I'm not sure if what I'm going to say here might be considered a spoiler or not, so I'm not taking any chances. I won't reveal the ending or anything like that, but I will reveal a lot of Roddy's bits here.
I caught the last 20 minutes of "Zero Hour!" tonight on TCM and that made me want to see THIS version again, for this film is the first remake of Zero Hour! (I won't mention the more famous remake/spoof here). I first saw "Terror in the Sky" on the late show back in the mid-80s and I liked it. Of course the main reason I liked it, the main reason I watched it, in fact, was that I'm a big Roddy McDowall fan. For a made-for-TV movie, the film itself is pretty good overall, I recall, but what made it for me was Roddy.
Of course the main plot of this film is that the only person on-board, not suffering from food poisoning, who knows how to fly and can safely land them, is now, due to a bad past experience, afraid to pilot a plane. That person in played by Doug McClure. But in this version, he is not the only person on-board with a fear of flying. Roddy as the doctor is also not fond of flying, to put it mildly. I'm not a big fan of flying myself so I could relate to his character's fear. I'm not sure, but I think that character trait of the doctor is unique to this version. One reviewer here said that Roddy's emotions in this film are "silence and rage." I guess that is true, but I'd also add "fear," "forced composure," and "unexpected bravery" to the list. His character is introduced to us, if I remember correctly, as looking out the window, watching the prop engines rev-up, and commenting to McClure that he suspected they did that so if anything was going to fall off the plane, it would happen on the ground instead of in the air. McClure then says something technical that reassures Roddy that flying is safe, or at least that the pilots know what they're doing. From that little exchange, we learn that Roddy is nervous about flying and that McClure has some knowledge of how one flies a plane. So when Roddy soon after realizes both pilots are suffering from food poisoning, he does two things that in retrospect save EVERYONE on the ill-fated plane: first, he is able to put his own, now rather justified, terror of flying aside in order to medically treat the others, and more importantly, he is the one who realizes, because of their earlier exchange, that McClure is holding out on them and knows how to fly a plane. He then pretty much forces McClure into the cockpit. From that point on, the focus is mainly on McClure and Nettleton, and Roddy has little to do. In the first half of the picture, however, Roddy really shines.
I caught the last 20 minutes of "Zero Hour!" tonight on TCM and that made me want to see THIS version again, for this film is the first remake of Zero Hour! (I won't mention the more famous remake/spoof here). I first saw "Terror in the Sky" on the late show back in the mid-80s and I liked it. Of course the main reason I liked it, the main reason I watched it, in fact, was that I'm a big Roddy McDowall fan. For a made-for-TV movie, the film itself is pretty good overall, I recall, but what made it for me was Roddy.
Of course the main plot of this film is that the only person on-board, not suffering from food poisoning, who knows how to fly and can safely land them, is now, due to a bad past experience, afraid to pilot a plane. That person in played by Doug McClure. But in this version, he is not the only person on-board with a fear of flying. Roddy as the doctor is also not fond of flying, to put it mildly. I'm not a big fan of flying myself so I could relate to his character's fear. I'm not sure, but I think that character trait of the doctor is unique to this version. One reviewer here said that Roddy's emotions in this film are "silence and rage." I guess that is true, but I'd also add "fear," "forced composure," and "unexpected bravery" to the list. His character is introduced to us, if I remember correctly, as looking out the window, watching the prop engines rev-up, and commenting to McClure that he suspected they did that so if anything was going to fall off the plane, it would happen on the ground instead of in the air. McClure then says something technical that reassures Roddy that flying is safe, or at least that the pilots know what they're doing. From that little exchange, we learn that Roddy is nervous about flying and that McClure has some knowledge of how one flies a plane. So when Roddy soon after realizes both pilots are suffering from food poisoning, he does two things that in retrospect save EVERYONE on the ill-fated plane: first, he is able to put his own, now rather justified, terror of flying aside in order to medically treat the others, and more importantly, he is the one who realizes, because of their earlier exchange, that McClure is holding out on them and knows how to fly a plane. He then pretty much forces McClure into the cockpit. From that point on, the focus is mainly on McClure and Nettleton, and Roddy has little to do. In the first half of the picture, however, Roddy really shines.