Skyjacked *** (1972, Charlton Heston, James Brolin, Yvette Mimieux, Claude Akins, Jeanne Crain, Walter Pidgeon, Susan Dey) – Classic Movie Review 8241

Director John Guillermin bids you welcome to captain Charlton Heston’s Boeing 707 supposedly bound for Minneapolis but unfortunately for the passengers it is hijacked by a crazed Vietnam vet bomber, who demands to be taken to Russia.

Your amusing in-flight entertainment includes the usual crazed hijacker with a bomb, an enormously pregnant woman, a smidgen of romance, a diversion to Moscow, and a hard-working cast heroically ignoring the material’s severe limitations.

The stereotypical Seventies disaster movie Skyjacked (1972) is directed by Guillermin with patience, perseverance and even some pizzazz, calling demandingly on his immense professional skills.

Stanley R Greenberg’s screenplay is based on the novel Hijacked by David Harper.

Also in the cast are Yvette Mimieux, James Brolin, Claude Akins, Jeanne Crain, Walter Pidgeon, Susan Dey, Roosevelt Grier, Mariette Hartley, Ken Swofford, Mike Henry, John Hillerman, Leslie Uggmas, Ross Elliott, Nicholas Hammond, Jayson Kane, Toni Clayton, Kellet Miles, John Fiedler, Maureen Connell, Ed Connelly, Forrest Wood, Wesley Lau, Jenifer Shaw, Jack Denbo, Roy Engel, Joe Canutt, Grahame Pratt, Geradi Biegouloff, Craig Shreeve, Lorna Thayer, Dan White and William Martel.

The fictional ‘Global Airways’ plane is a World Airways Boeing 707 (N374WA). World Airways’ base was Oakland Metropolitan Airport, California, where the airport scenes were filmed.

Footage reappears in a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

It is the final film of Jeanne Crain and it is the film debut of Susan Dey. John Fiedler’s voice is dubbed.

Heston recalled Guillermin as a very effective film-maker who liked to humiliate actors from time to time.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8241

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