Murder on Flight 502

... I am referring to something Sonny Bono's agent says as they head towards his flight to board. And he says it very loud. And nobody even stops and stares. What a time capsule this is.

If you are under 40 I'm not sure you will really appreciate this. But if you remember the 1970s at all this is terrific and hilarious for reasons never intended. It is about an international flight headed for London. After take-off a smoke bomb goes off in the first class lounge. As a result of this, an airline executive gets a note a day earlier than he normally would have, and it apologizes for the murders on flight 502, the flight that just took off. So now it is a race to figure out who is the murderer before he can kill.

There are all kinds of furtive glances and obvious grudges between the first class passengers to stir the pot. There are some married couples on the flight, but there are also lots of people flying alone, and they strike up conversations with whoever is sitting next to them. It reminded me of Love Boat, and that should be no surprise since Aaron Spelling, who produced Love Boat, also produced this film. Of course, today, bothering a stranger next to you with conversation would get you rebuffed because you would be interrupting their game of Candy Crush on their phone. But in 1975 people were OK with casual conversation and were accustomed to occasionally being bored.

What's funny about it? Robert Stack as the pilot five years before Airplane, playing it straight. That setting a smoke bomb off in an airport doesn't get you shackled by the TSA upon arrival and sentenced to 40 years in the basement of a federal prison. That the killer on the plane just ASSUMES certain movements of passengers whom he targets. Farrah Fawcett as a stewardess (that is what they called flight attendents then) who at this point in her career has very limited acting talent. That changes a lot over time.

What's great for classic film buffs? Larraine Day, Dane Clarke, Walter Pidgeon, and Ralph Bellamy making appearances as passengers.

I had a hard time rating this film. I'm rating it as a time capsule that is certainly not boring. Thus my rating will probably be higher than those of other folks.

Cheesy and common to the times, still there's a nostalgia to watching these old flicks from the 70's, it was worth the watch for that alone. A little snapshot of the bad/campy/predictable TV of the day, but somehow fun anyway.

As for holes and errors in the scenes, one could pick apart all the discrepancies, and most been done here. I'd add that I've never been on a flight, nor seen one from those days where all the seats are oriented backwards to the nose of the plane, not to mention the rest of the seat layout, fanning in towards the aisle as they do. Maybe they did, but first class, flying backwards the whole way? Might make some people more ill if they're prone to that.

Some mention the variation in quantity of passengers in some scenes (coming and going of passengers), but there's the bathrooms, and not staying in your seat would be normal back in the good old days when a lounge was available, though they showed the lounge mostly empty when shown at all. (I'm all for bringing the lounge back, especially for long flights). "Skyjackings", as they were called, were in the news a fair bit in those days, yet dogs seemed to do just fine in deterring trouble, no need for today's excess. If only people could watch the news these days with as discerning an eye for discrepancies as they do with films, they may notice a few things. At any rate, a good little film if you want the flavor of how that genre of TV was back then....

This is well worth watching for its all star cast. It's like "Airport" and other 70s disaster films but on a tight budget. Aaron Spelling was one of the executive producers, and he once again proved that he knew how to give the public what it wanted. No one will confuse this film with art, but it's good for what it is - an entertaining, fun TV movie.

When watching this movie, don't watch it for suspense, or character development, or even for the mystery. This is a "make your own fun" movie. You can watch it in the Mystery Science Theater 3000 style, making fun of it as you go. You can watch it to spot all of the stars (at the time). Or you could watch it to find out what Airplane! was making fun of so much; this movie seems to have provided most of it. The pure dated-ness of this film makes it so easy to make fun of. Can you remember a time when a smoking box in an airport lounge was treated fairly lightly?

But don't hate this movie because it's, well, bad; praise it for its badness. This is one of those movies that is good to watch because it's horribly done. The acting is horrible, the script is horrible, the story is horrible. The only thing that was done right was the casting, but, as we're seeing so much these days, a good cast can't save a movie. But a good sense of humor can. Which is why I give this movie a fairly high grade: if you enjoy pretending to be a sillouette in front of a giant movie screen, you'll like this movie.

Back in the 70's all the major networks would put out these made-for-TV movies, usually featuring a collection of unknowns and a good number of well known actors and actresses and for the most part they were always enjoyable, even though they were't as sophisticated or as big budget as a major motion picture. This movie was no exception. I stumbled across it on a DVD and for $2 figured it was worth a look see. I can't remember if I ever watched in on TV in the 70's, but it brought back memories of enjoyable enough nights in the living room watching the set.

This is probably most notable for a pre-Charlie's Angels performance from a very lovely Farrah Fawcett as a stewardess on a flight from New York to London that has a murderer on board. In some ways it's rather preposterous. There are far too many coincidences - far too many people in the First Class section who just happened to know each other and have grievances with each other. The intent was obviously to give a large stable of possible suspects to keep the viewer guessing. In some ways it didn't work. I had the murderer figured out pretty early, and if you didn't figure it out well before it was revealed then you missed something pretty obvious. Mind you, the same could be said for the plot twist involving Fawcett's character at the end, and that took me off guard. I also couldn't figure out why the man who tried to kill singer Jack Marshall (played by Sonny Bono) is never restrained, but ends up back in First Class with his wife as if nothing had happened - he just tried to kill a guy with a knife!

This was clearly made by Aaron Spelling as lightly entertaining TV mystery to keep people occupied for a couple of hours in front of their TV screens. With folks like Robert Stack, Walter Pidgeon, Danny Bonaduce, etc., it's pretty good fun. 6/10