Theo Robertson !!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!! The problem with a film like this is that the central plot has been done so many times over the following decades . Man sneaks bomb on board a plane . To be honest the premise of SKYJACKED wasn't earth shatteringly original in 1972 because it had been used previously in the original AIRPORT movie a couple of years earlier and it does have a slight feel that it's trying to cash in on a very successful previous movie Perhaps because it's such an old film SKYJACKED does have one thing in its favour and that is ironically the entirely dated feel as to what life was like for plane passengers in the early 1970s . It might be seen inconvenient these days but there's a very good reason why airport security is notoriously pedantic and that is to stop passengers smuggling aboard a bag full of contraband such as explosives and firearms on to a plane , but the idea of someone holding a gun in one hand and a grenade in another with a request of " Hello there . I wish to speak to the captain of this plane " would not have seemed absurd in 1972 One interesting aspect that does seem groundbreaking is having the villain a violent sociopath from a military background alienated by his reaction from civilian society is stock villainy and has been for several decades . The idea of a deranged Vietnam veteran is effectively an invention of Hollywood and we all remember Travis Bickle from TAXI DRIVER and John Eastland from THE EXTERMINATOR along with a line sampled from Paul Hardcastle's 19 . The reality was that veterans from that particular conflict only had a slightly more than average mental health problem and criminal tendency from the average male demographic of that era . True but the myth remains and as John Ford was fond of saying " Always print the legend "

sol ***Major Spoilers*** What should have been called "Airport II" the movie "Skyjacked" is a worthy successor to that mega 1970 blockbuster hit with Charlton "Chuck" Heston as Captain Henry "Hammerin Hank" O'Hara at the controls. Capt. O'Hara is trying to keep his aircraft Flight 502 together in its being skyjacked by a deranged and not that wrapped too tight, the man has serious issues, washed out from the US Army on a mental disability Sgt. Jerome E. Webber, James Brolin. Sgt. Webber feels that he's been given a raw deal by his country and now whats to go to the USSR where he feels his talents, whatever they are, will be well appreciated. Claiming he has a bomb hidden on board that will detonate when he presses the button on what looks like the toy radio that Sgt. Webber has on him. With a hostage crew and passengers of 100 Sgt.Webber orders Capt. O'Hara to fly first to Anchorage Alaska to re-fuel and then go straight to Moscow Airport where he'll get a hero's welcome from the grateful Soviet Government.During the flight over Soviet territory the plane is intercepted by a number of Soviet MIG fighter planes that Capt. O'Hara convinces to let his plane land by lowering its landing gear to show he has no evil intentions of doing any harm which was by far the most nail biting scene in the movie. It's when the plane finally landed at Moscow Airport that Sgt. Webber suddenly had second thoughts in defecting which made the situation, in him losing it and going ballistic, more dangerous then ever! You always knew that the guy was nuts but now he seemed to have developed a serious case of dementia as well. ***SPOILERS*** You can see that despite his strange and dangerous actions in the film Sgt. Webber was not fully in control of his mental facilities. Something that Capt. O'Hara sensed right from the start. Feeling sorry for the guy Capt. O'Hara went as far as trying to get him to give himself up before he ended up killing himself as well as everyone on board. Capt. O'Hara's heroic actions kept the casualties count to a minimum with the only person getting it being the reality challenged Sgt. Jerome K. Webber. Not from Capt. O'Hara or anyone on board or even members of the US Military but that of the Soviet or Moscow Airport Security Forces whom he was at one time so eager to give himself up to.

Pipesofpeace Had this been made by Universal Studios instead of MGM, they might well have called it AIRPORT '72, so closely does it follow the template of that popular disaster movie series; it even casts Charlton Heston as a pilot two years prior to his playing a similar role in AIRPORT 1975. The film introduces us to the personal lives of several passengers, including a U.S. Senator (Walter Pidgeon), a jazz cellist (football legend Roosevelt Grier), a smart-mouthed teenage girl (Susan Dey from The Partridge Family), and a very pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley, who used to do those cute Polaroid commercials with James Garner)who probably shouldn't be flying to begin with at this late stage. There's also an unusually twitchy Vietnam vet on board (hammily played by James Brolin) which should remove all doubt as to who is leaving scary notes on the bathroom mirror and threatening to blow up the plane if his demand to be flown to Moscow isn't met. Yvette Mimieux and Leslie Uggams appear as two of the best-looking flight attendants in aviation history (they were called stewardesses back then, but then again that was a time when you could also smoke openly on a commercial airplane.) TV's Claude Akins shows up in the control tower, essentially playing George Kennedy. This sounds pretty ridiculous, and in some ways it is, but director John Guillermin (The Blue Max, The Towering Inferno) keeps up a brisk pace and makes this quite watchable, for what it is.

ferbs54 A tough day on the job for Global Air pilot Hank O'Hara: First, he learns that his ex-mistress will be playing head stewardess on his Flight 502 to Minneapolis. Then, en route, he discovers a lipstick-scrawled warning that there is a bomber on board and that he must divert to Anchorage, Alaska. And later, after making a landing there during a zero-visibility thunderstorm, he is compelled to continue the mad bomber's odyssey by flying into the restricted airspace of Mother Russia! Anyway, that is the setup of 1972's "Skyjacked," an entertaining affair released during the early '70s craze for airport/disaster flicks. A handsome-looking picture with a roster of great actors playing essentially one-dimensional, underdeveloped types, it nevertheless moves along nicely and is more than competently directed by John Guillermin.Now, as to the identity of that mad bomber, which isn't revealed until the film's midpoint, we have the following list of first-class suspects: There's the increasingly rabid and pie-eyed Vietnam vet, played by James Brolin; a jazz cellist, played by former L.A. Rams defensive lineman Rosey (here, "Roosevelt") Grier; an older couple relocating to Minneapolis (Ross Elliott and, in her final screen role, the still-beautiful Jeanne Crain, who sadly doesn't get more than six lines of dialogue in the entire film!); a pretty young girl (Susan Dey, in her first film, herself flying high on the success of her wildly popular TV program "The Partridge Family"); a U.S. senator (Walter Pidgeon) on a mysterious mission for the president; and the seemingly inevitable woman going into labor while in flight (Mariette Hartley, whose delivery strikes the viewer as the easiest one ever filmed; I swear that I've had more difficult bowel movements!). Rounding out this cast, by the way, are Yvette Mimieux as the head stewardess (that WAS the correct term back then!), Leslie Uggams as another stewardess (her "Screw you!" may be the picture's single best line), Claude Akins and John Fiedler as air traffic controllers, and, oh, as Capt. O'Hara, Charlton Heston, an old hand at bringing his people safely to the promised land. All are just fine, especially Chuck and Brolin, whose characters are the only ones here with anything resembling depth.As might be expected, "Skyjacked" begins with a light tone but eventually turns surprisingly grim, especially when the Boeing 707 enters Soviet airspace. To the film's credit, the Russians here are shown in a very positive light, and the sight of one of their fighter jets waggling its wings in farewell before it zooms off may be the picture's most touching moment. Modern-day viewers may marvel at the ease with which our whackadoodle bomber brings guns and hand grenades aboard an airplane, not to mention the in-flight smoking (even by the captain!) and the ordering of a Bloody Mary by a very pregnant woman, but let's remember, after all, that these WERE the good ol' days of 1972. In all, "Skyjacked" is nothing demanding and nothing artful, but it sure is fun. I originally watched this film on a brain-dead Friday night after a long, hard week of work, and found that it fit the bill perfectly....