Murder on Flight 502
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Flight 502 takes off from New York City to London. At the airport, a bomb threat in the airline's first class passenger lobby turns out to be just an elaborate prank smoke bomb disguised as a more sinister explosive time bomb. In relief that the incident is just a prank Donaldson complains how this needlessly caused him stress on his weekend off work, to which the bomb technician derisively states how much more stressful the call to the bomb scare was for him because he was at a motel when he was called and thought it was his wife calling trying to reach him (implying he thought he had been caught in tryst with someone other than his wife) .
As the stress has momentarily passed this leads the assistant to Head of Security Robert Davenport (George Maharis) to fortuitously presenting him with a letter found in his desk in-box he would not have received until the next morning. The letter explains a series of murders will take place on Flight 502 before it lands. Robert Davenport (George Maharis) notifies Captain Larkin (Robert Stack) via the airline's direct radio channel. Donaldson and his team go over the backgrounds of all the passengers to find possible suspects which irratates Larkin for the lack of details causing him to be terse with an equally aggravated Donaldson who is none the happier for being talked down to while nursing a painful toothache. In the air, Captain Larkin (Robert Stack), off duty Police Officer Daniel Myerson (Hugh O'Brian), and flight attendant Karen White (Farrah Fawcett-Majors) look for suspicious passengers.
At first teen age passenger Millard Kensington (Danny Bonaduce) is suspected due to the fact he has a history with the airline as a known prankster who clogged a previous flight's toilets with 13 sponges he carried onboard. Because he is suspected of placing a the fake bomb in the first class passenger lobby in New York and the finding of the threating letter and is now on on Flight 502. After confronting the teenager regarding the seriousness of his actions and getting him to admit he did place the fake bomb in the airline passenger lobby but is apparently clueless about the serious nature of the found letter. Realizing the teenager's lack of malice Captain Larkin demonstrates he too means no harm to the boy and successfully defuses the moment when he invites him to visit the cockpit later so he can show him "How this thing practically flies itself." which the boy cheerfully accepts. He then relays a message back to Davenport that he thinks this is a red herring and requests further detailed backgrounds on the passengers as he only has names and addresses to go on from the flight manifest.
Relationships develop on board between elderly singles Charlie Parkins (Walter Pidgeon) and Ida Goldman (Molly Picon) who acts as a comic relief with her Yiddish sense of humor, rock star Jack Marshall (Sonny Bono) and Marilyn Stonehurst (Elizabeth Stack), and mystery writer Mona Briarly (Polly Bergen) and suave passenger Paul Barons (Fernando Lamas). Briarly suspects Barons is actually a criminal who got away with stealing seven million dollars from a bank, but Barons denies it.
The investigations on the ground and in the air produce several leads. It is discovered that wife of passenger Otto Gruenwaldt (Theodore Bikel) died because fellow passenger Dr. Kenyon Walker (Ralph Bellamy) was not available to help. But Gruenwaldt suffers a heart attack on board. Dr. Walker rushes to aid the dying man whom he could have fallen victim to before this moment. Captain Larkin voices his apprehension at allowing Dr. Walker to treat Gruenwaldt which Myerson concurs openly stating "it wouldn't be the first time" implying someone in his position could take advantage of the situation to eliminate Gruenwaldt. Dr. Walker turns the tables on Larkin regarding whether he should apply the life saving drug or not, telling him "Alright you make the decision.". Putting the weight of life and death on Larkin's shoulders for this patient. Larkin clearly realizing he now may be at blame for stopping the Dr. Walker from administering a life saving medical treatment reverses his decision and allows Dr. Walker to go ahead and inject the life saving drug. While doing so, Dr. Walker brazenly states to Larkin and Myerson that they wouldn't even know if he gave Gruenwaldt "too much or too little" of the drug demonstrating to Larkin and Myerson how far they are beyond their depth of knowledge regarding medical expertise.
Once the drug is administered via syringe Captain Larkin again attempts to assert his authority over Dr. Walker again by demanding he surrender the used syringe implying it may be needed as criminal evidence. Dr. Walker stands his ground and refuses to surrender the syringe in question and states that he is only answerable to "my peers and my profession" implying his Socratic oath supersedes the Captain and Myerson's legal authority. Larkin sharply replies that while Dr. Walker maybe responsible for just this one life but as Captain of the airplane he is responsible for over 250 passenger's lives which Dr. Walker again immediately cuts short when he pointedly draws the line by stating to the Captain "we each have our jobs to do, you do yours and I'll do mine".
Finally someone ventures to ask how long before they know about Gruenwaldt's survival, which he states will be in just few minutes and goes back to attending to Gruenwaldt who momentarily gains consciousness and begins to get upset that he has come to realize he might be expected to thank the same man responsible for his wife's death due to what he perceives an irresponsibility to duty because Dr. Walker failed to receive the call because he was at a party attending to his personal life and adding further injury didn't even remember the call for the life saving delicate operation Dr. Walker could have provided.
Dr. Walker cuts him short and explains that he doesn't expect anything from Gruenwaldt but only asks he try to understand that life and death situations occur daily to the extent that he can't remember them all. Gruentwaldt eventually gives grudging thanks for the saving of his life but makes it clear that he will still carry a hatred of his savior for the loss of his wife, which Dr. Walker sagely replies "then that is something which we will both have to live with.".
Ray Garwood (Dane Clark) attacks Marshall, blaming him for the death of his daughter due to an overdose. Garwood denies leaving the note, and Captain Larkin and Myerson believe him. Then an apparent break in the investigation comes when Briarly tells the captain that a priest on board may be an imposter, because he did nothing when it appeared Gruenwaldt was near death. Donaldson checks the priest out and discovers he is indeed an imposter and a known thief and thereby placing him under suspicion. Myerson looks for the priest, but finds him dead in the dumbwaiter. At this point the threatening letter's contents are revealed to the passengers. Briarly again notices that Barons seems the most fazed by the priest's death, and wonders if the two men knew each other. Soon a second murder occurs; flight attendant Vera Franklin is found dead by the co-pilot meaning the real murderer is still lurking.
Concerned that he may be at risk now Barons confesses to Myerson that he committed the bank robbery, and that the priest and Franklin were both involved in smuggling the money out of the country on the aircraft. Barons says he is the next target. Myerson agrees and pulls out a gun, proving he is the killer, having snapped when Barons escaped justice for his crime after no proof was found.
Myerson takes the passengers hostage and explains he murdered the priest and looked through the luggage of the crew and found the money in Franklin's bag. Captain Larkin makes a drastic move to distract Myerson by releasing the oxygen masks and going for the gun. In the ensuing struggle, Barons is killed, the cabin catches on fire, and Myerson is badly burned. The passengers extinguish the fire the aircraft upper deck of the Bowing 747 Just as the crisis ends. Coincidently Donaldson belatedly calls to warn Larkin about the danger of Myerson being reported by his superiors as being regarded as unstable (much to the Captain's irritation regarding the timeliness of the message). Larkin voices his frustration with Donaldson's slow methods as the flight lands safely in London.
On the ground, flight attendant White is alone with Captain Larkin in the cockpit and comes to say a final good bye and expresses her gratitude for Larkin saving the passengers but in a turnabout Larkin reveals his realization that White has conspired as the money smuggler of the stolen money. He explains how before the aircraft took off Franklin had dropped her bag, which had no money inside. Therefore, the money was put in the bag by the real guilty smuggler, Karen White. Larkin, in an ironic statement, tells White that in fact this will definitely be her last flight but not because of her originally expected honorable resignation implying she will have to soon face the authorities in London to face responsility for her actions that lead to the death of the innocent flight attendant Vera Franklin.
Garwood still visibly frustrated about the circumstances of his daughters death apologizes to Marshall. Dr. Walker and Gruenwaldt reconcile and form a new relationship with a promise to meet in the future for a game of chess. Charlie Perkins and Ida Goldman decide to share a hotel room. The elder man, Perkins expresses his concerns of implying a potentially scandalous social appearance of the unmarried seniors sharing a room and how that will come across by asking "What will they think of us?" to which a typically unshakable Ida shrugs and responds "So they'll call us swingers".
In the final scene as Larkin accompanies Myerson down an escalator to hand him off to the waiting British police. Myerson demonstrates he is clearly delusional. Stating that he and Larkin are in the "same business of protecting people". He further attempts to justify his actions claiming he will be commended for protecting the people from criminals because he brought a thief to justice when the law would not. Mired in the delusional belief that he will be vindicated he shouts back to Larkin that he will put in a good word to the authorities for the Captain get a commendation. Captain Larkin stoically looks on as Myerson is lead off by the uniformed London "Bobbies".

Review: My brother found it for the astounding price of one dollar American, and for that single bill you get Robert Stack, Farrah Fawcett, Sonny Bono, and...Danny Bonaduce?
As the film tepidly moves along, begging you to find the murderer among the passengers before anyone is actually murdered, you'll be treated to outrageous mid-70's fashion (brown is IN!), bizarre character backgrounds, and the hottest burgeoning romance this side of Harold and Maude, an elderly Jewish woman and an elderly Methodist known only as Uncle Charlie.
But unless you are unable to mock the earnest, but futile work of many to make a taut murder mystery shot almost entirely on a plane full of large, orange seats, you will like Murder on Flight 502.
Back in the 70's all the major networks would put out these made-for-TV movies, usually featuring a collection of unknowns and a good number of well known actors and actresses and for the most part they were always enjoyable, even though they were't as sophisticated or as big budget as a major motion picture.
I can't remember if I ever watched in on TV in the 70's, but it brought back memories of enjoyable enough nights in the living room watching the set.This is probably most notable for a pre-Charlie's Angels performance from a very lovely Farrah Fawcett as a stewardess on a flight from New York to London that has a murderer on board.
I also couldn't figure out why the man who tried to kill singer Jack Marshall (played by Sonny Bono) is never restrained, but ends up back in First Class with his wife as if nothing had happened - he just tried to kill a guy with a knife!This was clearly made by Aaron Spelling as lightly entertaining TV mystery to keep people occupied for a couple of hours in front of their TV screens.
With folks like Robert Stack, Walter Pidgeon, Danny Bonaduce, etc., it's pretty good fun.
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.
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.
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..
From the maker of Love Boat, Melrose Place, and T.J. Hooker comes the made for TV movie, Murder on Flight 502!
I love made for TV movies like this because it portrays a special blend of mindless cheesiness found only in 70s and early 80s TV plots that are pretty much extinct today.
The whole show is basically like watching a game of Clue (the board game) where the viewer tries to figure out who has the bomb on the plane.
Can you remember a time when a smoking box in an airport lounge was treated fairly lightly?But don't hate this movie because it's, well, bad; praise it for its badness.
The production values are bottom of the barrel, at the beginning of the film the cast congregate in the TOA first class lounge that is supposed to be at JFK airport in New York, however the 'Theme Building' at LAX is clearly visible out the window as well as several palm trees.
On an interesting note, the stewardess uniforms that Brooke Adams and Farrah Fawcett are wearing were actual uniforms for TWA and can also be seen in 'Catch Me if You Can' at the end when Leonardo DiCaprio climbs out of the plane through the toilet.
Danny Bonaduce, one of the passengers, leaves a package in the boarding area and after he gets on the flight the package starts to smoke.
Bonaduce is in a number of scenes at the beginning of the movie, but although he is in the same section as the rest of the passengers on the plane, he is not seen anymore during the second half of the film.
The "VIP lounge" at the airport was probably a baggage office at LAX and the plane, well, the budget was only enough to show the first class section, so all you see are big blankets/curtains covering the entrances to the rest of the plane and several references by Captain Stack to the "hundreds of people back there."The upstairs lounge of the plane is decorated in what appears to be outdoor patio furniture and during the course of the film, the scariest looking cheese and crackers fester along the back of the wall uneaten by these high-falutin' jet-setters who spout inane dialogue as the viewer tries to wade through the red herrings and Farrah's cocktail service.The whodunnit wraps up quickly, of course.
Honestly, planks of wood could have acted better.The movie has a cheap look and the flight is full of all the usual stereotypes.
The story is about a letter that is found in the first class airport lounge after an international flight has taken off.
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.
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.
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.
When you watch this movie, you wonder if the guy who wrote the script has ever taken a flight in his whole life, if he knows what are flying regulations for take of and landing; what happens for passengers after a shock of this magnitude when arriving at a national or international airport.How can any sensible producer accept to finance such a stupid, unbelievable story and how can a director accept to have his name attached to such a nonsense of a production.Even a debutant in the film industry would be ashamed of committing himself in such a project.Yes the only thing you should do is to cancel your booking on this flight!.
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 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.
If only people could watch the news these days with as discerning an eye for discrepancies as they do with films, they may notice a few things.
Danny antics alerted the crew on the plane as well as the police in NY and London to a letter that was left there for airport security chief Robert Davenport, George Maharis, stating that a number of murders were to have to happened on that flight.
After a harmless smoke bomb went off in the lounge Davenport noticed a letter, that he was supposed to get later, addressed to him in the in mail chute saying that whoever wrote it was responsible for the murders on Flight 502.
Knowing now ahead of time what was to happen the crew and passengers at least knew what to expect and be able to apprehend the killer before he got away when the plane landed even though in the end it didn't prevent them from stopping the murders.
Top-flight cast in this low-budget made-for-TV movie about a peaceful flight over the Atlantic that turns into a terror trip with an unknown and unseen killer on the loose on board.
There's also a number of sinister and unsavory characters on the flight as well.Those on Flight 502 who may be involved in the killings are Otto Gruenwaldt, Theodore Bikel, who's vengeful and has it in for passenger Dr. Walker, Ralph Bellamy, for not coming to his wife's aid that lead to her death.
There's Paul Barons, Fernando Lamas, who's an exonerated bank robber, who was involved in a seven million bank heist where a security was killed, There's the person sitting next to Barons on the flight famous mystery/murder writer Mona Briarly,Polly Bergen, who's is really getting on his nerves by bringing up that unpleasant fact.
Is he using that disguise to throw off the crew and passengers to him being the killer.The movie keeps you guessing until the flight almost touches down in London to who the killer is and what his motives are that leads to a shoot out and fire that almost has the plane crash with it's 250 passengers and crew.
Robert Stack is his usual take charge and confident self as the pilot Captain Larkin and both Farrah Fawcett and Brook Adams are pretty appealing as the two stewardesses on the plane who are more then what you at first you thought they were.
What do you get when you combine The Airport Movies with Murder, She Wrote?
The only thing that you can say about this film is that we get to see a pre-Charlie's Angels Farrah Fawcett and that's it..
It's like "Airport" and other 70s disaster films but on a tight budget.
No one will confuse this film with art, but it's good for what it is - an entertaining, fun TV movie..
A 747 bound for the UK is the setting and it's full of Hollywood greats of the past--folks who by the time this was filmed were all but forgotten (including the likes of Walter Pidgeon, Ralph Bellamy, Dane Clark and Polly Bergen) or who were on Hollywood's B-list (including Sonny Bono and Farrah Fawcett--- just before she became famous).
The Captain (Robert Stack) learns that someone issued a death threat--saying that they planned on killing someone during the flight!
Soon, you learn that LOTS of folks had reasons to kill people on this flight and there are at least three folks aboard who might commit murder!!
Murder Is In The Air. George McCowan ("Frogs") directed this obvious "Airport" & "Murder On The Orient Express" clone that stars Robert Stack as pilot Captain Larkin, who is flying a passenger jet airliner to Great Britain that is plagued by an unknown murderer who had warned the airport about the intended crime, but is discovered too early.
Ralph Bellamy, Hugh O'Brian, Farrah Fawcett, Brooke Adams, and Sonny Bono costar.
Aaron Spelling used them on shows like Murder She Wrote, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and Hotel.
This was also one of Farrah Fawcett's first films and even Sonny Bono has a part in it.
The funniest part is where Robert Stack lectures Danny Bonaduce on playing practical jokes.
By the way, the night after I watched this film I heard on the news where Robert Stack had died at the age of 84.
This film falls firmly in the So Bad You'll Love It pile of bargain-bin wonders, a TV feature film, of the type made for audiences assumed to have an IQ equivalent of a retarded chicken.The corny Dialogue reaches new heights of hilarity only matched by the Airport series, and its spoof Airplane!
Cheap sets - an "airport lounge" that looks like the set of a cheap office where some equally cheap 70s show had just been filmed, the "aircraft" with impossibly wide expanses, giant square door, "hundreds" of passengers of which we only see a handful and sometimes the cabin seems empty, the TWO, yes TWO stewardesses, disappearing passengers (Danny Bonaduce stops appearing in the cabin half way through) a cockpit where nothing ever seems to happen except hilarious radio exchanges, a plane that takes off and in the next shot is shown landing (different models, different colour schemes even used in consecutive shots of the supposed airliner taking off), not to mention the impossibly ridiculous "script".
The gin-swigging, hard-bitten crime writer, the grief stricken parents, the old guy with months to live, the jive-talking pop star (Sonny Bono sporting a hideous shirt and massive flares), the rugged, no-nonsense Captain (Robert Stack - amazingly also in Airplane!), the glamorous stewardess (a pre-Charlie Angels Farah Fawcett-Majors), the guy who has a heart attack but refuses to be treated by the only doctor on board because he blames him for his wife's death, the practical joke-playing precocious kid (Danny Bonaduce from The Partridge family) and the harassed ground staff including the airport manager with an air disaster AND toothache to deal with, and the psychologist bought in to give a profile of the passengers who gets more and more unconvincingly disheveled as the movie proceeds (see Lloyd Bridges in Airplane!).Without giving too much away the most jaw-dropping moments are the corny dialogue between the Captain and the cabin staff (all two of 'em), the sequence where it's revealed that the priest is an imposter because he's wearing nail polish (nail polish?) and the bit where Robert Stack promises to show Danny Bonaduce round his cockpit a few minutes after threatening to spank him.
Welcome to an airplane where the first class section looks like Aaron Spelling's private theater!.
I could go on with details of this all-star "Airport" rip-off (probably forgotten by the time that the Zucker brothers got to "Airplane" 'till Robert Stack reminded them about it) but I wouldn't want to spoil the fun of what you get to see.The basic plot line of this Aaron Spelling tele-feature is actually pretty suspenseful, dramatizing the efforts of Stack to discover which of his passengers sent a warning that there would be murders on his flight.
However, with that cast and a script filled with more bad lines than a "Mystery Science Theater", this ends up becoming a guilty pleasure that the audience can have a delightful time laughing at and yet feel nostalgic at the same time..
(Gosh.) Everybody seems to be a suspect except Robert Stack as the pilot and the refulgent Farrah Fawcett as the kind of attendant we all need.
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.
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.
Cheap murder mystery antics on a Transatlantic flight.
MURDER ON FLIGHT 502 is an Aaron Spelling-production murder mystery TV movie from 1975.
It's an ultra-cheesy and dated tale about a flight from New York to London and the situation that arises when it becomes apparent that one of the passengers is intent on committing murder.
Like one of those cheesy disaster movies from the decade, this features an all-star cast of faces (B-list this time around) and no less than four red herrings and one real murderer.The convoluted script from veteran TV writer David P.
You're supposed to care about the characters involved in a film like this but you never do here; the tale is merely episodic, solving one mystery sub-plot before moving on to the next.
Director George McCowan had previously made the fun B-movie FROGS but can do little with this film's story.The actors do the best with the material they've been given.
The unravelling of the mystery isn't very interesting, but I do have a soft spot for TV movies from this era so it wasn't all bad for me, and the more dated a film is the more fun I find it to sit back and enjoy the fashions and attitudes from the era..
A murderer is loose on board Dumbbell Airlines.Collection of idiots on a 747 get picked off one by one as the half-wits back at the airport try to figure out what the hell is going on.
Farrah stars as a ditzy stew, Sonny Bono is a goofy musician, Theodore Bikel is a spooky weirdo, Danny Bonaduce is a prank-pulling punk, and Robert Stack is Mr. Bigshot Pilot who would like to stay and chat but he's got to get back to the cockpit because, "somebody's gotta 'drive' this airplane." Polly Bergen is cute as a sexy drunken chick.