skyking-14

I've loved this movie for many years and return to it quite often. It remains imminently watchable and enjoyable! It's always fun to see what Hollywood could manage to do with special effects when it was all still largely done by hand and with the "smoke and mirrors" of the time!

This movie is also notable for the lost era of actual patriotism in Hollywood. Made in the early days of the Cold War, the film is notable for it's opening where it offers a brief but easily digestible lesson on the post-war development of North American air defenses, a framework is continues to use throughout the rest of the movie as every element of it plays a role in the tracking and defeat of the threat.

This episode did black Americans in law enforcement any favors! The local guy was more interested in arresting a white guy regardless of evidence instead of making sure it's the right guy, and not for the first or last time SA Kristen takes the bait and fails to trust her team mates. Neither deserves a badge! If you are not willing to question the evidence, you aren't a real investigator. There are many reasons why unbalanced or desperate people confess to crimes they didn't commit, but you continue to chase the evidence because even if they are guilty, you still have to get a conviction in court! The whole, "If this suspect were black, we wouldn't be doing this..." is itself an example of bigotry that should disqualify the officer involved!

Right off the bat it starts with a huge historical inaccuracy that has morphed into a lie. It described the recognition of Israel and then says that "immediately the Palestinians began fighting for the RETURN of their land". There was NEVER a sovereign nation called "Palestine". That land was named "Palestine" by the Roman Occupiers two thousand years ago and has been occupied by one foreign power or another until 1947. The last sovereign nation to occupy that land was the two Jewish kingdoms of Israel, and Judea. In 1947, there was an opportunity for their to be a free Palestinian state, alongside that of Israel, but the Arab nations of Egypt and Jordan ensured that never happened by invading the new state of Israel in an attempt to grab the land for themselves. Therein, began the problem that has plagued the Middle East and the world ever since!

The rest of the movie was decent, though none of the newer versions matched the intensity of the original with Bronson and Finch. The inclusion of the "chair dance" element is a major WTF? Moment for me as it's totally out of place and adds NOTHING to the story. This film is rather timely in light of October 7th and the recent pro-Palestinian protests, a reminder that this anti-Jewish hatred is a direct descendant of Nazi Germany, with which the Palestinians of the time aligned themselves with. A reminder that there is no moral high ground in the "Palestinian cause".