Shatner At 37,000 Feet

I had very vague memories of watching evening television as a small child and seeing a William Shatner movie which was set on a commercial airliner in which ooze secreted from the fuselage. It was such a vague memory that I thought I'd dreamed it up. But come the advent of internet search databases, I found the title of the mystery film; the produced for TV "The Horror At 37,000 Feet". An architect (Roy Thinnes) and his wife are transporting an ancient alterstone from England to the USA via a barely booked passenger jet. On route, all sorts of weird supernatural happenings confuse the passengers and crew, holding the plane in midair and resists all attempts by the airplane to break free or land.

First the bad news. TV in 1973 wasn't that subtle; it's what the word corny was invented for. So we have pilot Chuck Connors as the man charged with getting his troubled 747 back on the ground, hysterical Buddy Ebson as a riled up passenger and one William Shatner on classic form as a drunk ex-priest. There's lots of bad dialogue, awkward 70's camera moves and a static and theatrical direction that betrays when the film was made.

However, it's still got a great concept that's really compelling. It's essentially a haunted house ghost story set on a plane. The trick the film still manages to pull of is to put you in the middle of the action. What's going on? What would you do to get out of it? And by keeping the menace largely unseen it adds a thick layer of tension over events that snakes on the plane couldn't muster by themselves.

It can't be that forgettable as it's clearly the inspiration for many of the gags in Airplane! The young girl traveling alone, the female passenger with a guitar, and the pompous doctor are all present and correct. And wasn't Chuck Connors the aircraft captain in Airplane II?