Had I never come to Bulgaria, I might well have lived my life without seeing Murder on Flight 502. i had the undeniable privilege of watching it on Bulgarian TV yesterday -- with subtitles instead of dubbing, no less. The IMDB page says it's available on DVD, and if it's your cup of tea, I strongly recommend picking it up.
It's a harrowing tale of murders in the poorly designed first class cabin of a 747 circa 1975. WATCH! Robert Stack as the pilot, warming up splendidly for his deadpan Captain Rex Kramer in Airplane!. MARVEL! at Sonny Bono as a "rock star" before his brilliant turn as the terrorist in Airplane II . It was a TV movie, so the scenes here in Bulgaria tended to fade to black and stay that way for a couple of seconds at the commercial breaks.
The plot begins when a young Danny Bonaduce (as "Millard") leaves a smoke bomb in the first class lounge as a practical joke. JFK security, in the form of a guy Robert Stack always calls "DAV-enport!" in his Robert Stack growl, doesn't find the package funny, but finds a letter in the mail that he should have only seen a day later. It says that there will be Murders on Flight 502! The rest of the movie involves Robert Stack playing detective/captain, trying to figure out who the murderer onboard might be.
If anything it's a brilliant portrayal of the caste system in 1975 airline travel. The first class passengers might as well be on another plane as the 180-odd coach travellers are only mentioned twice and never seen or heard from. Life and death is about the first class passengers in their bright yellow, plush chairs and Donny Bonaduce (a first classer) is the only kid Robert Stack invites to show "how this machine practically flies itself." Incidentally, Stack welches on this promise and poor Millard never gets to see the cockpit. And he looks so excited when Stack makes the promise...
Farrah Fawcett-Majors has a couple of lines as an incidentally insidious stewardess. And Ralph Bellamy foreshadows Leslie Neilson's doctor perfectly. It may not have any "Hostpital? What is it?" or "surely" jokes. And it may have been presented as a murder mystery. But Murder on Flight 502 shows why Airplane! was more than just funny one-liners. Great flick. Again, highly recommended for lovers of Ed Wood-style bad movies.
Other than that, the whole preparation process for school begions tomorrow. Which means getting back to work, but will also most likely mean more regular trips to the internet club to relax after work. So you can probably expect more regular posting.
Posted by Rob at September 6, 2004 07:46 PM