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Fate Is the Hunter

37 votes

An airline executive refuses to believe that pilot error, by his friend, caused a fatal crash and persists in looking for another reason.

Status: Released

Released Date: 1964-11-08

Runtime: 106 mins

Director: Ralph Nelson

Spoken language: English

Genres: Drama

Original title: Fate Is the Hunter

Production Companies: Arcola Pictures

Production Countries: United States of America

Cast

Glenn Ford

Jane Russell

Rod Taylor

Suzanne Pleshette

Nancy Kwan

Wally Cox

Nehemiah Persoff

Mark Stevens

Max Showalter

Constance Towers

Howard St. John

Robert J. Wilke

Bert Freed

Dort Clark

Reviews

Geronimo1967

When an airline tragedy kills fifty-seven people, it falls to investigator "McBane" (Glenn Ford) to get to the bottom of things. He has precious little to go on save for a report from the pilot claiming an engine fire before silence then the plane hit the ground. One of the survivors, the stewardess "Sally" (Nancy Kwan) has slightly conflicting information about the crash so "McBane" assembles the wreckage and he can't make either story work - something's not right! The absence of any clear technical fault suggests to all the it's his wartime friend "Savage" (Rod Taylor) who was at fault - but he's not buying that. In an effort to clear the man and get to the truth, he puts his own reputation on the line and makes quite a few unsavoury discoveries along the way before he concludes another flight might be the only solution. Ford is quite good here - there's a decent one-two at the inquiry with Bert Freed's opposing counsel "Dillon" but for a movie about planes, we have remarkably little action going on. A bit of simulation now and again, but otherwise this is a rather dry story that unfolds in a pretty pedestrian fashion, with loads of chat and not so much substance to the plot. The pretty wooden Taylor doesn't really feature very often and by the conclusion, we were on a flightpath of inevitability that really underwhelmed.

2024-02-17

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