AIRPLANE! (1980) is on at 10PM tonight (Fri. Mar. 5, 2010) and the film from which AIRPLANE! took its plot, ZERO HOUR (1957), follows at 11:45PM tonight on TCM. If you like AIRPLANE! you really should see the film that inspired it. The parts that are most clearly echoed in AIRPLANE! will make you laugh. But ZERO HOUR does work on its own terms as a tense, tightly-edited family melodrama/airplane disaster thriller, with some fine performances from Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell and Sterling Hayden.

It was hard to watch "Zero Hour" without mentally referring to all of the scenes brilliantly parodied in "Airplane!" It certainly gave me a new appreciation for the 1980 comedy masterpiece.

I wish the "Zero Hour!" DVD wasn't seemingly OOP. I've always been meaning to get it and watch...but I guess I won't.

The DVR is set!

^ Same here.

There's a good story on how ZAZ even saw Zero Hour at all. As I understand it, they were writing material for The Kentucky Fried Movie and needed to see some actual late night cheesy TV commercials that they could spoof them in the movie. So they used a VCR to record a lot of late night TV that they could then watch later for the commercials. And the local station just happened to show Zero Hour as the late night movie on one of those nights and their VCR recorded it. As they were going through the videotape to see the commercials, they also saw the movie and thought it was hilarious. So they based their next movie on it and the rest is history.

Zero Hour is still available as part of Warner Bros. Cult Camp Classics Vol. 3 box set. It's out of stock at Amazon, but can be found at other etailers:

http://www.dvdplanet.com/details.cfm/info/WBD014523

Sorry for being so East Coast-centric, but I should have pointed out that I meant 10PM Eastern Standard Time (EST) in my original post. I'm not sure how TCM schedules things in other time zones.

Same here. I was a huge Airplane! fan before I ever saw Zero Hour. The similarities just made me laugh more.

I think ZAZ mentioned in their Airplane! commentary that they originally used jet engine sounds for the establishing shots of the plane flying. Recalling "Zero Hour" they thought these scenes missed something so they used prop engine sounds like the original film. A subtle yet evocative decision on their part.

I always loved the prop sounds with the jet engines.

Thanks for the heads up on this Ketchum. Saw it last night and was completely entertained. Never knew about Zero Hour before, nor about how many word-for-word lines of dialogue were recreated for Airplane!

Please put actual dates in your subject headers, "tonight" is meaningless.

I actually snagged a used copy of "Zero Hour!" locally and had my own "Zero Hour!/Airplane!" double feature.

Some scenes/lines certainly make more sense after viewing ZH!, but it was interesting to see ZH! only makes up 70-80% of "Airplane!".

Good point, Groucho, I'll make sure to do that in future "heads-up" posts.

Looks like i picked the right week to start drinking.

Found a comparison on YouTube.

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RIP Peter Graves

I would not be able to watch Zero Hour without laughing all the way through it.

Netflix has it.

And now, so do I.