Search - Zero Hour on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1957 DVD Release: 06/26/2007 Format: DVD - Black and White,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Edition: Dual Layered Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 21 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 3 Genres: Action, Drama, Action Thriller, Disaster Film

This suspenseful air-borne adventure can rightfully lay claim to being the Mother of All subsequent in-flight disaster films of the '70s. The trouble begins when the pilot and crew of a Canadian passenger plane suddenly find themselves doubled over from accidental ptomaine poisoning and unable to continue flying the plane. The only other person on board who can save the terrified crew is a former WW II flying ace who is petrified of flying again. Fortunately, a courageous steel-nerved ground controller is there to offer full-radio support. Later the film became the basis of a TV movie Terror in the Sky and the hilarious parody Airplane (1980). Arthur Hailey, who wrote the teleplay on which this was based, went on to write the novel and the screenplay for 1970's Airport. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Dana Andrews - Ted Stryker
Linda Darnell - Ellen Stryker
Sterling Hayden - Treleaven
Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch - Capt. Wilson
Geoffrey Toone - Dr. Baird

In a way, it's unfair to put Hal Bartlett's Zero Hour! into the "Cult Camp Classics" series, as Warner Home Video has done -- it's not the fault of the producers, or the cast, or anyone else who worked on the movie, that much of its dialogue was lifted word-for-word and re-contextualized 20 years later in the spoof Airplane!. And Arthur Hailey's original story, -Runway Zero-Eight, was serious enough as a source (and remade, with Doug McClure, in the early 1970's as a TV movie). But here it is, and however it's being sold, this reviewer is glad to see it -- despite the subsequent parody, it's still a good piece of story-telling, harking back to a time when the world was less snarky; and also to a time when a lot of people still took life seriously all of the time. Okay, there might be one or two places where the movie is too self-consciously serious, especially in those tight close-ups on Dana Andrews' troubled expressions. The movie has been beautifully transferred in a non-anamorphic wide-screen image (1.85-to-1), without any flaws and even a whopping 21 chapters, which may be more than Hailey's original novel had. The sound has also been treated well, mastered at a fairly decent volume, and it handles a boost cleanly and sharply. The crisp black-and-white image, of propeller-driven airliners at work, is a refreshing blast from the past -- not too many aerial dramas of this kind from the 1950's have made it out onto DVD, and the release makes an interesting contrast with Paramount's The High and the Mighty, a much more opulent production set aboard an airliner in trouble. This is a nice, minimalist thriller compared with the more elaborately mounted John Wayne production. The original trailer is the only bonus feature. The disc opens automatically to the single-layer menu, which is very easy to use. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide