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It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I saw this movie as a young college student and it shaped my outlook on life. Sometimes, regardless of skill, experience, and motivation, luck or fate will intervene to alter life. This movie explored that concept in an enjoyable and plausible manner. Sometimes when things go terribly wrong, there is no root cause, no person to whom blame can be assigned. Sometimes life is just a jumble of facts inextricably bound by fate.

Copyright 30 September 1964 by Arcola Pictures. An Aaron Rosenberg Production, released through 20th Century-Fox. New York opening at the Palace and local cinemas: 9 December 1964. U.S. release: 30 September 1964. U.K. release: November 1964. Sydney opening at the Regent. 9,506 feet. 105 minutes.SYNOPSIS: One night on a lonely beach near the Los Angeles Airport, Consolidated Airlines flight 22 piloted by Captain Jack Savage (Rod Taylor) crashes and burns. All passengers and crew are killed, with the exception of a stewardess, Martha Webster (played by Suzanne Pleshette). Sam McBane (Glenn Ford) Director of Flight Operations for the Airline, rushes to the scene of the accident. He is told by airport personnel that Savage reported his right engine on fire shortly after takeoff and requested permission to land. Savage was told to maintain altitude on his left engine until a flight path was cleared. Minutes later, the plane crashed. McBane is baffled by the accident. It is his assignment to determine the accident's cause, but he can find no logical reason. Surely the plane could have maintained altitude on one engine. What else could have gone wrong? COMMENT: Flashbacks, that's the problem. Much as I enjoyed Jane Russell's guest spot, all the re-enactments really do is to flesh out the part played by Rod Taylor. As Mr. Taylor is not an actor over-loaded with charisma, I can do without these unnecessary scenes. Otherwise it's not a bad little film, with some good suspense — even if the solution is somewhat too pat and thus unsatisfying. Glenn Ford is his usual reliable self, and the support cast is loaded with interest.

Fate is the Hunter (1964)A melodrama with a failed airplane at the center of things, and so many implausible aspects it's hard to really follow it through without a groan. Glenn Ford is a terrific actor but he depends on his grimness to such a uniform extreme here it's oppressive. And idea of defending an old war buddy is great, and of duplicating the events leading to a plane crash, too, but it is taken to great extremes.Not that it isn't interesting, for sure, in ways. But coincidences mount, and then that darned coffee cup spilling into the electronics. Gosh, no one thought that might be a problem?Check out the shot of the airplane with sandbags with all their seatbelts on for passengers. A funny moment. There are war flashbacks, a pair of stewardesses who catch the pilot's eye, and the alcoholic buddy who comes through in the end. It's a simple idea stretched into a barely tolerable two hours. Nicely made and nicely shot, and with decent acting all around, but trapped in a strange narrative.

This movie is one of my all-time favorites that I'm happy to share tonight with my movie-buff husband who has never seen it. (I'll bet Tony DiNozzo would remember it, though.) I've been trying to remember the title for ages (couldn't recall Rod Taylor's last name to look it up online. Getting senile I guess.)I agree with Roscoe-4. "It illustrates the many zany and unusual things that can happen to change our lives forever." The actual cause of this plane crash has stuck with me since I first saw the film over 30 years ago on TV. Many times I have caught myself in the midst of a possible negative chain-of-events and changed something I was doing because of this movie (especially if there was a cup of coffee involved in what I was doing). It also probably lead to my interest in Multivariate Statistics (quantification of the phenomenon of multiple variables leading to a single outcome.)Personally, I think everyone should see this film. At least it tells a person to keep looking deeper for causes instead of assuming that "what you think is accurate" is also worth believing just because "it makes sense" to you. "It makes sense" should never be enough by itself to lead us all the way to a conclusion.