The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974)
Colonel Pete Moore (Glenn Ford) is commander of the Whitney Radar Test Group, which has been experiencing electrical difficulties aboard its aircraft. To ferret out the problem, he sends a four-man crew on Flight 412. Shortly into the test, the jet picks up three blips on radar, and subsequently, two fighters scramble and mysteriously disappear. At this point, Flight 412 is monitored and forced to land by Digger Control, a top-level, military intelligence group that debunks UFO information. The intrepid colonel, kept in the dark about his crew, decides to investigate the matter himself.
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Absolutely the worst movie.
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Jud Taylor directed this TV movie that stars Glenn Ford as Colonel Pete Moore, in charge of the Whitney Radar Test Group that has sent a four-man crew on flight 412 to investigate electrical difficulties, but instead encounters what may either be a blip, or a UFO, but after they are interrogated by a mysterious military intelligence team(led by Guy Stockwell) that does not want to hear about "science fiction", the men find themselves uncomfortably at odds with their own government. Can Col. Moore get to the bottom of this matter, save his crew and all their careers? Reasonably good film defies its low budget and brief running time to tell a well-acted and tense narrative that doesn't provide easy answers, but instead unfolds in a matter-of-fact way, which is most effective. Also stars Bradford Dillman, David Soul, Robert F. Lyons, and Kent Smith.
The Disappearance of Flight 412 is a rather cheaply made TV movie with really bad sound that doesn't seem to make any point. If there are indeed UFOs visiting our fair planet we can't seem to ever get a handle on it with anything definitive. If they are and the government has documentation they are covering it up. Hardly anything revelatory.Air Force Colonel Glenn Ford is in charge of a flight group in which one of his flight crews is making some radar equipment checks. They see a strange object in the sky, some Marine jets are scrambled and they disappear off the radar scope. Ford's crew is diverted to a secret base nearby his base that he does not know anything about. But with a little sleuthing he tracks down where his men are gets them out.Quite frankly he should have dropped it right there, but he pursues it and gets himself in a ringer with General Kent Smith. The conclusion, there really isn't any.Robert F. Lyons does the best acting job as the colonel in charge of the top secret installation, a really smarmy type. Ford does his usual professional job. But in the final analysis the only people who this film might appeal to are aviation buffs.
An Air Force training mission is lost shortly after take off and a small squadron of UFOs are spotted on the radar screen as the planes disappear. Glenn Ford plays the concerned base commander, desperately trying to track down the crew he sent along for flight control. This crew has been abducted to a seemingly abandoned military facility in the desert by a special intelligence division, where the men are being brainwashed and otherwise coerced to participate in an enormous, and largely unexplained UFO cover-up.The film succeeds in developing a military feel, but the characterizations are not consistent in this regard, and several absurdities and military stereotypes occur. It falls far short of creating the 'documentary feel' it strives to achieve, and - even worse - provides no motive or even a fleck of believability for the silly conspiracy theory that forms its basis.Most of the acting is OK, and the script and plot are, though inconsistent, OK. The cinematography is tedious standard 1970s TV movie fare - the camera generally does not move except for a few pans. Fortunately, the lack of inspirations is fairly consistent from the subject matter itself to the production values, so there is no need to be very concerned if you haven't managed to see this one.
Long before flying saucer buffs were accusing the government of hiding the facts behind the Roswell UFO crash, this movie explored the possibility that military sightings were handled in a covert and serious way.Presented in a straightforward, semi-documentary style, The Disappearance of Flight 412 is directed with economy and tight pacing. This is an absorbing and convincing TV movie [a rarity] that could be classified as science fiction or straight drama.If you can find it playing somewhere on cable, don't miss it.