The Horror at 37000 Feet (1973)

Our weird, wild and wonky preternatural tale begins innocently enough at London's Heathrow Airport, where the select passengers of Flight 19-X wait to verify their boarding passes. 

Why '19-X', you ask? Well, it’s an eXtra flight, see, chartered by the eccentric American millionaire architect Alan O’Neill.

Now, along with O’Neill (Thinnes) and his English wife, Sheila (Merrow), the plane will only be accommodating a few more passengers to compensate for the couple’s massive cargo: several large crates filled with the ancient, deconstructed stones and timber of the bride’s ancestral family chapel that’s destined to be rebuilt at their new home in the States as a sign of affection. (That, or she refused to leave home without it.)

However, some locals weren’t all that thrilled with this venture, most notably a Mrs. Pinder (Grimes), who tried and failed to prevent the O’Neills from desecrating and moving the historical site and its priceless artifacts with a court injunction. 

But Pinder intends to take up this legal fight in the American courts and is currently making arrangements to be on the flight, too -- much to the chagrin of the O’Neills. (But isn’t it their chartered flight? Can’t they just refuse to let her on the plane? Oh, right. The plot.)

Meanwhile, while going through the pre-flight checklist, Flight 19-X’s pilot is confused by the huge fuel load given the short passenger list. Here, Captain Ernie Slade (Connors) is informed about their unique cargo, currently being loaded into the belly of the jumbo jet.

And while those crates containing the discombobulated remains of the chapel are loaded, we get our first inkling of the horror to come when these containers start emitting some spooky, ethereal noises as they’re secured in the hold. And did something just knock on the crate from the inside? Maaaaaaaybeeeeeeeeeee.

Above, in the passenger section, clad in some swingin’ go-go boots, miniskirts and army helmets, the two flight attendants are finishing up their own pre-flight prep. And since there will only be a grand total of ten passengers, Sally (Bennet) informs Margot (Carr) that everyone will be bumped upstairs to first class. They are then startled by a sudden and icy cold wind that blasts its way through the plane’s interior.

In the cockpit, the flight engineer, Jim Hawley (Johnson), notes the sudden drop in his temperature gauges to the co-pilot, Frank Driscoll (Wynatt), who then watches as the windshields instantly ice over -- on the inside!

Contacting the control tower to check on this massive and sudden flux in climate, the flight crew is told that no rapid arctic fronts have been detected and the latest weather report is nominal. And so, as the windshield quickly defrosts and the gauges right themselves, the men just write the whole thing off as more "freaky London fog."

With the plane now ready and the cargo secured, the passengers are allowed to start boarding. And as they are herded into their seats, we see that it’s quite an eclectic bunch:

First up is a fashion model, Annalik (Nuyen), and then a cranky hotel-magnate named Glenn Farlee (Ebsen). Also along for the ride are a Dr. Enkalla (Winfield) and Roy Holcomb (Hutchins), an American actor on his way home after making a Spaghetti Western in Italy.

Here, the film also falls victim to Irwin Allen's Syndrome, diagnosed by the most obvious symptom: the presence of one or two young moppets to amp up the tension when the plot monkey gets his hand on a disaster wrench. Thus, we have an unaccompanied minor on board, too; a little girl named Jodi (Benson), sitting alone in the back row playing with her doll.

Rounding out this group is a bitchy redhead named Manya (Loring) and her hard-drinking boyfriend, Paul Kovalik (Shatner). But Pinder is the last to board, a little miffed that she wasn’t allowed to bring her dog Daimon along unless he rode in the cargo hold, where he now sits inside his pet carrier alongside the other crates.

Before the plane departs, Pinder takes the opportunity to confront the O’Neills again, charging them with blasphemy and sacrilege for removing the sacred druid stones that were part of the chapel’s foundation. But before things can escalate any further, the stewardesses step in and wisely separate these two factions to opposite ends of the cabin to buckle-up for departure.

But once the plane finally lifts off, the O’Neills continue to squabble; it seems Pinder’s constant badgering has gotten to Sheila, who’s been having second thoughts about the whole endeavor. Tired of all the quibbling, and too invested financially to back out now, her husband heads to the lounge for a drink, where he promptly starts hitting on Annalik. 

Alone, Sheila tries to use the plane’s headphones to listen to some music; but all she hears is that same ghostly noises emitted by the crates mixed with several tormented voices calling out to her by name!

Meantime, in the cockpit, the plane’s instruments appear to be malfunctioning again; either that or they’re flying into a really strong headwind because the plane doesn’t appear to be moving!

Thus, as Slade alters course to see if there's any change, back among the passengers, Kovalik is the first to notice that they aren't moving. He also makes note of the date to Manya; it's the eve of the Summer Solstice -- a day when witches and warlocks come out of the darkness to cast their spells. (He typed ominously…) 

Then Farlee, a pilot himself, realizes the plane has made about five course corrections in about as many minutes and demands to know what’s going on.

And so, as their passengers grow more anxious, the same feeling grows inside the cockpit, too, because no matter which course they take, improbable as it may seem, the plane still isn’t moving -- as if it were frozen in mid-air! (And if you notice the wires holding the model, like I did, you'll see that it is.)

All the while, down in the cargo hold, that ominous wail grows louder as something tries to break-out of the cargo crates -- much to the distress of Pinder’s dog. 

Above, totally entranced by the same ghastly voices, Sheila removes the headphones, slowly gets up from her seat, and heads toward the back of the plane, mesmerized by the cacophony that only she can hear, where whatever it is in the cargo hold is waiting.

Making it about halfway out of first class before she swoons and faints, as the other passengers gather around to help her, Sheila, still under the influence, starts mumbling in Latin. 

Both Pinder and Kovalik can speak the language, and realize what she’s saying, but reveal nothing to the others, who all think the girl is just sick and delirious.

After helping Sheila back to her seat, Dr. Enkalla suggests to Margot that she could use something to eat. Heading down to the galley, which is directly adjacent to the cargo hold, Margot hears Pinder's dog through the wall, who is in a high state of distress until the animal suddenly falls silent.

Then, as the lights start flickering, Margo notices the hatch to the hold has iced over, and how a frigid fog is currently seeping through and spreading away from the rapidly failing seals. And fearing there’s been a hull breach in the hold and the pressurized plane is about to pop open like a jolted can of soda, Margot hops in the elevator to escape to the upper deck and warn the others.

But the lift is quickly frozen over and comes to a halt. Stuck, as the fog quickly fills up the enclosed space and enshrouds her in its icy grip, the helpless stewardess screams for her life…

At the dawn of the 1970s, the American Broadcast Company (ABC) had seemingly cornered the market when it came to the … slightly off-kilter plots when it came to Made for TV Movies.

As the youngest network at the time, and getting constantly pasted in the ratings, ABC’s producers were encouraged to think outside the box to try and draw viewers in. This resulted in tales of love sick clandestine aliens in Night Slaves (1970) and The Love War (1970); haunted manors in The House that Would Not Die (1970); witchcraft taking its toll on Crowhaven Farm (1970); psychic premonitions in The Deadly Dream (1971), Sweet, Sweet Rachel (1971), The Devil and Miss Sarah (1971), The People (1972) and The Eyes of Charles Sand (1972); demonic weddings with The Devil’s Daughter (1973); nature’s revenge in the extremely creepy A Cold Night’s Death (1973); ancient curses in The Cat Creature (1973); and something was definitely in the walls in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973).

The Fort Lauderdale News (January 7, 1972).  

But it wasn’t until the combination of Dan Curtis (producer), John Llewellyn-Moxey (director), Richard Matheson (writer), Darren McGavin (star), and a vampire running loose on the streets of modern day Las Vegas in The Night Stalker (1972) that got the other networks interested in this type of programming.

Despite its subject matter, this no-nonsense telefilm was a smash hit for ABC with both critics and audiences, drawing a 48-percent share, the highest ever at the time of broadcast, and spawned a sequel in The Night Strangler (1973) and an eventual spin-off series when the third proposed feature The Night Killers morphed into Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-1975).

The Grand Island Independent (November 10, 1961).

Now, this type of programming wasn’t necessarily new to the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). You had outliers like Alfred Hitchcock Presents (splitting time with NBC from 1955-1965) and The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), which borrowed sci-fi and horror tropes for their parables and morality plays most effectively; and The Munsters (1964-1966), which technically was a situational comedy wrapped up in a Creature Feature shell; and they nearly beat The Night Stalker to the punch with The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964).

Written and produced by Joseph Stefano, remembered most likely for penning the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and as the originator of The Outer Limits (1963-1965), Stefano also wound up directing the show, too, when the original director, Robert Stevens, fell ill.

The Los Angeles Times (October 3, 1966). 

It was originally conceived as a pilot for a proposed series called Haunted, where Martin Landau played Nelson Orion, architect by day, paranormal investigator by night. And in that inaugural episode, "The Black Telephone," Orion takes on a case where it appears his client was being gaslighted from beyond the grave. And so, the main difference between the two series was how Orion was a debunker while Kolchak was a reporter who faced real supernatural threats no matter where he went or how ludicrous they were. (My favorites were "The Spanish Moss Murders" (S1.E9), "The Zombie" (S1.E2), and "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be" (S1.E3.)

Now, as the legend goes, while Stefano’s pilot did not go to series, a decision was made to salvage it by shooting some additional scenes, expanding its run time, and converting it into a standalone telefilm, which first saw broadcast in Canada in 1967, leaking over the border according to several TV listings in the northwest, but only ever showed up briefly in official limited syndication Stateside in late 1980.

However, the film has since been released by Kino Lorber, which contains both the converted telefilm and the original pilot episode and I heartily recommend giving both a watch. It will kinda make you wish the series had a few more episodes to stretch its legs a bit and find its footing.

And so, while CBS was not averse to thrillers when it came to their in-house features, they really didn’t warm up to science fiction or horror until 1972 with the broadcast of a certain trio of films.

First up was Something Evil (January, 1972), an early effort from Steven Spielberg, where a family moves into a haunted house that starts to possess the mother. But I think I can sum up the film best by saying there’s a reason why everyone always talks about Spielberg's other telefilm, Duel (1971), a high octane thriller and an ode to road rage, and leave it at that.

Then came Sandcastles (October, 1972), which was both a preternatural swipe at Love Story (1970) and a tribute to the death ballads of the 1960s, where a young man killed in a car crash comes back from the dead and forms a relationship with the woman who tried to save him. And the third was Gargoyles (1972).

Gargoyles (1972). 

Now, I freely admit when I first encountered Gargoyles in reruns it scared the shit out of a six year old me. That scene in the hotel? Where the monster crawls out from under the bed? Yeah. Not since the heyday of Jack Arnold -- It Came from Outer Space (1954), Tarantula (1955) -- has the desert been utilized so well. And anchored beautifully by some costumes designed by Stan Winston and an uncredited Rick Baker, though it falters in spots, the film holds up remarkably well and delivers some genuine thrills and chills as the gargoyle apocalypse is beaten back for another 600 years.

Thus, the network was itching for more of the same. Enter Anthony Wilson.

Wilson was a two-punch combo, working as both a producer and screenwriter for episodic television. He wrote teleplays for shows ranging from Have Gun Will Travel (1957-1963), The Addams Family (1964-1966) and Bewitched (1964-1972). But he was most prolific on Land of the Giants (1968-1970), Banacek (1972-1974) and the Planet of the Apes (1974) TV spin-off.

But Wilson started in the business strictly as a producer on the anthology series Alcoa Theater (1959-1960) and Goodyear Theater (1959-1960). He followed that up by producing 18 episodes of the short-lived Follow the Sun (1961-1962), where a couple of reporters track down stories in the Hawaiian islands.

The Akron Beacon Journal (September 24, 1970).  

Wilson would do it again on The Immortal (1970-1971), where a man is on the run from a shady organization, who wants to turn him into a lab rat when it’s discovered his blood not only makes him immortal but contains enzymes that can cure all kinds of diseases and extend life that they can exploit.

Heavily influenced by The Fugitive (1963 - 1967), for which Wilson also wrote a couple of scripts, The Immortal began life as a Movie of the Week for ABC but was actually an ersatz backdoor pilot. ABC made a lot of hay with this formula, either using failed pilots to fill up time slots or gauging audience reaction before fully committing on shows like Alias Smith and Jones (1971-1973), The Six-Million Dollar Man (1973-1978), Longstreet (1971-1972), Kung-Fu (1972-1975), Get Christie Love (1974-1975) and Starsky and Hutch (1975-1979).

 The York Daily Record (November 12, 1971). 

Wilson would then jump ship to CBS for two more telefilms, Paper Man (1971) and Deadly Harvest (1972). The first film concerns a bunch of college students running a credit card scam, creating a person who only exists on paper to max out the cards and skip on the bills. Things take an ominous turn when members of the conspiracy start getting bumped off. And the second telefilm features some Cold War intrigue when a Soviet defector who had been living a quiet life in America is suddenly besieged by KGB assassins -- or is he?

But Wilson’s next assignment for the network would be The Horror at 37000 Feet (1973), a combination of The Ghost Goes West (1935), Airport (1970), The Exorcist (1973), and an old episode of The Twilight Zone (-- you know the one), where ancient Celtic necromancers strike back from the beyond against the passengers of a 747 due to one of them defiling their old stomping / sacrificial grounds.

Anton LaVey.  

The film was based on a story idea called Stones by V.X. Appleton, and this appears to be his only contribution to the media arts. Google turned up nothing on this guy, making him a bit of a ghost. This story idea was then hammered into a shooting script by Ronald Astin and James Buchanan, who worked in tandem on many episodic TV series. The two had also written a couple of features together, The Happening (1967) and Midas Run (1969), and had worked with Wilson before on Paper Man.

To make sure his writers got the heathen bits right, Wilson would bring in noted Satanist Anton LaVey as a technical advisor. “We had to verify some Latin phrases from a black mass,” said Wilson (The Press and Sun-Bulletin, February 24, 1973). “And I read about LaVey, who’s an expert on such practices. He checked our script and helped out with some symbolic references.”

As the script began to take shape, to direct the film, Wilson hired another solid TV vet with David Lowell Rich. Rich had a few features notched on his director’s chair, too, including vehicles for the Three Stooges with Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959) and Louis Prima and Keely Smith with Hey Boy! Hey Girl! He also worked with Stefano on Eye of the Cat (1969), which promised the greatest game of cat and mouse ever committed to film when an inheritance grab goes staggeringly awry thanks to a gang of frenzied felines.

But Rich was most prolific on the small screen on things like M Squad (1958-1959) and Route 66 (1961-1963). In 1973 alone he directed eight telefilms in a wide variety of genres -- a tale of revenge in Set this Town on Fire; a cop who retired one day too late in Brock’s Last Case; the excellent heist caper Beg, Borrow … Or Steal; the small screen disaster movie Runaway!; and yet another ode to the cloven one with Satan’s School for Girls (1973), which makes for a nice bookend with The Horror at 37,000 Feet. The other two, Crime Club and Death Race, I have not seen yet.

 David Lowell Rich. 

The Horror at 37000 Feet was shot almost entirely at the CBS Studio Center. And like I pointed out in our earlier review of Murder on Flight 502 (1975), another, though more conventional telefilm, where everyone is stuck on an airplane while a killer bumps off several passengers, I realize how hard it is to keep the audience engaged while being stuck in one location.

But Rich and cinematographer Earl Rath at least have the benefit of some supernatural shenanigans to help punch things up as characters move from the cockpit, to the lounge, to the galley and the cargo hold again, and again, and again.

But The Horror at 37,000 Feet doesn’t dither when it comes to playing its supernatural hand, unlike Murder on Flight 502, which wasted over an hour setting up shoddy red herrings before the first body fell. But not here.

Here, we have quick, perfunctory introductions, where everyone is sketched out just enough to pass muster; early warning signs that something is definitely wrong, and it's only going to get worse (-- believe me); plausible explanation for the cause; and then the shit officially hits the fan when whatever that is in the cargo hold makes its presence known, breaks containment, and works to claim its first human victim, trapped inside the elevator, as it lashes out.

Luckily for Margot, the other passengers hear her cries and pry her out of the malfunctioning lift. But they are shocked to see the girl shows signs of frostbite and is nearly frozen to the bone! But the hysterical Margot quickly breaks away from the others and sprints to the cockpit to inform the crew about what happened, leaving Sally behind to calm the passengers down.

Given the evidence, Sally reports the outside door of the cargo hold must’ve blown off. And while that would rationally explain away the ice and extreme cold, Hawley says that's impossible according to his instruments. Ergo, whatever happened, it must’ve been caused by something inside the plane.

Still, since none of their instruments have been functioning all that properly since they took off, Slade thinks they'd better check it out anyway.

Sending Hawley on ahead for a damage assessment, Slade corners O’Neill and asks about the exact nature of his cargo. When O’Neill says it’s nothing but a bunch of harmless rocks, the pilot is satisfied, for the moment, and moves on toward the back of the plane. As he passes, Pinder, sensing something is wrong, asks him to please check on Daimon.

By now, the galley has completely iced over. Together, Slade and Hawley pry open the damaged cargo door and head into the hold. Finding it iced over, too, they also discover a strange, moss-like substance has spread all over the walls. Also obvious is an enormous, gaping hole torn in the side of one of the larger crates. Not torn, really; it appears that something has punched its way out from the inside!

As Hawley moves in for a closer look, nearby, Slade finds Pinder’s dog, frozen to death. But his attention is quickly drawn back to the crates when Hawley screams at him to get away! 

Turning, Slade sees that his engineer has been flash-frozen, dead, just like the dog.

Heeding that last warning, Slade quickly moves to vacate the hold -- but then something grabs his arm, something so cold it burns his skin through his clothes. Breaking away, he makes it to the elevator shaft and calls for help.

Once he’s hauled up to apparent safety by Sally, Enkalla and Pinder, a nearly delirious Slade reveals what happened to Hawley before ordering the others to block the shaft.

Here, not wanting to cause a panic, Sally asks the other two not to reveal what happened below. But after Slade is hauled off to the cockpit, Pinder immediately -- and rather gleefully, I might add -- tells everyone that the flight engineer has been killed, dead, and someone’s responsible, before turning a big old accusatory stink-eye on the O’Neills.

Gathering around the elevator door, the other passengers notice a greenish slime oozing out of the arm of Slade’s discarded jacket -- the one that was seized. With that, Farlee leads the panicked mob to the cockpit, where he demands the crew land them immediately.

Slade does his best to quiet the mob, saying they plan to do just that. And once Sally escorts everyone back to their seats, Slade tells Driscoll to inform Heathrow of their situation and that they’re turning back. But the co-pilot regretfully reports that the radio is no longer working either. As for that quieted mob, they've circled up to try and make sense out of what's been happening:

The always helpful Pinder claims to know exactly what's going on, who then reveals the Grove Abbey, the chapel that’s being relocated, was built on top of sacred ground to the ancient Druids; in fact, the altar itself contained a druid sacrificial stone. (I have no idea what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.)

Pinder goes on, saying every 100 years, on the eve of the Summer Solstice, the Druids would make human sacrifices on that very same stone to appease the ‘Old One.’ And now, since this ancient ritual has been disrupted by the move, these elemental forces of nature linked to the stones are currently running amok on the plane, looking for another human sacrifice!

Horrified by what she hears, and knowing what day it is, an overly fraught Manya thinks Pinder must be right. Now, as the others quickly fall in line, it’s at this point where we discover that Kovalik used to be a priest. Having lost his faith in almost everything, he bitterly scoffs at Pinder’s notions and those easily swayed by them. He then excuses himself and heads to the lounge for another drink.

But before he can get there, the plane starts to violently shake, knocking everybody around like the Starship Enterprise under attack by the Klingons. And it continues to convulse until the floor near the elevator cracks open and more of that icy fog begins to belch through the resulting fissure.

Ordering everyone to move to the front of the plane, Sally then realizes that Jodi is missing, still asleep in the rear. She runs back to retrieve the girl, but Sally is quickly overcome by the advancing mist. Seeing she’s in trouble, Holcomb rescues Sally while Margot gathers up Jodi and her doll just as the breach in the floor renders itself wider, allowing the others to finally hear the same haunted voices calling for Sheila from below.

At this point, a curious Kovalik asks Sheila if she remembers the Latin she spoke earlier. She does, and after repeating it, he tells her it’s from an ancient black mass. Then Pinder chimes in, adding that Sheila's great grandfather was burned at the stake for being a Druid. She also insists that Sheila must be sacrificed to the Old One, too, or they're all doomed!

Meanwhile, panic and survival instincts are starting to take over most of the other passengers, but they aren’t quite ready to throw Mrs. O'Neill to the wolves just yet. But! In a bizarre twist, Manya and Annalik come up with a rather kooky idea / alternate solution:

They trim an unresisting Sheila's fingernails and take several hanks of her hair, and then glue them onto Jodi's doll in a desperate attempt to fool the spirits. And as they dress up this effigy in scraps of Sheila’s clothes and slather on some make-up, Pinder, claiming to be a Druid herself, laughs, saying it won't work.

As the others prepare the doll, since he was a former priest, Sheila turns to Kovalik for some Divine reassurance but he has none. Having no time or patience for a Supreme Being that refuses to provide one single iota of His existence, Kovalik feels that no one could, or should, be expected to have that much blind faith.

When the doll is finished, Manya leaves it by the jagged crack in the floor and then they all anxiously wait to see what happens next. 

But after a brief respite, the doll quickly dissolves into a puddle of familiar green goo as the angry spirit's temper-tantrum resumes unabated.

With time running out, in an effort to save everyone else, and her own skin, Pinder renews her efforts to convince Sheila into sacrificing herself. (Need of the many and all that.) And after we’re treated to an infomercial on all-natural Druidism, Kovalik continues to scoff at Pinder's beliefs: anybody who has that much faith in anything is a fool in his eyes. But while lighting a cigarette, he notices Pinder’s acute aversion to the open flame of his lighter.

Intrigued, Kovalik then relates that according to folklore, people used to build large bonfires on the highest hills to ward off these kinds of evil spirits; and how they would cling to the firelight until dawn when the Solstice officially started, sending the pagan spirits back to wherever they came from.

Needing to know how long before the sun comes up, O'Neill checks with Slade in the cockpit. Told it'll be at least another three hours, O'Neill suggests that they climb to a higher altitude so the sun will hit them sooner. Until then, they'll build a contained fire in the aisle to hold the spirits off until dawn.

Using a small Formica table from the lounge as a makeshift fire-pit, the passengers pile it high with all the paper they can find and put a match to it. This pile doesn't last long though, so everything reasonably combustible is added to the pyre, including Jodi's coloring book, all the booze Kovalik didn't drink, and all the passengers' money.

But it still isn't enough; and as the fire dwindles to almost nothing, the sun still hasn't shown itself over the horizon. Out of time and out of fuel, with the deadly fog and greenish ichor inching ever closer, the frightened passengers who aren't named O'Neill decide it’s time to give the spirits what they’ve wanted all along.

Here, O’Neill moves to defend his wife, but Holcomb and Farlee overpower the man and beat him unconscious. 

Watching this sad display of humanity, Kovalik pulls a half-consumed magazine out of the fire, rolls it into a makeshift torch, and then heads toward the rear of the plane in Sheila’s place.

But then, as Manya and the others watch his progress into the frozen and slime-coated recesses of the plane, dawn finally breaks. Begging him to come back, Manya says they're safe now and he doesn’t need to sacrifice himself anymore. But Kovalik refuses to turn back; he must see it! 

And see it he does, and he is horrified.

Then, as its power fades, the evil spirits muster one last massive surge of icy wind from below that blows the cabin door off the plane. 

Alas, Kovalik is sucked outside in the resulting explosive decompression but the others manage to scramble back into their seats, belt in, and don their oxygen masks.

Eventually, Slade regains full control of the plane and they head back to London for an emergency landing. 

Back in the cabin, the passengers are having a little trouble looking each other in the eye, including Pinder, who sincerely claims to have no memory of the past few hours. (This seems sincere, and I believe we are to presume she was possessed by the Old One.)

Unable to understand why Kovalik did what he did, Manya is consoled by Enkalla, who postulates that maybe it was a final act of faith. Kovalik had to see it. It being the Old One. For if there is a Devil, then logic dictates there has to be a God as well.

Fascinating.

You know, there are a lot of things I’ve learned and taken to heart from the tons of gonzo films I’ve sat through over all these years; but some lessons I take way more seriously than others like, one, to never, ever meddle with a native burial ground; and two, to be very, very sober and celibate if I ever found myself in a Slasher movie; and three, to never, ever, under any circumstances, get on a plane if Captain Kirk’s onboard. Bad things just tend to happen.

[Tinfoilhat/] I’ve seen "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (Twilight Zone, S5.E3, 1963). I know what’s going on! Look to the wings, sheeple. [/Tinfoilhat].

The Horror at 37,000 Feet was actually the second leg of the William Shatner vs. the Devil trilogy; sandwiched in between Leslie Stevens’ arty-farty Incubus (1966), filmed in authentic Esperanto, and Robert Fuest’s The Devil’s Rain (1975), another film whose final punctuation gave me a permanent case of the Screaming Wilhelms when first encountered.

By 1973, Shatner was nearly five years removed from playing Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek (1966-1969). And though he would reprise the role in the animated series (and, of course, the later feature films), I think Shatner had successfully transitioned out of his most seminal role, and had found a bit of a niche as the villain of the week on several TV series before he found his second wind on T.J. Hooker (1982-1985), and third wind with The Practice (1997-2004).

The Daily Breeze (February 11, 1974). 

In the buildup to its premiere, the title of the telefilm was officially changed from the lackluster Stones to the more exploitable The Horror at 37,000 Feet. (I’d say that was a good call.) And as the broadcast date loomed, for the press materials, members of the cast were polled on whether or not they believed in the supernatural. The results were a tad lopsided in favor of things with no rational explanation, it was the 1970s after all, with the lone dissenter being Chuck Connors, who played Captain Slade.

“I believe only in what I can see and touch,” said Connors (The Daily Breeze, February 11, 1973). “Ghosts aren’t for me.” Connors was a former two-sport athlete, playing in both the NBA for the Boston Celtics, where he was the first player to ever break a backboard, and Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers and Chicago Cubs organizations before he embarked on his nearly forty year career as a character actor.

He broke in with a series of cheap B-films -- Walk the Dark Street (1956), Hot Rod Girl (1956); war films -- Dragonfly Squadron (1953), Hold Back the Night (1956); film noir -- Naked Alibi (1954), Death in Small Doses (1957); and westerns -- Tomahawk Trail (1957), The Hired Gun (1957). He then broke out a bit as the original owner of Old Yeller (1957) for Walt Disney; and he was terrific as the conniving Buck Hannassey in William Wyler's The Big Country (1958). That duel scene with Gregory Peck and Burl Ives, where his character turns yellow, and how it ultimately resolves is just aces.

He also starred in one Spaghetti Western, Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (alias Ammazzali tutti e torna solo, 1968), sort of a sagebrush Ocean’s 11 (1960), before finding a whole ‘nother gear in the 1970s, with strong supporting roles in Soylent Green (1973), a film that deserves so much better than being just a punchline; Bert I. Gordon’s attempt at a psychodrama, where he played The Mad Bomber (alias The Police Connection, alias Detective Geronimo, 1973), out to avenge the drug-overdose death of his daughter; and the sadistic hitman with the tricked-out prosthetic murder arm in John Frankenheimer’s totally bonkers 99 and 44/100% Dead! (1974).

Not to mention playing the psychic killer in the proto-slasher Tourist Trap (1979); or one of his toughest acting challenges to date, trying to pull off an English accent in Kinji Fukasaku’s Virus (alias Fukkatsu no Hi, 1980).

But Connors will forever be remembered for his role as Lucas McCain in The Rifleman (1958-1963), a widowed rancher raising his young son alone, who was legendary for his prowess with a customized Winchester rifle. He followed that up with the more contemporary Arrest and Trial (1963-1964), which was sort of a proto- Law & Order (1993 to present). And then another western, the Larry Cohen produced Branded (1965-1966), where Connors played disgraced cavalry officer Jason McCord, who was unjustly drummed out of the service for alleged cowardice.

Connors had also starred in two other telefilms before The Horror at 37,000 Feet: The Birdmen (1971), which told the tale of the O.S.S. trying to smuggle a nuclear scientist out of Europe during World War II; and Night of Terror (1972), where he played another hitman out to kill the Queen of Made for TV Movies, Donna Mills, an art teacher who doesn’t realize she has something dangerous in her possession that the bad guys want.

As for his co-stars who voted yes, “I used to believe in ghosts,” said Buddy Ebsen (ibid), who played the old grump Farlee. “But as I get older, I believe in them more and more. It’s especially strong whenever I’m in an old theater or a movie sound stage. I feel the ghosts of all the actors who used to work there.”

Ebsen started as a song and dance man in vaudeville before transitioning to film. He famously lost a lead role as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939) when he had a terrible allergic reaction to the aluminum based makeup, which was slowly poisoning him.

Despite a lengthy film career, like Connors, Ebsen is better remembered for his roles on the small screen, most notably as Jed Clampett, the patriarch of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), whose stray shot led to untold riches and a cement pond. After the show’s cancellation due to CBS’ “Rural Purge” of programming, Ebsen picked up a few guest-starring roles where he played against type.

“I’ve been playing villains a lot in guest spots,” said Ebsen in an interview with Bob Rose (Santa Barbara News-Press, February 20, 1973). “Maybe they found out I’m really evil at heart?”

Ebsen was currently transitioning into his new lead role as a private detective in Barnaby Jones (1973-1980), who comes out of retirement to solve the murder of his son, when he landed the role of the volatile Farlee in The Horror at 37,000 Feet. As to why he would play such a despicable character? “I’m a professional. I’m in this business to make money,” Ebsen told Rose. “I have no great messages.”

Tammy Grimes, meanwhile, was a multiple Tony Award winner who starred in the ill-fated The Tammy Grimes Show (1966), which was yanked off the air after only four weeks. This hit was a double-whammy as Grimes had been offered the role of Samantha Stephens in Bewitched but turned it down to star in her doomed self-titled show. Though it should be noted that most critics didn’t blame Grimes for the show's failure, finding her miscast or wasted potential.

“They say [The Tammy Grimes Show] is in trouble with the network, and it's easy to see why,” said Percy Shain of The Boston Globe (September 9, 1966). “It’s sad to see spirited, volatile Tammy Grimes trapped in such an inert clinker as this tale of a reckless young lady and her stodgy twin brother and uncle. They tried to channel Tammy’s special elfin qualities into the stock mold of TV situational comedy ... that comes off as mediocre mishmash.”

On the personal side, Grimes was married three times. First to fellow actor Christopher Plummer, and they had a daughter, Amanda Plummer, who followed her folks into showbusiness. And while she continued to work on both stage and screen, what I remember Grimes the most for was when she took over for E.G. Marshall as the host of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater program, which ran over the airwaves from 1974-1982 with tales of mystery and the macabre. Well, that, and her role as Mrs. Pinder in The Horror at 37,000 Feet.

“I play an English heritage type who objects to moving the priceless abbey to America. Thus unsettling its resident ghost,” said Grimes (February 11, 1973). “I’m convinced there’s a very real spirit world that we can never comprehend.” And while Grimes wasn’t so sure if her own beliefs coincided with those of Mrs. Pinder, she felt “she couldn’t write off ghosts just because she doesn’t understand them.”

Of course this was all Roy Thinnes fault -- I mean, the character he played, Alan O’Neill, who, in a misguided act of affection, set the telefilm in motion.

Thinnes was a regular on the daytime soap opera General Hospital from 1963-1965, playing Dr. Phil Brewer. He then starred as David Vincent in the cult sci-fi TV-series The Invaders (1967-1968), another series created by Larry Cohen, where Vincent discovers a secret alien incursion through infiltration by taking on the guise of humans. Of course, no one believed him and from episode to episode he does his best to spread the truth and thwart the invaders' plans.

The Greensboro Daily News (February 21, 1973).

Thinnes had also recently starred in another telefilm concerning paganism with Black Noon (1971), a period piece, where a frontier preacher (Thinnes) runs afoul of a knot of Satanists. “There’s something out there,” said Thinnes (February 11, 1973). “You have to believe that when, as most people do, you have personal experience involving extra-sensory perception.” Alas, Thinnes didn’t elaborate as to what that experience exactly was.

Thinnes would then continue the fight against evil in Dan Curtis’ immediate follow up to The Night Stalker, The Norliss Tapes (1973), where a debunking reporter gets embroiled in a story where a woman claims her husband came back from the dead and attacked her; and all the evidence shows she’s telling the truth! Thinnes would then switch sides, playing the cloven one himself in the aforementioned Satan’s School for Girls.

“With the networks having to clamp down on violence, the horror thing is the only way to get some action,” said Thinnes (The Dayton Daily News, February 22, 1973). “I guess if a monster is doing the killing it’s okay.”

At the time, Thinnes was married to his co-star, Lyn Loring, who also got her start in the soaps, starring as nurse Patti Baron in Search for Tomorrow from 1951-1961. And while Loring admitted to believing “in some kind of power outside themselves,” she added, “I don’t know if it's right to call that believing in ghosts.”

France Nuyen wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts either, as such, but did believe there are spirits of good and evil. And Jane Merrow, meanwhile, blamed her beliefs on her English heritage, joking, “It must be because our houses are so old and our background so violent. I don’t know if ghosts will ever exist in modern tract housing."

Probably best remembered for playing the title character in the TV series Sugarfoot (1957-1961), Will Hutchins also starred in Monte Hellman’s great existential western The Shooting (1966), with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates, and co-starred in a couple of vehicles for Elvis Presley -- Spinout (1966) and Clambake (1967).

In that press release, Hutchins claimed to be a student of metaphysics and had dabbled in astral projection in his personal research for knowledge. “It’s the horrors of the unknown that makes ghosts so frightening,” said Hutchins. “I think one reason horror stories and spooky movies are so popular is that they try to make us understand something about the mystery beyond the evidence of our senses.”

Meanwhile, The Horror at 37,000 Feet would be a rare TV appearance for Paul Winfield as Dr. Enkalla, who was just coming off an Academy Award nominated performance in Sounder (1972). “A long time ago I got some advice from a man I admire and respect, Sidney Poitier,” Winfield told Jerry Buck of The Sacramento Bee (February 22, 1974). “I asked him why he never did TV. He said the name of the game is to get people to pay to see you. They won’t pay to see you if they can see you on television every week.”

Winfield then continued, “TV guesting is kind of a dead end street. No matter how talented you are, there are just so many tricks you can do to keep the audience interested. Since I consider myself a character actor I would do just about everything I knew and the well would run dry.” Winfield would also tell Buck that he decided to do The Horror at 37,000 Feet because “he was a horror movie fan and wanted to see how one was made.”  

Circling back to Shatner, he had this to say about what we can’t explain. “When you look at the immense library of writings about the supernatural, you have to believe there’s some foundation in it. It may fill a basic human need to think our behavior is determined by things beyond our control.” 

And it was just this kind of thinking that led to his character, Paul Kovalik, being defrocked as a priest, as there was more physical evidence in the Unexplained than the existence of the Divine. It was a nice touch during the climax when they snuck in a quick, subliminal cut of Shatner in his vestments as he takes a final leap of faith.

Rounding out the cast as the filght crew were Russell Johnson, the Professor from Gilligan’s Island, and H.M. Wynant, Darleen Carr and Brenda Benet as our plucky stewardesses, and Mia Bendixsen as the girl, whose doll would play a more pivotal role than she did. Well, that's not really fair as its when the innocent child gets caught up the hysteria that finally pushes Kovalik into action.

The Corpus Christi Times (February 13, 1973). 

The Horror at 37,000 Feet would premiere on Tuesday, February 13, 1973, in The New Tuesday CBS Movie slot. And despite its rather wonky premise, critical reaction was measured but overall positive from what I was able to dig up.

“The Horror at 37,000 Feet is a skillfully made diversion that, whether intended or not, is also at times outrageously, hilariously campy,” said Kevin Thomas of The Los Angeles Times (February 13, 1973). “While everyone registers effectively -- and seems to be having a great time as well -- Shatner, who is delightfully hammy, and Miss Grimes, who is wonderfully mischievous, have the best of it.”

The Daily Sentinel (February 11, 1973). 

But “The really perfect casting, however, is David Lowell Rich. Always dependable, ever adept at getting good performances and, above all, a smooth technician who unabashedly and very wisely plays everything straight, Rich makes The Horror at 37,000 Feet fast-moving fun.”

Meanwhile, Jerry Coffey of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 15, 1973) had this to say: “A 747 was suspended in midair on CBS Tuesday, and so was the viewer’s disbelief over what surely was one of the wildest made-for-TV moments ever. A melodramatic crisis aboard an airliner is practically irresistible as escapist entertainment. In the old days, all it took was mechanical failure or bad weather; then came the mad bomber / hijacker plot, which works every time. So The Horror at 37,000 Feet could hardly miss with a bunch of ancient and very angry druid gods or devils or whatever loose in the cargo hold and causing all kinds of mischief … It was a terrible show -- totally incredible, shamelessly overacted and great fun to watch.”

Thus, the best way to describe Shatner’s performance, here, is somewhere between Grade-A ham and “I REGRET NOTHING!” Matching Shatner bitemark for bitemark on the furniture was Loring and her Mia Farrow, Rosemary’s Baby (1969) inspired bob. You can kinda gauge how far her character Manya has gone off the rails by how red her cheeks have flushed. It was her character's hair-brained idea to substitute the doll as a sacrifice, after all.

Seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever consumed enough booze to concoct a plot as wild as this one. Not even in my most fevered delirium would it have crossed my mind to try and substitute a Cabbage Patch Kid as a virginal sacrifice to an ancient druidic god by super-gluing some fingernails and hair to it, and then top it off with a kabuki-style makeup job. Are you kidding me?!

Now, for the longest time, I thought director Rich went the Spielberg route with a less is more approach. In most of the versions of The Horror at 37,000 Feet that I had seen, including the version I taped off of TNT decades ago, you know, back when the SuperStations didn’t suck, and the YouTube rips viewed since, during the climax, we never actually got to see what Kovalik saw, just his terrified reaction to it, before he’s blown out of the airplane, leaving it up to our imaginations. Cheap, but effective.

However, when the telefilm made a much welcomed digital leap with an official release on DVD through CBS Home Video in 2015, I snatched it up quickly and watched it immediately. And while the film looked great, when we reached the climax, much to my surprise and consternation, as Kovalik reaches the rear of the plane, makeshift torch in hand, rounds the corner to the galley elevator, and we cut to a full frontal view of the Old One! The Old One being some extra decked out in some Spirit of Halloween robes and hood.

Uhm ... Boo? 

Quite the surprise, yes, but an even bigger letdown and rather lame. Maybe if we saw what was under the hood? Regardless, I think it was a tactical blunder to show that, and whoever edited it out for later broadcast did the film a favor.

Otherwise, well, aside from the obvious model subbing in for the plane, the FX holds up reasonably well given the era it was made, ably assisted by some excellent sound design courtesy of Barry Thomas. Credit to Rich, too, for wringing some genuine suspense out of all this nonsense. For what the script lacks in suspense is more than made up for in outright bizarreness. It almost comes off as a really long episode of The Night Gallery (1970-1973) or some other horror anthology show. Not a knock. Just an observation.

And truthfully, aside from the flight crew and Mrs. O'Neil, everyone on board is kinda unlikeable. And after being cooped-up with them on a plane for over an hour, by the end, you might find yourself rooting for the "Old One,” hoping he'd kill everybody. Instead, he kills the only likeable character in the whole movie. No, not Hawley, or Kovalik -- Pinder's dog!

Still, if you sit down and think about it, the most enjoyable thing about this telefilm -- aside from those swinging stewardess outfits, and how Carr and Benet filled them out, is when you realize that you’ve just witnessed Captain Kirk, the Professor (sans any coconuts), Jed Clampett, that guy from The Invaders, and the Rifleman teaming up to kick the Devil’s ass at 37,000 feet. Can I get an amen?

Originally posted on September 16, 2000, at 3B Theater.

The Horror at 37000 Feet (1973) Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) / P: Anthony Wilson / D: David Lowell Rich / W: Ron Austin, Jim Buchanan, V.X. Appleton (Story) / C: Earl Rath / E: Bud S. Isaacs / M: Morton Stevens / S: William Shatner, Chuck Connors, Buddy Ebsen, Tammy Grimes, Lynn Loring, Roy Thinnes, Jane Merrow, Darleen Carr, Brenda Benet, Paul Winfield, Russell Johnson