Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974)

Cast:

Glenn "3:10 to Yuma is more than a time" Ford is Colonel Pete Moore
Bradford "I'll Escape From THE Planet of the Apes" Dillman is Major Mike Dunning
David "Hutch from !" Soul is Captain Roy Bishop
Robert F. Lyons is Captain Cliff Riggs
Guy Stockwell is Lieutenant Colonel Trottman

What the box says:

A flight wing of the Air Force has been experiencing difficulties with some of its aircraft so as a a test they send aloft a jet with a four-man crew. Once airborne, the jet picks up three mysterious objects on radar and when two interceptors are sent to investigate, they mysteriously disappear. When the test flight is rerouted to a secured airbase for interrogation, the flight wing commander decides to do some investigating of his own and uncovers some very disturbing information.

Plot:

The narrator explains UFO by witnesses and photos. The USAF has Colonel Glenn Ford leading a test flight (412).

Just don't get lost in the Bermuda Triangle... The radar is picking up some strange blips. Fighter planes are sent to investigate.
This isn't stock footage The UFO disappear from the radar and the planes. Even stranger, the fighter planes vanish from Flight 412.

Elsewhere, the 1970s Men in Black start up a secret base and order Flight 412 to land at the base. The MIB investigate the plane crew and start questioning them about the UFO.

Colonel Glenn Ford is getting the runaraound about his plane from everyone. He eventually learns that 412 was sent to a decomissioned base. Colonel Glenn Ford and his assistant Major Dunning head to the base. Dunning reveals about an old UFO investigation he was involved in years ago.

You say you were a Kansasa farmer who found a crystalline spaceship in a field?

At the base guard station, Glenn Ford questions the MIB about his flight crew.

2 of the flight crew plot to escape but are caught by the MIB.

Talk, talk, give us answerers... All of the crew are getting crazier until the MIB finally turn the crew over to Glenn Ford who flies them out.

The base is closed again. Major Dunning tries talking Glenn Ford into not getting involved. Head of the MIB is also the guy who's Glenn Ford's boss. He looks over the report. MIB colonel reports to the generalwho chews out Glenn Ford.

The omniscient narrator extols how noone cared for the disappearance of Flight 412 for a few hours. Colonel Glenn Ford didn't get promoted and retired. Major Dunning got promoted.

What I say:

Disappearance of Flight 412 would never be thought of as a classic. This is a cheap 1970s TV-movie with Glenn Ford who appeared in some movies like Superman and 3:10 to Yuma that are far more entertaining than this. It may be hard for people to remember the the made-for-TV movies of the previous decades. The 1970s made-for-TV movies are gone. The 1980s style of TV-movies have even vanished. Now, cable channel movies are becoming the lame distributors. How many Mega-Crocs have contended with Sharckto-hybrids in the past couple of years?

A lot of 1970s TV-movies had to have the paranormal vibe or plenty of stock footage. Of course, UFOs automatically had the Area 51/Roswell vibe. The powerful paranoid committee keeping the secrets from the public who couldn't handle it. Yes, the Men in Black and X-Files. A 1970s TV-movie with a UFO theme on the back burner isn't going to be thought of as a great sci-fi movie.

What does it say about a movie when a large number of it is interrogations that would be better if you watched a couple minutes of the Law & Order cops questioning someone rather than this? This is just a movie that thankfully isn't as bad as Massacre. TV-movies don't have the ratings from other movies which could give those movies actions to entertain you.

Quotable Dialogue
"1400, there goes lunch, guys."
"Scramble red, scramble red. This is not a drill..."
"Let'em sweat for about 15 minutes, let them go..."
"That's becoming a very thin umbrella."
"I want an order now!"
Morals of the Story
Air Force love station wagons.
Men in Black used to wear 1970s plaid.
Men in Black don't believe in UFOs.