Jet Storm

It's not easy to catch up with this marvelous little film, but DO NOT pass up any chance you get. It's a real little gem, which manages to live up to some very high aspirations.

A quick plot synopsis makes it sound very much like Airport, or The High and the Mighty, but Jet Storm is a very different type of film. It's not an adventure, or a soaper, or a suspenser. Although it does include a diverse group of passengers and a hidden bomb, it's not actually about whether the plane will be saved, or how. It's about how these people react to danger. And about how all of us SHOULD react to danger.

The cast of familiar British actors does a superb job. Richard Attenborough shines in his portrayal of a weak, confused man, who's slipped over the brink of bitterness, depression and madness. Harry Secombe adds a contrastingly jovial note. And a young Paul Eddington (best known from the much later Yes, Minister series) is interesting as a not-very-admirable husband.

We learn a lot about these various characters, but the real meat of the film is in how each of them reacts when faced with imminent danger and probable death. The film asks us not to worry so much about whether these people will die, but to consider how they choose to live. Do they meet fear and uncertainty with fortitude? Resourcefulness? Humor? Resignation? Or even indifference?

The film shows us that some of these responses are clearly better than others. It demonstrates that the fear of disaster is far worse than the disaster itself. This message makes Jet Storm more relevant today than when it was made. We can see how much wiser things were in the 1950s. A psychopath would have been able to walk up and easily place a bomb on an airliner... but we didn't allow that remote possibility to dominate our lives.

Jet Storm reminds us that risk is a part of life, but when we focus on that risk to the exclusion of everything else, we stop living. So while terrorism (of any sort) is sad, and crazy and reprehensible, giving in to terror is far more shameful.

Way before Airport! This might not be the very first all star airline dramas (I believe The High and the Mighty was) but it was way ahead of its time. Good thriller with fair subplots and good acting. Hermione Baddely nearly steals the show as a surly, panicky passenger.

The most entertaining aspect of this film is watching it through a 2025, American culture / air travel lens. It is a good solid drama, with strong acting, and dialog - hence 7 stars - but it's also amusing for showing us how different we are today.

In Jet Storm we have what looks to be a 24-seat jet aircraft, 2X2 seating, with one class of service: obviously first (love the name: the Atlantic Queen Service). Route: London to New York. The plane looks like a Russian Tupolev 104 in exterior shots but the cheesy model looks more like an early DeHavilland Comet. Very spacious and unusually wide interior.

The passengers? All upper middle class, upper class types, mostly British. And all, save for two or three, very polite and talky. All, of course, are in their very best dress, suit and ties for the men, even the child; day dresses for the women.

And of course there are all the stereotypes. The hysterical older woman; the cynical businessman; the aloof, glamorous aristocrat; the practical cool-headed American; the aging rock star and his girlfriend; the divorcing couple; the old dowager and her borscht belt comedian seat mate; the sleeping child; the heroic, level-headed captain; the novice stewardess; the "good girl" character. Reminds me of a John Wayne movie the High and the Mighty. Or pretty much any close-quarters disaster movie. This could have been "Airplane 1959."

The problem is that one of the passengers, an ex-mental patient, has possibly planted a bomb somewhere and one of the passengers overhears his "plan" and becomes hysterical.

From there we have a talk fest. The captain, other passengers, even a child, all try and get Mr. Bomber (a 35-year old Richard Attenborough!) calmed down and in a mood to locate and disarm the device. The captain is more psychiatrist than aviator. Attenborough is made to stay in the downstairs bar and lounge (like something you would have on an early jet age 747) while he cycles through some crazy fits and hallucinations. All the while the white-coated steward searches all the bags in the pressurized, walk-in baggage hold.

Meanwhile passengers upstairs calmly play cards. Given the need to keep the passengers in a good mood, despite possible death at any minute, the stewardess starts serving unlimited, free champagne. Miss Good Girl helpfully suggests the bubbly be laced with some of her feel good pills (which knocks out an especially troublesome woman, who never returns to the movie). So British. So passive aggressive.

Fast forward to 2025. Can you imagine this in an American aircraft? Attenborough's character would have been hit on the head with a metal coffee pot then taped in to a seat, with hands bound with cable ties. The passengers - many in gym attire, wife beaters, and flip flops - would be complaining about missed connections, and no meal service. The FA would be some tired old 60-year old harridan running up and down the aisle barking orders. The plane would have dived from 40,000 feet to 10,000 and diverted to Iceland causing garbage to be strewn about the cabin. Passengers would be snarling about missed connections, and texting lawyers who are all on social media trolling for business. Lots of iPhone video action too.

But here in the transatlantic skies of 1959 we have polite conversation among the nicer passengers and games of gin and poker. No one gets mussed or wrinkled even after a mild tussle or two. Aristo woman even thumbs through her fashion magazine.

Ahh for the good old days of aircraft disasters.

Following the success of 'The League of Gentlemen', Dickie Attenborough began mobilising his own films and appeared in other films to raise the money to continue making his own (in the same way that Laurence Olivier was acting in films in order to finance his own stage productions at the National Theatre). This film is one of them.

A British aviation thriller; A story about a former scientist aboard a commercial airplane flying from London to New York who threatens the safety of the passengers in his plan to confront a man who he believes is responsible for the hit-and-run death of his young daughter. An intelligent script provides some tension as well as melodrama and humour but it is a touch naive with constant moralising and the eventual payoff which is contrived. With many of the tropes of the disaster movie genre, the plot is interesting as the alarmed passengers soon divide into groups: reactionary and liberal. Richard Attenborough brings a convincing complexity to the role of bereft father, and danger which maintains the danger throughout, and the film boasts a starry British cast delivering good character-driven performances.