Murder on Flight 502 (1975)

"Murder on flight 502" tells the story of the first class of a flight from the states to London, that receives an anonymous threat, that some of the passengers are about to be murdered throughout the trip. The pilot, the airport security and a policeman on board team up to solve the case and arrest the murderer before it is too late.The whole movie breathes the 70's. It surely wasn't produced with a very high budget and the outcome is somewhat alike. The way how the plot is built kind of reminds me of old Agatha Christie movies, where the audience is more or less trying to collect clues to find out who could be the bad guy in the end. There are some bigger logical errors in the film and generally the events don't seem to be all too realistic but if you can accept this you can actually be well entertained by the movie and have a surprisingly good time with it. The character evolution is maybe a bit foreseeable and some of the characters are brutally one-dimensional, but in exchange the film manages to keep the tension up and create some false hints that may leave some viewers surprised.All in all this is a mediocre movie, neither bad nor anything special. It is a solid 70's crime movie that you should give a try if both elements are of some interest for you and you find the general plot appealing.

747 en-route to London from New York is discovered to have a psychopath on board. Spelling-Goldberg TV-movie apes the theatrical plane-disaster films which were all the rage throughout the 1970s. The cast is a bizarre mixture of old and new faces, with Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Brooke Adams as stewardesses, Sonny Bono as a has-been musician, Polly Bergen as a flirtatious, drunken writer, Molly Picon and Walter Pidgeon as chummy oldsters, Hugh O'Brian (looking like Hugh Hefner) as a police detective, Danny Bonaduce as a 13-year-old prankster, and Robert Stack in the Charlton Heston role of the no-nonsense pilot (there are two other Stacks listed in the credits, perhaps making this a family affair). The low-budget doesn't allow the performers much to room to emote, with most of the in-flight action confined to First Class and the cockpit. There's also some hideous stock footage of emergency vehicles on the ground, as well as tiresome sidebars to George Maharis playing a security chief at Kennedy Airport with a toothache. The mystery surrounding stolen money gets muddled up alongside chatter about a bank robbery and a cop who was murdered, and a plot twist involving Farrah's character is just shucked off at the end. There's dumb-fun in watching this thing play out--if you're not too demanding--though one persistent question remains: why was the priest wearing fingernail polish?

TITLE: MURDER ON FLIGHT 502 was release in theaters in the United States on November 21 1975 and it takes 100 minutes to watch this movie. Murder On Flight 502 is a 1975 made-for-TV movie starring Robert Stack, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Sonny Bono, Danny Bonaduce, and Fernando Lamas - After a Boeing 747-100 takes off from New York City to London, a mysterious note turns up at the airport stating that passengers aboard the flight will be killed before the Boeing 747-100 lands on Heathrow. This creates a twist on the classic whodunit suspense format that may be described as "Who's going to do it to whom?" — as all of the quirky passengers seem like potential culprits and/or victims. At first, the note is brushed off as a prank, but the plot thickens considerably once passengers do begin turning up murdered. Peter Graves plays the airplane's Captain, and would go on to play the same role as Captain Oveur in 1980's Airplane! Robert Stack also appears in that movie as a Captain.SUMMARY: With a noteworthy cast of film and television stars, that includes Farrah Fawcett, Sony Bono, Ralph Bellamy, Robert Stack, and Fernando Lamas, this thrilling whodunit reaches true heights of terror. As a 747 jumbo jet departs from New York en route to London, an ominous letter is found in the first class lounge of Kennedy Airport stating that a series of murders will take place on board the flight before it lands. Initially dismissed as a twisted joke, the threat becomes all too real when the first body is found. However, it is only after the discovery of a second victim that the clues begin to reveal the motives behind the deaths. The list of suspects implicates both passengers and crew as the captain and a police detective attempt to piece together the mounting evidence and unveil the homicidal maniac before he strikes again.MY THOUGHTS: All and all the weasel gives this movie 8 star. As far as Farrah Fawcett Majors goes, she did a great job at being the flight attendant in charge.

An ensemble cast of familiar Hollywood faces act, and attempt to act, in this low-budget whodunit, about a New York to London flight that has a psychopath on board. Polly Bergen hams it up as an alcoholic writer, and is fun to watch. Robert Stack plays the pilot, consistent with his serious, take-charge persona. Danny Bonaduce plays himself, more or less. Laraine Day's acting is fine but she needs more makeup. And hip looking Sonny Bono shows why he was wise to earn his living as a singer.The film's sets look cheap, and the stereotyped characters are too perfunctory to spark much interest. The film's visuals look dated.Given the suspects and the obvious red herrings, the whodunit puzzle is not that hard to solve. However, the plot twist at the end I did not see coming.Even with a couple of obvious plot holes, "Murder On Flight 502" held my interest as a whodunit puzzle. But it has a "Producer Aaron Spelling" look and feel to it, with those cheap sets, bland dialogue, cardboard characters, and nondescript elevator music, all rather typical of assembly-line 1970's made-for-TV movies.