Watch Mayday at 40,000 Feet For Free

Too much of everything

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Tough, but troubled Captain Pete Douglass (the always dependable David Janssen in sturdy stalwart form) has his hands full dealing with both a fierce snow storm and dangerous convict Greco (delightfully overplayed with lip-smacking maniacal relish by Marjoe Gortner), who's being transported to prison on board Douglass's passenger jet.Director Robert Butler keeps the entertaining story moving along at a brisk pace and generates a good deal of tension. The overwrought script by Austin Ferguson, Dick Nelson, and Andrew J. Fenady piles on the cheesy melodrama something thick: Douglass's sick wife undergoes an operation at a hospital for a possibly cancerous tumor, cantankerous disgraced doctor Joseph Manheim (a wonderfully grouchy and dynamic portrayal by Ray Milland) gets a chance to redeem himself, and so on. The bang-up cast of familiar faces helps a lot, with especially stand-out work from Christopher George as macho copilot Stan Burkhart, Don Meredith as happy-go-lucky cowboy engineer Mike Fuller, Lynda Day George as spunky senior stewardess Kathy Armello, Margaret Blythe as Stan's sweet old flame Susan MacKenzie, Broderick Crawford as the rugged, but ailing Marshal Riese, Christopher Norris as eager rookie stewardess Cindy Nelsen, and Hari Rhodes as the noble Belson. Richard Markowitz's crisp cinematography provides a pleasing polished look. William P. Jurgensen's robust score hits the rousing spot. A fun flick.

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.