“If you kill me, who’s going to fly the plane?”

Drake’s rating: Mild turbulence, followed by clear skies

Drake’s review: Ah, the made-for-television movie. Although the format had existed for decades, it was the 1970s when it really hit its peak, with each of the Big Three networks plugging their own films in competition not only with each other but also with the movie theaters. But to compete with the theaters, the networks had to come up with ideas that were popular enough to keep viewers on their comfy couches and do it on a small enough budget to make it financially worthwhile. And to find out what was popular, they only had to look at the box office receipts from those theaters that they wanted to compete with and see what was pulling in the numbers.

Which is a roundabout way of saying, “This is all Airport’s fault!” That 1970 film was a smash hit and had, in 1974, spawned an unlikely sequel, Airport 1975, which had itself also done tremendous business. Taking notice of that fact, some executive at CBS bought the rights to a recently published novel called “Jet Stream,” rented a Boeing 727 and then called the agents of every TV actor who was looking for a quick paycheck before smashing that green light button and sending this one off to production.

Still, although Mayday at 40,000 Feet! is decidedly derivative, it isn’t too bad. Ostensibly an air disaster film, it’s really more of a drama with a few action elements, a wise choice since television movies really didn’t have the budget to pull off big screen stunts. Fortunately, this one has a game cast who play it just campy enough to keep the flick from slogging into deep melodrama, instead making it a pretty decent popcorn muncher.

Flight 602 is not having the smoothest day. Not only are they traveling into a heavy snowstorm on their way east, but they have to stop in Salt Lake City to pick up a Federal Marshal and his prisoner, a nasty sort by the name of Greco (Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw). All is well until the Marshal, who has been having health problems, dies of a heart attack. Greco gets his gun and starts shooting, leaving both the captain and a passenger seriously wounded and the hydraulic system damaged.

Of course, things are made even more complex by the fact that the wounded passenger is an old flame of the co-pilot, Stan Burkhart (Christopher George, The Exterminator) and the one person who can help her is another passenger, Dr. Mannheim (Ray Milland, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes), who would rather down Scotch than take on new patients after a recent medical case gone wrong. And there’s also a subplot about the captain’s wife undergoing a biopsy, which has left him rather worried. But even as she’s recovering, and moments after being told that she’ll be fine, she sees the news report about her husband’s jet being damaged, with a possible crash landing in a New York airport.

It’s just that kind of day!

Mayday at 40,000 Feet! is a pretty good example of a well-made TV movie. Veteran television director Robert Butler keeps this one moving along, rotating through the characters and establishing relationships and motivations early, so that the viewer feels invested once Greco goes on his short-lived rampage. The veteran cast helps immensely, with George doing his square-jawed best as Burkhart (aided and abetted by Monday Night Football commentator Don Meredith), The Fugitive’s own David Janssen as the beleaguered captain and Lynda Day George as a head stewardess who knows how to keep the passengers in line.

It’s certainly nothing ground-breaking, and it was running around in a field already well-trod* by the Airport movies that inspired it, but Mayday at 40,000 Feet! is a solid TV movie that moves right along and never overstays its welcome. All it’s missing is a nun with a guitar and George Kennedy.

*One could make the argument that that field was worn down a few years and two more Airport sequels later, before it was completely burned to the ground by Airplane!

Intermission!

• Director Robert Butler helmed all kinds of television shows, from Batman and Star Trek to Hogan’s Heroes and Hill Street Blues. In the 1980s, alongside Michael Gleason, he created the Remington Steele TV series.
• Hari Rhodes (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) has an unfortunately too-small role as the military man who has to keep an eye on Greco once the Marshal dies. He was another TV regular who is probably best known for his work on the Daktari TV shown in the mid-60s.
• Marshal Sam Riese was played by Broderick Crawford, who had worked with Ray Milland before, all the way back in 1939’s Beau Geste. A decade later he won the Academy award for his performance in All the King’s Men.