A friend brought this over last night. It's a melodrama from '57 that was the basis for Airplane! - plot, characters (Ted Striker, Joey), even a bunch of the same lines ("guess I picked a bad time to quit...") -- only it's meant to be serious. We still couldn't help laughing most of the time. Great film and cool source material.
Another inspiration for the plot of AIRPLANE! came from this all-star production from 1970, which was based on the Best Seller of the same title by Arthur Haley: For more on the film, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_(film)
Oh! Airplane is one of my all time favorites...I still find it so hilarious after god only knows how many viewings! ...but I had no idea it was so closely related to Zero Hour...thanks for the info, I'll check it out!
