Mayday at 40,000 Feet (1977)

Captivating movie !

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Mayday at 40,000 Feet is a regulation crisis-in-the-air TV movie distinguished by the accomplished direction of Robert Butler that features David Janssen,Don Meredith,Christopher George,Ray Milland,Lynda Day George,Margaret Blye,Marjoe Gortner and Broderick Crawford.Blinding snow threatens to send a jetliner hurtling toward doom. But Captain Pete Douglass (Janssen) has more than a snowstorm to battle when an armed madman turns the fuselage into a shooting gallery and his fellow passengers into clay pigeons. Adding to Janssen's growing list of problems is a maniac who goes on a shooting rampage in the first-class section. This TV movie was made in the tradition of Airport, The Towering Inferno and more epics of disaster that were commonly made during the 1970's.While the screenplay has used recycled plot lines and element from other disaster movies and it lacks the tension and suspense required to do films of such genres,it still will manage to entertain the viewers who does not mind the year it was made.

If you are a fan of "Zero Hour" "Airport" and "Skyjacked" then you will probably be mildly entertained by "Mayday at 40,000 Fee!" TV movie "Mayday" doesn't quite take off like the theatrical distressed airplane films. Most of the talent in the movie are dependable TV actors. Luckily the "Love Boat" wouldn't set sail for another year, so casting director Marvin Page more than likely had less trouble with potential scheduling conflicts when booking the performers. It seems like Ray Milland spent most of the Seventies acting grouchy. It's nice to see him do this while also reprising his famous performance from "The Lost Weekend." I enjoyed Don Meredith's good old boy performance. He was a real scene stealer. This should come as no surprise since there is an old saying in Hollywood: Never act with children, animals or former quarterbacks of the Dallas Cowboys. Off-screen romances don't necessarily translate to on-screen, but I liked the chemistry between the Georges. In the plot department it wasn't too surprising that Linda's character primary function was to basically end up like Jacqueline Bisset in "Airport."

I can imagine the pitch at the TV execs office went something like this " You know what everyone watches at the cinema these days ? Disaster movies , so let`s get everyone out of the cinema back into the home with a disaster movie for TV " " Great idea . We`ll get a well known TV actor and some Oscar winning actor everyone has forgotten about . How we gonna come up with a new slant on the genre ? "" that`s easy we set it on a plane just like in AIRPORT except , except there`s a mad psycho killer aboard the plane . We could even get that crazy guy from EARTHQUAKE to play the psycho " " With an idea and casting like that that there`s no way we can fail with this TV movie " I beg to differ because as someone who`s seen MAYDAY AT 40,000 FEET it is a failure because someone forgot to write an interesting script

This film is of the typical disaster films of the 70's; aircrafts that almost crash, hijacks, engine failures, terrorist acts and so on. The amazing thing about them is the great performances by great actors; in such films, we saw actors like Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, Jack Lemmon, Alain Delon, Christopher Lee and so on...In this film, David Janssen in a great performance (one more time), as a man in his 40's that has his own problems in his life, and apart from that, he has a rendez-vous with the bullet of a prisoner that wants to escape. The film script limits the abilities of the actor to perform; however, the film is a pleasant adventure/drama.5 out of 10.