", the Bergmanesque horror flick we saw a couple weeks ago? He was effective in that film because director Leslie Stevens got him to restrain himself. Here, he's untethered and doing his Shatner Thing. He's not loud or overbearing, but he's overdoing the worldweariness in a big way.
I don't know about you, but I long ago got over the alleged "coolness" of the acting styles and, to be honest, the filmmaking in general from the late 1960s through the mid-70s, the supposed Age of Realism. Yes, there were a lot of tremendous films made during that era, but there was also a lot about the style that doesn't hold up, and some of that has to do with the acting. It's been said that the so-called "realistic" actors of the 70s were more talented than their Golden Era forebears. I say, "hardly not even"! There was a discipline to the Studio System, and though the acting was formal and stylised, it was also tight and to the point. Watch Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart and tell me the actors of the 70s (or today) are better. Puh-leeze. So yeah, when Shatner or anyone else from that decade goes off on a free form tangent, I can't "get into it" just because it's supposed to be ironic. Really, it just sucks.
Now, to be fair to Bill, he can be good when he wants to. But here, he's paired with Lyn Loring, who is so terrible that it's no wonder she switched careers to become a TV executive. In this movie, she makes Excruciating Faces when the going gets rough, to the point where you wonder if she was in competition to "out overact" Mr. Shatner. We're in a situation where Chuck Conners is the best thespian on the set. Paul Winfield has a nice turn as a Veddy Brrittisshh doctor, and of course he was a fine actor who could do everything from "Sounder" to "Star Trek", but his role in this picture is minor. It is Connors, believe it or not, who gives this flick whatever gravity it has.
The "thing" in the cargo hold - the freezing mist - never develops past that. There's no monster that emerges, to hide in the many compartments within the jet, to jump out and terrorize. Instead, we get a pagan explanation. The altar carries ghosts, who are of course pissed off. Where's Casper the Friendly Ghost when you need him? The passengers end up trying for a human sacrifice to appease the invisible Druids who've stowed away with the altar.
I was on the ropes long before any of this came to pass. Really, once the Hammer Horror effect was ditched in the early going, it was all I could do to make it to the end. I'm sorry I don't have more plot to describe to you, but there wasn't any. So much time is spent with William Shatner that any development of the Druid story is forgotten. It's too bad, because had the screenwriter given a darn, he could've had a classic TV movie on his hands. Now, to be fair I have to acknowledge that quite a few fans at IMDB like this movie. Some compare it to the Twilight Zone episode with Shatner, entitled "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". Given the similarity of the titles, it's possible the writer was trying for a an homage. But make no mistake, this work doesn't hold a candle to the vastly superior T-Zone ep, in which Shatner is better as well. I don't share the fans' soft spot for this film, remake or not. There's no monster and very little horror. Once you get past the mist, there's just a lot of talky characters.
Perhaps it could be retitled?
How about "The Horror of Watching The Horror at 37,000 Feet"?
Two Thumbs Decidedly Down. Not recommended. //////
This blog's coming in late cause I was out shopping with my sister yesterday. We went to The Mall. It's back open and jammed with shoppers, all wearing masks of course. I'll try to get back on track today. Happy Summer! See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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