Terror in the Sky | |
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Directed by | Bernard L. Kowalski |
Written by |
Arthur Hailey (novel) Elinor Karpf |
Starring |
Doug McClure Lois Nettleton Roddy McDowall |
Music by | Pat Williams |
Release date
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Running time
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74 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Terror in the Sky is a low budget 1971 television movie remake of 1957's Zero Hour!, which itself was based on the 1956 television play Flight into Danger. Arthur Hailey recycled the premise in his book Runway Zero-Eight which was co-written with John Castle in 1958. Terror in the Sky starred Doug McClure, Lois Nettleton, Roddy McDowall, Leif Erickson, Kenneth Tobey, and Keenan Wynn.
Passengers on a plane headed from the Midwest to the West Coast (Winnipeg to Vancouver in the book; Minneapolis to Seattle in the film) get quite ill after eating the chicken pot pie entree. Both pilots also ate the chicken. A man who has not flown since the Vietnam War (single-engine planes in the book, helicopter/war choppers in the film) is reluctantly pressed into flying the plane, where he makes a very neurotic, but survivable landing.
The theme would be used again in Airplane!, which was a spoof of the movie classic Zero Hour!.