What if the U. S. government had an incident it couldn't explain involving U. S. military personnel and forces unknown speeding through America's skies in unidentified flying objects (UFOs)?

What if those UFOs snatched some of our aircraft? (As one Air Force witness in the film states, "They didn't go down, they just went.")

That's part of the story presented, semi-documentary-style, in the 1974 TV movie "The Disappearance Of Flight 412" starring Glenn Ford, Bradford Dillman, David Soul and Guy Stockwell.

The film:

Presented on DVD and digitally remastered from the original NBC-TV movie that first aired in 1974, the film runs about 20 minutes less than its listed two hour length (it originally filled a two hour time slot to be sure, but when you take out the commercials, which do not appear here, the film is shorter than two hours).

"The Disappearance Of Flight 412" is a little bit science-fiction and a little bit mystery-drama. The acting is first-rate by a top-notch cast.

The special effects --- well, this is a 1974 TV movie, so special effects really aren't there (you never see the UFOs, for instance), but the film works very well without them.

Background:

There have been instances in the history of the UFO subject of military pilots engaging UFOs with mixed results: Captain Thomas Mantell, Kentucky Air National Guard, was killed in action in January of 1948, for instance, while pursuing a UFO over Kentucky (the Air Force later said he climbed too high without oxygen and was actually chasing the planet Venus or a Skyhook balloon or perhaps a canopy reflection, although Mantell's last transmission from his F-51 to Godman Tower at Fort Knox said the object appeared "metallic and of tremendous size"; the 25-year-old pilot had won the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II and had 3000 flying hours under his belt --- could he, military personnel on the ground and police officers across the state have all been mistaken?).

In another case in the 1950's that the Air Force explained away as an intercept of a Canadian military plane, though the Canadians swear they had no planes in the area, a USAF fighter was scrambled from Kinross Air Force Base to investigate a "bogey" tracked on military ground radar over the Great Lakes. The fighter and the UFO "merged" on radar, then the UFO continued on its way off the radar screen --- no trace of the fighter plane was ever found, but the Air Force claimed the plane must have crashed into the Great Lakes.

Explaining, or "debunking," the UFO subject was a matter of policy for the U. S. Air Force, some say. One airliner pilot objected to his airborne UFO sighting being explained away as him seeing the planet Venus. The pilot exclaimed, "When the planet Venus flies beneath my plane, we should all head for the hills."

The Air Force investigation, which had a number of names and finally was called Project Blue Book, was a three-man operation using intelligence officers at military bases to investigate reported sightings. Between 1947 and 1969, when the project officially ended, thousands of cases were investigated. Most were "explained" as misidentification of aircraft, satellites, clouds, swamp gas, planets, balloons, rockets, flares and other possibilities.

Still, nearly 700 cases were never explained by the U. S. Air Force. Some folks believe UFOs were interplanetary craft, or perhaps time travellers, or maybe visitors from the Middle Earth, or maybe just secret military aircraft. Who knows?

Read the books "The Report On Unidentified Flying Objects" by Captain Edward Ruppelt (the first commander of Project Blue Book) and "The UFO Evidence" by Professor J. Allen Hynek (the project's scientific adviser) for some interesting stories.

"The Disappearance Of Flight 412," the film:

Screen legend Glenn Ford is tight-lipped Colonel Pete Moore, commander of the Whitney AFB Radar Test Group. The unit has been experiencing embarrassing malfunctions of its equipment and Moore has brought in his "first team" to test the repaired radar equipment in a four-man Air Force jet in collaboration with a Marine air base.

Ford's Moore is by-the-book, but he cares about his command and cares even more about the men in his command. A normal day will become abnormal, testing his beliefs and skills before it's over.

His second-in-command is played by Bradford Dillman as Major Mike Dunning, who has something in his past that will affect his actions in the days to come.

The team on the plane is led by David Soul as Captain Roy Bishop, a 6-foot-1, tough-as-nails Vietnam veteran determined to protect his aircraft and its crew from harm. His POW training will come in to play this day, but in ways he can't comprehend as the plane climbs off the runway in his aircraft that is designated as Flight 412.

Flying at 40,000 feet, Flight 412 is reclassified as Shadow One and begins its training exercise with the Marine ground control.

The Marines detect three UFOs at 75,000 feet pacing the plane. These objects are also detected on both radar screens on the plane, creating a "what are they?" curiousity and fear among the humans concerned.

A check with North American Air Defense (NORAD) reveals that no other aircraft are in the area, so, really, "what are they?"

The Marines end the exercise and go on alert, reclassifying Soul's plane back to Flight 412 and using it to help vector air support after the UFOs. The Marines "scramble" (a rapid launching of aircraft) two F-4 Phantom jet fighters to intercept the "unknowns."

At 20,000 feet, the Marine fighters arm their weapons and begin climbing to 40,000. They pass the field of vision of Soul's plane's front windows, climbing through a 900-foot tall cloud. The thing is, they don't come out.

The fighter jets "disappear" from both air and ground radar screens as well. No parachutes or debris are seen from Flight 412. The three UFOs make a right angle turn and accelerate from 500 to 5,000 miles an hour out of the area.

That's how the film begins. "The Disappearance Of Flight 412," however, comes when NORAD transfers Flight 412 to a mysterious "Digger Control", sending them to a base that doesn't exist on the plane's charts that is run by rude men in civilian clothes wearing dark sunglasses.

Ordered to fly at 150 feet off the ground, below radar tracking, the plane "disappears" from Whitney Air Force Base radar scopes. They are further ordered to communicate with no one other than the mysterious Digger Control.

This all occurs in the opening minutes. This is the basis of "The Disappearance Of Flight 412." Glenn Ford's character becomes a man on a mission. One of his planes is missing. His crew is missing. He has bits and pieces of reports of disappearing Marine fighter planes (reports denied by authorities), a UFO incident and folks telling him his plane was diverted north when his radar operators have Flight 412 disappearing in the east.

Ford becomes a detective in an intergalactic mystery tale that is intriguing and fun to watch. It will make you think. Does a career military man risk promotion when told to "leave it alone"? Who can you trust when the folks you work for are behind the cover-up?

For Soul and his crew (which includes Robert F. Lyons, Greg Mullavey and Stanley Clay), a "debriefing" becomes an event where "they're not questioning our integrity, they're wanting us to forget our integrity" as they insist they saw UFOs and witnessed the disappearance of Marine fighter planes.

The military debriefers (including Guy Stockwell, Ed Winter and Ken Kercheval) seem determined to convince them that they didn't see what they saw ("what did you really see?").

Recommendation:

I saw the film when it first aired and I was 17. Seeing it again 30 years later, I still find "The Disappearance Of Flight 412" to be a very enjoyable film. Watching Glenn Ford unravel the mystery and a pre-"Starsky And Hutch" David Soul play a very convincing military pilot are well worth the price of admission.

The documentary-style narration is by Herbert Ellis, who played Officer Frank Smith on the original "Dragnet" series in the early 1950's.

The film opens with footage of supposed "real" UFOs and still photos as witness commentary is heard, accenting the film's semi-documentary style.

The cast:

Glenn Ford, who won a Golden Globe for "Pocketful Of Miracles," also starred in such screen classics as "The Sheepman," "3:10 To Yuma," "The Blackboard Jungle" (the film that spawned rock 'n' roll with Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" as its theme), "Fate Is The Hunter" and the original film version of "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father."

Bradford Dillman, who won the title of "Most Promising Newcomer" from the Golden Globe Awards in 1959, a Best Actor Award for the film "Compulsion" in 1959 (shared with Orson Welles and Dean Stockwell from the film) from the Cannes Film Festival and a Daytime Emmy Award in 1975 for "Last Bride Of Salem," also starred in such films as "The Way We Were," "The Enforcer" and "Escape From The Planet Of The Apes."

David Soul, who played "Hutch" in the TV series "Starsky And Hutch" ("original Hutch" in the 2004 film version of the series), began his career with bit parts on shows like "Star Trek" before landing a starring role as "Joshua Bolt" on the TV series "Here Come The Brides." He later starred in "Salem's Lot" and "In The Line Of Duty: The FBI Murders." He was quite noteworthy as a motorcycle cop in the "Dirty Harry" sequel "Magnum Force" in 1973.

In 1977, Soul became a recording star, charting with three singles, most notably "Don't Give Up On Us," which hit # 1 and earned a Gold Record Award.

Robert F. Lyons, who recently played "Hank Whitmore" on three episodes of the TV series "Roswell," also appeared in such films as "Murphy's Law" and "Death Wish II."

Guy Stockwell is probably most famous for remaking Hollywood classics as TV movies in the 1960's, among them "Beau Geste" (he played the title role) and "The Plainsman" (he played "Buffalo Bill" Cody to Leslie Nielsen's General Custer).

Greg Mullavey, probably best known as the husband of the title character on TV's soap opera spoof "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" in the late 1970's, also appeared in such films as "The Hindenburg," "C.C. & Company" and "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice."

Ed Winter, oddly enough, was later cast in 1978 as the star of Jack Webb's "Dragnet"-like "Project UFO," which followed two Air Force UFO investigators as they investigated UFO incidents taken directly from the files of Project Blue Book.

Winter portrayed actor Clark Gable in the film "The Scarlett O'Hara War" and appeared in the film "The Parallax View." On the Broadway stage, he was Tony-nominated for performances in "Promises, Promises" and "Cabaret" in the 1960's.

Ken Kercheval, who starred in such films as "The Seven-Ups" and "Network," is probably best-known as "Cliff Barnes" on TV's "Dallas."

Credits:

"The Disappearance Of Flight 412" was directed by Jud Taylor. Taylor was president of the Directors Guild Of America from 1981-1983.

Taylor directed episodes of "Star Trek" (three episodes in all from the original series), "Then Came Bronson," "Mannix," "The Fugitive," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E." and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."

The picture quality is very well done, the work of cinematographer Robert Hauser, who did films such as "Twilight's Last Gleaming" and the TV series "Airwolf."

Trivia buffs will love the fact that the music score is by Mort Stevens. Stevens first job was as arranger/conductor for Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1950's (in the 1980's, he was music director for Davis once again, as well as for Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin; he also was arranger for John Williams and The Boston Pops, according to the Internet Movie Database).

Stevens credits are many, including some of TV's most popular theme songs. He won an Emmy for his "Hawaii Five-O" theme (with additional Emmy nominations for his scores for the mini-series "Masada" and "Wheels"). He also composed the music for such TV series as "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "The Wild Wild West," "Police Woman," "Gilligan's Island" and "Gunsmoke."

The film was written by Neal Burger and George Simpson. The producer was Gerald Adler.

Another good horror film:

My review of the VHS/DVD horror classic film "I Bury The Living" starring Richard Boone and Theodore Bikel: http://www.epinions.com/content_243939446404

Looking for a good book:

"The Flying Saucers Are Real" by Marine Corps Major Donald Keyhoe sold 500,000 copies when first printed in 1950. It was reprinted in 2004: http://www.epinions.com/content_167976799876

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older