Synopsis
Trailers
Reviews (95)
-
K
As ripe as this is for parody—it’s the primary inspiration for AIRPLANE!—it’s actually a pretty solid little thriller with nice work from Andrews, Darnell, and Hayden. Still, kind of hilarious to see just how much the ZAZ team took directly from the movie.
46 2 -
M
Our survival hinges on one thing – finding someone who not only can fly this plane, but didn’t have fish for dinner. After dozens of watches of Airplane! in my life, I finally watched the original movie it is based on as I listen to the audiobook (which is fantastic!) of Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. It holds up a (mostly) engaging piece of genre fun. But the parody uses so many scenes and bits of dialogue from this original that it is impossible not to have every joke play out in your head as you watch.
30 -
P
I’m not going to pretend I can image how this would hit for someone who wasn’t an Airplane! fan, but I enjoyed the story and pacing. Wish they gave the wife some personality. As a history nerd, I got a little judgey about Stryker leading a failed raid on April 10, 1945, don’t think the Luftwaffe had many pilots/planes by then. Rare mention in a movie of a Canadian Football League team.
99 -
A
As the joke-source for Airplane! I expected some similarities to my favorite comedy growing up. My eyes were in deeper and deeper disbelief as line for line, moment for moment, scene for scene, the two films appeared almost identical. I have never seen a movie more closely parodied in all my days, nor have I ever seen a parody eclipse the butt of its joke so immensely. So many moments in this film would harken me to Airplane! so effortlessly, that I was laughing at Airplane! jokes strictly from memory, and completing the gags out loud for my family and we were all laughing strictly by reference. I don’t know if any human on Earth can watch this movie after…
25 9 -
K
-
🇵
You Have 90 Minutes To Comply 2: Brevity Rules It’s a mediocre disaster movie with a pretty good Sterling Hayden performance, but that’s not important right now.
147 1 -
D
Did anyone of you know that Airplane! was a REMAKE?!?! I didn’t know that and found this for free on YouTube. It’s basically the whole Airplane! movie without the humor. It’s still a pretty decent film but after the first half hour, it was not as fun to make comparisons between the two movies. I enjoyed this though because it’s pretty great for 1957 and I at least have to give this movie credit. It deserves some praise for walking so Airplane could run! I don’t think I would really recommend this unless you are are super fan of Airplane!!
20 8 -
R
…there are some of us here, particularly me, who’d like to buy you a drink and shake your hand. Dana Andrews is a traumatized WWII pilot who hasn’t flown in years and ends up being the only person capable of landing a passenger plane after food poisoning knocks out the flight crew (sounds familiar?) He is basically playing Fred Derry again, a PTSD haunted veteran, and those first 20 minutes, where I was slowly realizing that this basically has the same setup as the ’80s Airplane!, were the best. Whole chunks of dialogue, setup, characters, even Joey visiting the cockpit… it’s a scene-by-scene parody. Which is really interesting because I always thought Airplane! was inspired by the Airport film. Based…
60 2 -
A
Ahh, the golden age of air travel. When the pilot himself would be waiting in line for the toilet right behind you and ask you if you wanted any Dramamine. Most reviews of this mile-high potboiler point out that it’s impossible to watch it without constantly thinking of Airplane! and that is true to an extent. The pilots asking a little boy if he’s ever been in a cockpit before, or a stewardess slapping a hysterical passenger to steady her nerves, are hysterical to see in this movie because of how Airplane! parodied them. And the whole tone of the film — deadpan to the point of ridiculousness — is what Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker mined for so much comedy…
26 3 -
W
This was the film ‘Airplane!’ was directly based on, a tense, suspenseful thriller, but it’s impossible to watch it as it was intended without thinking every line is a gag. They’re all here: ‘Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up smoking.’ ‘The life of everybody on board depends on just one thing: finding someone back there not only to fly this plane…but who didn’t have fish for dinner.’ And of course: ‘Joey, you ever been in a cockpit before?’ A must watch for all ‘Airplane!’ fans.
53 2 -
C
In the 1957 Zero Hour!, before the majority of those on-board crew and passengers get sick because they had fish for dinner, Linda Darnell on a flight tells ex-fighter pilot Dana Andrews (as Ted Stryker) she can “no longer love a man she does not respect.” It’s a line strictly played for poignancy, but anybody in love with the yuk-meisters Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker/ knows the similar line all too well from the 1980 spoof classic “Airplane!” Robert Hays moments later looks cross at the camera, and says, “What a pisser.” The shock and awe of this suspense-on-a-plane melodrama is learning how much dialogue was actually transplanted into 1980’s “Airplane!” “Looks like I quit the wrong week to quit smoking,” the Captain says…
68 7 -
D
It took over forty years for me to realize 1980’s AIRPLANE! Is a scene by scene spoof of this little known airline action movie. Same characters (mostly) including the hapless pilot Ted Stryker. It takes itself seriously but I laughed a lot realizing where my favorite (though admittedly a bit dated in parts) comedy got its most famous lines. Now of course AIRPLANE! also stole from AIRPORT and other popular disaster movies of the time. Is ZERO HOUR!…
1 -
L
It grieves me to discover myself obliged, as it seems every other commentator has been, to begin to write, and to move throughout this review, beneath the thick shadow of ‘Airplane’. The lot of this picture has become inextricably entangled with that of its later parody; certain shots, scenes and dialogue are found directly duplicated in the comedy, alongside character names, plot points, &c. Indeed, most who have watched this film have done so through a curiosity derived from their…
-
N
The movie that Air Plane! was based on;now it makes A whole lot more sense
-
F
Airplane! (1980) is a near shot-for-shot parody of this film. The funny thing about it is, despite not being meant as a comedy at all, it’s hilarious. The melodrama, they really do slap and shake the panicking lady, and that guy really did pick the wrong week to quit smoking. Love that the original flight is between Winnipeg and Vancouver. And they can’t land in Calgary (a semi arid, desert city) because of *fog* fun, short, fun to riff
2 -
P
-
D
Can’t tell you the number of times I went “oh so THAT’S why airplane did that” and also the number of times i just said a line from airplane
-
M
If you’ve seen Airplane!, you need to watch this for the sheer comedic value of how much was lifted from it. We will be discussing this in brief on our Airplane! episode of Spirited Movie Companions.
1 -
P
That’s impossible. They’re on instruments.
-
TTyler 7 月 21, 2026
Seems whenever I note in a log that I should seek out more movies featuring X person, I then naturally stumble on them soon after. Sterling Hayden was quite good in this as well, anyway. Impossible to watch this without thinking of Airplane!, obviously, with a lot of segments being line-for-line and shot-for-shot. As its own I found it entertaining enough at least. I wonder how American Airlines felt about this. Maybe the triumphant ending was a good look, in…
1 -
H
If you’ve looked anything concerning the making of Airplane!, you know very well why I decided to watch this. I don’t know how they looked at this forgotten movie and thought that it was prime spoof material, but I’m super glad they did. Maybe it was the few kooky passengers we focus on, like the old man who’s crazy into American football and the guy with the sock puppet, since they do add some levity into a movie that’s really…
9 -
B
double feature of Airplane! and then this would be so funny, even just knowing the parts of the parody from memory it’s so clear how much ZAZ lifted into their 1980 remake. Sterling Hayden the only actor trying to put some tension into a performance in this, even if he’s so needlessly sweaty
-
M
Não consegui não rir com algumas situações bizarras, queria agradecer aos diretores de Airplane! por transformar um filme medíocre em algo hilário. O filme se levar a sério demais em alguns momentos, fora algumas cenas tão dramáticas, me fizeram interessada na história.
-
I
Roger Roger. The novelty of this being identical to Airplane! is entirely the value here, but wow they really did this thing shot for shot in a remarkable way. A genuinely interesting exercise in reframing something as funny, I actually found myself laughing at this strictly upon this films association.
1 -
T
Kind of a halfway decent, albeit sluggish (like a wet sponge), air disaster/family drama, with a couple of pretty good performances, that’s granted a lot of grace due to its connection to comedy masterpiece Airplane!. Enjoyable, but mostly because I was being reminded of Airplane! gags.
3 -
J
what kind of aggressive brain parasite was in that fish that they were going to DIE in a matter of HOURS
2 -
K
We should have been able to let Sterling Hayden live forever. Who would it have hurt? Not me that’s for sure. Hayden and Dana Andrews are good in this. The film that basically was refilmed beat for beat but as the spoof “Airplane!”. Disaster movies are just inherently ridiculous in a fun way so you can see why they succeeded (and ultimately failed) all in “Zero Hour!”.
2 -
A
Definitely rating this higher because of the Airplane! quotes running through my head while watching
-
R
…there are some of us here, particularly me, who’d like to buy you a drink and shake your hand. Dana Andrews is a traumatized WWII pilot who hasn’t flown in years and ends up being the only person capable of landing a passenger plane after food poisoning knocks out the flight crew (sounds familiar?) He is basically playing Fred Derry again, a PTSD haunted veteran, and those first 20 minutes, where I was slowly realizing that this basically has the…
60 2 -
W
this turner classic movie is about an airplane
-
B
I was in the mood for a comedy so I started looking for the 1980 film “Airplane”. I come across a YouTube video called “The original Airplane film” spent the first half of this film wondering why the comedy from 1980 was black and white and contained zero jokes, turns out I was watching the wrong movie. Kind of embarrassing but oh well. The film isn’t bad it’s just very predictable and mid.
1 -
M
Like looking into a different world. Interesting history piece. Lots of repeat dialogue that quickly gets annoying but my modern senses. Also predictable but its about the journey on this one. Mostly Keeps the tension well.
-
N
二戰小型戰鬥機墜機生環卻患PTSD，十年後乘撘客機遇到機上一半人食物中毒，兩名機師都不能駕駛，臨危受命。
-
J
I admit that I laughed a few times when I remembered a gag from Airplane! (1980) that of course spoofed this, but I thought this was a good movie in its own right. The story gets you to feel sympathy for the main character Striker and it has some great suspense. If you want to criticize the directing/acting there are some brief moments of exaggeration, but nothing worse than an average movie of this type. It doesn’t waste too much…
-
L
so stupid. tf you mean “it’s an entirely different kind of flying, altogether!”
1 -
E
After deciding to rewatch Airplane! (one of my all-time favorite movies) and doing a bit of reading about it, I learned that it was based on the 1957 film Zero Hour! (they even parodied the exclamation mark!). With some time to kill and an increasing appetite for late-’50s and early-’60s films, I threw this on at about 12 p.m. and had a surprisingly great time. While there’s nothing particularly artistic or groundbreaking going on here, Zero Hour! is built around…
-
A
This taut airplane thriller kept me worrying throughout. I was super impressed by the pilot’s wife who calmly takes on the copilot/radio operator job. In the spirit of the Melmo, this movie gives us Jerry Paris from the Dick van Dyke Show as a helpful passenger.
1 -
M
Watch Airplane first and then this It makes this so much better as well as making Airplane! even better, if you can believe that 4/5
4 -
P
A former fighter pilot who is suffering from what would now likely be diagnosed as PTSD, boards a flight from Winnipeg to Vancouver, hoping to reconcile with his wife. The pilot and co-pilot (and many of the passengers) become ill with food poisoning, and the former pilot must overcome his lack of confidence – and the fact that he’s never flown a plane that large, to land the plane safely. Dana Andrews (who, a decade earlier, played an air force…
-
G
Before Airplane! Zero Hour.
-
S
*opens door* ‘I just wanna tell you good luck, were all counting on you’ *closes door*
-
EErik 6 月 18, 2026
Wild how much Airplane! directly lifted from this film.
-
M
Mostly known nowadays as the film that inspired Airplane (look it up, Airplane even borrows parts of this film’s script word for word!), Zero Hour! is actually a pretty decent b-movie, with a quick pace and a sympathetic lead whose guilt complex and PTSD is portrayed surprisingly sensitively for the era. That said, if you’ve watched Airplane, it will be harder to take this film seriously.
-
M
The air disaster film that Airplane! remade. Amazing how many scenes and dialogue they took verbatim. Had no idea this was a Canadian film. A good, relatively quick thriller. Apparently PTSD can be cured by being thrown into a life or death situation.
-
B
As the film that Airplane essentially remade? 4 stars. But on it’s own – it’s overwrought sincerity and intense ridiculousness gets it 2.5 stars. It’s not Zero Hour!’s fault, but it is impossible to watch this now without thinking about what it inspired. I think what is most surprising is both how Airplane! lifts whole lines of dialogue from Zero Hour! (and in doing so, makes them funny) and how close some of the recasting is too.
-
S
The seeds of demise for the 1970’s disaster film were planted early on, with this, the film that inspired Airplane! Much of Airplane’s strengths (and its few weaknesses) come from the unironic self-seriousness of Zero Hour!, including scads of dialogue lifted wholesale that would’ve been melodramatic on their own (I love Arthur Hailey but his writing is incredibly florid). Zero Hour! is almost as hilarious unintentionally as Airplane! is by design, though there are one or two things that weren’t parodied two decades later that are still amusing, like the poor man’s Senor Wences entertaining the kid, and the out-of-nowhere Canadian football chatter.
2 -
L
They really tried to stretch this out. Could’ve been a short, ended up becoming a parody (Airplane).
-
S
Striker, Striker, Striker, Strike Her! One of the most striking things about watching older films through a modern lens is the ridiculous lack of mental health for men in general and for war veterans specifically. The film frames his condition as a crisis of confidence, guilt, and cracking under pressure. The solution isn’t therapy, treatment, or support. It’s essentially face your fear, get back in the cockpit, and prove you’re still a man. The dominant cultural expectation was stoicism. Psychological…
2 -
M
Junesploitation Day 11: Disasters! In the closing days of World War II, Canadian fighter pilot Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews) makes a decision that causes the deaths of six men in his squadron. Ten years later, he has a hard time holding down a job and his marriage is on the rocks. When his wife leaves him, he chases her into the airport and boards the same plane she’s on. In the air, several passengers and both pilots suffer severe food…
3 -
M
Watched on TCM “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking” Thanks to Airplane!, this is the most unintentionally hilarious film ever!
5 -
C
New film #251 This film is very intriguing not for what it represented at the time, but what this film would serve as the inspiration for years later. “Zero Hour!” is the film that inspired the legendary comedy “Airplane!” from 1980. It is blatantly obvious that there was a lot taken in the way of dialogue from the first film to the other. This is not a knock on either the original or the comedy made years later, it is…
1 -
J
Le film dont le scenario a été réutilisé pour faire Airplane ! Fascinant de voir comment on a pu prendre un scenario sérieux et le rendre aussi drôle tout en conservant sa structure.
1 -
D
-
A
Obviously this lives on now as “the film Airplane! was based on, but a straightforward version,” but it’s better than that. It is extremely serious and way, way too afraid to let up on the tension even to develop a character, and that’s why it made such prime parody material. But I really found myself won over as I watched it. I’m a sucker for Sterling Hayden and he’s just playing his stock “tough” persona here, but he lends some…
-
NNatalie 6 月 6, 2026
Zero Hour! is a genuinely compelling aviation disaster suspense film, but it’s almost impossible to watch it with a straight face after seeing Airplane!.
1 -
L
so rife with comedy that airplane feels almost inevitable.. pleasantly surprised that it has stronger homoerotic overtones than airplane. everyone was looking crazy lustful in that control room
-
D
Dana Andrews in the movie that provided the foundation for Airplane! You can’t help adding in the punch lines as it goes along.
-
E
-
S
of course I giggled all the way through, how could I not ? all the same, it is a funny little reunion of darnell and andrews (shout out to fallen angel, you’ll always be famous) as well as the gumption of sterling hayden, who I’m realizing just keeps showing up in all these classics as an, erm, sterling character actor. it’s absolutely impossible to take this seriously, but as far as B-movie fare goes, it’ll just about do.
1 -
C
A fun watch if you’re a fan of Airplane! Timeline is outside the scope of our core disaster movie deep dive, but it’s absolutely essential viewing in the genre. Wild that some lines of dialogue were lifted straight from film to film. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking 🚬 Somehow a bit repetitive and drawn out even with its short runtime. Doesn’t hold a candle to the mastery that is Airplane, but we wouldn’t have that without this, so I respect it for that alone.
2 -
I
How romantic to have to fly a plane with your on-the-outs lover… Especially when your gay military boyfriend is on the ground coaching you through it. I’ve never seen Airplane! (1980), and I don’t *really* have the desire to, so it means nothing to me that it lifts so much directly from this. Sure, that’s fun. It speaks to how silly the plot is (that’s the point); bad fish on a plane, how chilling. Oh no! Oh no, someone needs to do something about Sterling Hayden’s neck. He looks awful! I like how hard they make flying a plane seem.
-
A
-
D
So many people talk about how this film inspired the comedy classic Airplane!. But I want to focus on one of its other noteworthy cinematic connections. Those of us who LOVE The Godfather can’t help but geek out over Sterling Hayden’s performance here. Every time someone refers to him as “Captain,” I want to start quoting Captain McCluskey from The Godfather. As a film, Zero Hour! is perfectly solid entertainment. Its problem is that it now lives in the shadow…
2 -
H
First time seeing this. It’s stunning how little they changed to make this into Airplane!
1 -
A
Forty-six since Airplane! and I finally got to see the source material. Mind you, it’s not a good movie. It was impossible for me to not say lines back to the screen. “The fog’s getting thicker.” Me: “And Leon’s get laaaarger”.
3 -
A
WARNING: If you’ve seen “Airplane!” before seeing this, you will experience flash backs and hysterical laughter. You’ve been warned! I can’t think of a better double bill than: “Zero Hour!” and “Airplane!”
-
R
“Don’t you love farce? My fault, I fear I thought that you’d want what I want Sorry, my dear But where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns Don’t bothеr, they’re herе” -Stephen Sondheim The definition of a “Your Mileage May Vary” movie, as it is -in some ways- funnier than Airplane!, since the dialogue is mostly the same, and the ridiculous stakes are played as serious as a heart attack, and in some ways, it just makes me…
2 -
S
Granted, I get that it’s hard to take this seriously after seeing Airplane! parody it. But I think it would be hard to take it seriously anyway. So many lines are said so melodramatically, and they’re all so silly. And like, this could be better. There’s good actors in this. Dana Andrews’ story could be told in a serious way. Instead he just makes a ~very serious~ face that displays like no emotions.
3 -
M
this was not my favorite tcm
-
C
On top of being a white knuckle disaster movie, it’s also a look at PTSD in World War II veterans, something that wasn’t talked about that much.
1 -
K
I picked a bad day to quit smoking Airplane inspiration. Sterling Hayden….
1 -
M
Why the hell would anyone want to watch “Airplane!” without the jokes? I sure missed those jive boys…
-
C
-
O
Quite a good ‘disaster’ movie in its own right, but the fact that it was the inspiration for Airplane! raises it to another level. Dana Andrews and Sterling Hayden star.
-
L
Almost every plot point, line of dialogue, and character in Zero Hour! is parodied in Airplane! except for the character attempting to cheer up a deathly sick child with a hand puppet. I guess some things are too absurd even for the ZAZ team.
9 -
K
-
GGeorge M 5 月 28, 2026
How come I can quote a movie I’ve never seen before? Looks like I picked the wrong time to quit sniffing glue!
-
D
I came for the origins of Airplane!, but ended up pleasantly surprised with this more than decent B movie disaster film. At least, it is if you can make yourself forget all of the dialogue and situations that ended up as Airplane! gags (which is admittedly 90% of the flick). Sterling Hayden brings a lot of needed gravitas in the later back half of the movie by basically shouting down a microphone giving instructions for half an hour. It’s cliched…
1 -
S
Yet another low-budget disaster film from the 50’s, of particular note for being the blueprint on which Airplane! would masterfully spit all over 23 years later. Though not particularly bad for a movie of its kind it can definitely be rather sloppy in a few cases; the editing and pacing is too on the nose and the acting quite terrible specially at the start, I can’t get over how absolutely expressionless Dana Andrews is through the entire thing for someone…
-
T
-
J
I’ve been aware of Zero Hour! for years, entirely because the creators of Airplane! have been quite open about how much of it they recycled. And yeah, now that I’ve finally watched Zero Hour!, I can confirm that the basic plot, as well as numerous specific scenes and even large chunks of dialogue, were lifted for the classic spoof. It seems like a solid enough early disaster flick, but I honestly don’t know how to effectively assess Zero Hour! with any genuine…
2 -
C
I don’t know what I expected but it is just airplane without all the jokes.
1 -
A
I would make a parody of this too
-
N
I can hardly believe this is where Airplane! got the majority of it’s script and plot. It’s quite dull, in all actuality. But I was thoroughly entertained anyways. Time to watch Airplane! for the hundredth time
2 -
Q
-
L
Pretty dull, but it’s crazy how much Airplane! steals directly from this.
-
P
When your life seems to move to an end and your biggest faults are a massive abstacle to impede your happiness, everything turns into a new light if you are so brave to accept to carry on your shoulders your dearests’ lives. Gaining back the love of your wife and your son and the admiration of your toughest peer and of the full humanity sharing your same experience.
-
G
Not as good as airplane. Interesting in comparison though. For one I’m surprised the food poisoning plot line is the same. Like the exact same. It’s treated more seriously here. An aspect that makes it unintentionally hilarious. Like for all the effort they’re giving this seems to just be simple food poisoning. Also some of this cinematography is primed for comedy. Which considering what happened makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the guy with the hand puppet. Why is…
-
L
Only watched this because I saw a video saying that Airplane! is a shot for shot remake of this but a comedy and holy shit lmao imagine getting mogged by your own spoof.
5 -
V
As the inspiration for my favourite comedy Airplane! it is hard to watch this and not compare the two or inherently pick up on every line that was not changed in the parody version. As a thriller I think it works, and I think it would have been absolutely fantastic to have seen Airplane! after this. If anything, this has given me an even deeper admiration for Airplane! As for this movie itself, it is the paint by numbers disaster thriller and delivers a nice little story.
-
L
Hall Bartlett’s thriller in which a routine flight turns into a major emergency as passengers and crew succumb to food poisoning. Does anyone know how to fly an airplane? This is the film which inspired the classic spoof Airplane! from where the writers got the idea from. Zero Hour, however, is a much more serious movie and if you have seen Airplane before this, you will do very well to keep a straight face. The story concerns Ted Stryker (Dana…
15 -
I
This was better than I expected knowing that this was the inspiration for “Airplane!” The performances were good with a decent amount of suspense. I actually rather enjoyed it.
5 -
W
As soon as me and Dad heard the name Ted Stryker we cackled non stop. Can’t really rate the thing because we spent the whole thing referencing Airplane!/ Flying High!, now that was a 5 star experience. Haven’t laughed like that in ages.
2 -
CCockroachWasp 4 月 30, 2026
This movie was so bad, Airplane remade it shot for shot and called it a comedy, and it was billions of times better
-
M
It took me 45 years to find out that Airplane! is shot-for-shot and line-for-line a Zero Hour! remake in parts. They mixed in stuff from all four Airport films, too, but its guts are Zero Hour!, With that out of the way, Zero Hour! is also a really good movie.
1
- Synopsis
- In 1950s Canada, during a commercial flight, the pilots and some passengers suffer food poisoning, thus forcing an ex-WW2 fighter pilot to try to land the airliner in heavy fog.
- Director
- Hall Bartlett
- Writer
- John C. Champion, Arthur Hailey, Hall Bartlett
- Studio
- Carmel Productions, Bartlett-Champion Productions, Delta Enterprises Inc
- Country
- USA
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1957
- Runtime
- 81 mins
- USA13 Nov 1957
Write a Review