User reviews

Glen Ford has always been a consummate actor. When in any role, he becomes the character and thus is very believable. Ocassionaly however the role is one which lacked substance and thus even the best actor can only do his best, despite it's limitations. Such is the film " The Disappearance of Flight 412. " The story was written by George Simpson and directed by Jud Taylor. What should have been an exciting subject, namely U.F.O.'s and should have garnered a much wider audience, proved the opposite. Glenn Ford, plays Col. Pete Moore a highly experience Base Commander of a modern Flight Wing. While under his command a special flight takes off to study strange electrical interference over his base. However flight 412 suddenly encounters three objects over the skies of the base which turn out to be three genuine U.F.O.'s. Surprised by their speed and maneuverability, two additional Marine Phantom jets are scrambled to intercept them. However, as quickly they appeared, they disappear. However, the flight of the air force Lockheed is abruptly ordered to divert to a clandestine base for 'Special Debriefing.' From that point on, things which were strange before, now become an incident in Classified circles. No one is allowed to know what happened over the skies and the crew are subjected to Brain washing as they learn what they saw, NEVER happened at all. Further, since no information is forthcoming, Col. Pete More (Glenn Ford) has to investigate himself. This movie does a good job of creating interest, but fails to bring closure to the story. Although, the information is gathered, NOTHING is allowed to be known to those who already known it. The cast for this film is superb as such superior actors as Bradford Dillman, David Soul, Robert F. Lyons and Guy Stockwell from Digger Control give deep interest to the movie. What exactly goes on behind close door in Goverenment, is never discussed, instead Americans are convinced that Lies are what the Air Force expect of it's personal. All the characters who accepted the lies, were promoted, they others were not. Interesting. ****

Occasionally tense, but ultimately disappointing tale of a routine test mission that witnesses the disappearance of two fighter jets who are scrambled to intercept a suspected UFO. No-nonsense Colonel (Ford) and his Major (Dillman) delve into the mystery when their plane is diverted to a remote, de-commissioned air base in the desert, its crew (Soul, Lyons, Mullavey and Clay) interrogated by Special Investigations Detachment to ascertain what they actually saw, and prevent a national security breach.

All the players acquit their roles with professionalism and competence - Stockwell as the burly, sunglasses wearing head interrogator casts an ominous aura, but his passive threats have no substance (the worst outcome suggested is demotion or demobbing). Familiar actors Jack Ging, Ken Kercheval, Ed Winter, Kent Smith, Morris Buchanan and Jesse Vint have supporting roles of varying proportions, and Soul in particular is dominant in his role as the airmen's fearless leader (the scene in which he stages a daring escape attempt should have been a suspense highlight, alas, it fails to ignite the fading embers).

But despite the capable cast, the tele-movie is really just an introduction to the UFO phenomenon, with little actual substance or depth. A couple of tense moments during the multitude of interrogations, despite the bark, there's no bite.

Glenn Ford stars as an Air Force colonel by the name of "Pete Moore" who has just sent a four-man crew on a flight to test some electrical equipment. As Flight 412 nears its destination they are informed by a nearby Marine Corps air base that there are three strange blips on their radar screen and Flight 412 is requested to confirm it. After confirming it the Marine Corps sends two Phantom jets to intercept these unidentified flying objects only to have them mysteriously disappear. At this point the Marine Corps air base turns control of Flight 412 over to NORAD which then diverts it to another heading and orders them to maintain radio silence until they land at an undisclosed location. Now, rather than reveal any more of the film and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this was an interesting movie for the most part. Although it begins in a semi-documentary style which opens and closes with a narrative it doesn't really reveal anything out of the ordinary. In essence, it's slightly entertaining but not that informative or factual. All things considered I rate it as average.

Those looking for exploitation thrills or Saturday Matinée style adventure should avoid this picture in droves. There's some action here, with endless footage of planes taking off and landing, but a lot of the film is just talking heads.

There's nothing wrong with straight science fiction, almost verging on straight thriller/drama. But this made for TV film didn't do it too well at all. I could see a series like The Twlight Zone handling this with a lot more panache.

The acting from Glenn Ford is dependable, but not exciting. It's the writing that kicks the movie to the curb. But, on the other hand, if you have a desperate need to see David "Hutch" Soul in full overacting mode, this might be your cup of cheese. But remember, we never see the UFOs, other than as a blip on a radar screen, and some "authentic" footage of a totally unrelated UFO sighting somewhere else in the country. I'd give it a pass.

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.

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" has the look and feel of a documentary based on a real UFO encounter and the aftermath. I'm sure some people will see this movie and from then on remember it as fact. In fact, no one ever says that it is based on reality. It is fictional, pure and simple. It's just another movie trying to cash in on the UFO craze. At the end of the film there is a statement saying that it is fictional and is not based on anything, anybody or anyplace living or dead. As a semi documentary based on reality it would at least have been interesting. As a sci-fi movie, which is what it is, it is just plain boring. There is no action and very little drama. You never see an alien, or a UFO. All you get out of this movie is that the government is hiding knowledge about the existence of UFOs. The plot is slow, boring, very predictable and goes nowhere. When it ends you wonder what was the point of this movie. Very strange. I wish the movie disappeared with the flight.

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.

"The Disappearance of Flight 412" was obviously put out to try to cash in on the UFO craze of the 1970's. I remember the era well. UFO sightings were all over the place. This type of movie would have been watched and it probably garnered pretty good ratings for NBC - the network that broadcast it. In the end, it would also have left pretty much everyone who watched it disappointed. It really isn't that interesting to watch 4 guys get "debriefed," but that's basically what we do for a good part of the movie. These 4 were the crew of an Air Force plane on some sort of routine assignment. 3 strange blips come up on radar, a couple of Marine fighters are scrambled to intercept them and those planes vanish. The Air Force crew then get interrogated about it over about a 24 hour period. This really doesn't lead anywhere. The interrogation ends and the guys are released to their commanding officer, played by Glenn Ford. Ford was decent enough. He was probably the best part of a weak movie, and the entire cast seemed to take this seriously enough. It's just that there's no resolution to anything. In the end all we're left with is that there's some sort of massive government cover-up about UFOs. Honestly, I saw no point to this movie at all. 2/10

Colonel Glenn Ford is in charge of a radar testing group for the US Air Force. During a testing mission, three unexplained blips appear on a radar screen. Three Marine jets scramble and disappear. The personnel from Ford's group find themselves in a different location. Mufti-garbed Guy Stockwell tells them they are being debriefed, and challenges everything they say. Ford goes in search of them, and discovers the secret base they are being held in.

This made-for-TV movie never claims to be anything but a work of fiction, but it's filled with the paranoia that infests most conspiracy theorists, filled with conspiracies imposed by unnamed powers for reasons that are never given and thus must be stupid. Ford even has a speech to that effect at the end of the show. We are left with a brave declaration of.... nothing.

In an era when nine out of ten people carry a cel phone that can take pictures, no one has produced a good picture of Bigfoot. This doesn't stop anyone from proclaiming its reality. Area 51 is at the edge of the Yucca Flats atomic testing area, and has been a testing base run by the CIA and the Air Force since 1955, operating under an information blackout -- it's the CIA. This doesn't stop anyone from talking about alien spacecraft. Are there advanced aircraft of some description there? I wouldn't be at all surprised. It's the Air Force and the CIA. Why conclude that aliens from other planets are involved? You can't design a flying saucer? Neither can I. I'm not an aviation engineer, but I did read one who wrote "With enough power, you can fly a barn door?"

In my mind, all this ties into the paranoia and self-aggrandizement that forms the substrate of this movie. As a result, I find it depressing; not because the government is covering up aliens among us, but because works like this take it as a given that they are.

Col. Pete Moore (Glen Ford) at 58 years old but looks much older is in charge of a radar test plane 412. Right up front we see evidence of UF0s on radar.

Glen was probably place there to give the movie credibility. We are also immediately distracted with all the old used equipment and plains even for 1974. Wait it gets worse all the military people have hippy quaffs for hair style; they could not cut it even to make a movie. At least they were filmed at real air bases Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA and Oxnard Air Force Base, California, USA.

In one scene they are told which runway by number to land on. But it is an unknown air field so how do they know which runway was suggested?

The drama is Col. More has lost his plane and he gets stonewalled when he looks for it. And the missing crew id the boring filler to stretch the film time.

Never give up never surrender.

When push comes to shove some one forgot to say that only lawful orders need to be followed.

Looks like Pete more hits a dead end. Too bad and too bad about this rely crummy movie. By the way what happened to everybody?

This may look like a precursor to the X Files. But this does not have their quality.

"A flight wing of the Air Force has been experiencing difficulties with some of its aircraft so as 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," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

While Air Force Col. Glenn Ford (as Pete Moore) and his men try to investigate events surrounding the UFO sighting, US government officials move to cover-up the incident. Mustached David Soul (as Roy Bishop) heads a cast of familiar and likable TV actors, in a TV movie. One is not as familiar as the rest: "Dark Shadows" star James Storm is partially obscured by a dark cap; he is manning the "Digger Control" that diverts Mr. Soul's plane.

Once upon a time movies used to be made for TV, and this was one of the better ones. Others have done a good job of encapsulating the plot and cast of characters, so I won't rehash that. For those looking for exciting chases and special effects, this is not your movie. Rather it is a character study, and a good one at that. The crux is openness and truthfulness versus secrecy and obfuscation. Do the people have a right to know the truth about what our government is doing? Under what circumstances is secrecy acceptable? Who watchers the watchers? Serious questions, and just as valid today, if not more so than in 1974, when this movie was made.

My issue with this film is that in order to get everything to happen in a couple of days, a lot of believability goes out the window. First of all these are military men. They are Air Force. For them to be broken in a 24 hour span without any torture or brainwashing is ridiculous. These guys would stand up to a little interrogation much better than these guys do. One actually has a full blown fit. Had this gone on for a month; had they been kept in isolation and their minds played with, it would have been a different story. Also, what the heck. Couldn't military orders simply conceal the findings? Make them seem ridiculous? To take four good guys and do this interrogation room nonsense seems awfully silly. I remember when I saw the movie version of "Catch 22." When Yossarian is visited by Colonels Corn and Cathcart. They ask him for a favor. They want him to "like" them. They don't say why. He doesn't understand. But that's what they want. I think these guys are supposed to think they were incompetent and believe the CIS guys. I did notice one of them was Colonel Flag from MASH. Maybe that says it all.

An aircraft finds three unidentifiable objects on the radar screen that seem to be persecuting the aircraft, the crew report this to the ground base, and two jets are sent up to deal with the situation. These jets disappear without a trace, and so do the three unidentified flying objects. When the aircraft returns to the ground the crew are held for investigation against their will and under protest, but those in charge simply want to squeeze every detail of the matter out of them. When they have been grilled enough they are let out and allowed to continue their careers. Glenn Ford is their military chief, he can't accept the situation, so he goes out in the desert to the desolate place where his men are held and refuses to leave without them. Finally he gets them out, but that's not the end of the story, The question remains what happened to the two jets that just disappeared. That question is finally answered but only leads to more difficult questions. It's an interesting film well written and acted (especially by Glenn Ford) and the argument remains constantly actual. This is just something of an effort to chart the mentality of covering up what you are afraid to get to know too much about.

**SPOILERS** Four years before the 1947 Roswell Incident was made public in 1978 a film came out about a fictitious UFO cover up that had all the hallmarks of what was really going on in the US military, notably the US Air Force, for some twenty years.

On a sunny summer day a radar plane took off from the Whitney AFB and got caught up with what the US Government has been keeping under the rug since the end of WWII: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's). Are they or are they not real? from another solar system do they come from? and are a danger to the national security of the United States?

The crew of the radar plane spots by sight and their radar system as well as it being confirmed by ground radar an eerie and frighting sight. Three unidentified flying objects moving threateningly towards their plane! Two marine jet fighters are scrambled to confront them or, if necessary, shoot them down. As the fighter jets come within cannon fire of the strange objects they either disappear or are themselves shot down by the UFO's who then make an incredible right angle turn, almost at a standing position, and shoot out of sight at speeds, clocked by the radar equipment on the plane and ground control, of up to 5,000 MPH. What happens next is what we've learned over the years since the movie was made. The radar plane is diverted to an obscure and abandoned air field, the old Digger air base, and the pilots debriefed by members of the SID, Special Intellengence Detatchment. And made to see things the the way the military wants things to be seen, and have the entire incident filed away and forgotten.

Four months later the same kind of UFO incident happens again at the same Whitney AFB and those who suffered through the first one at the start of the film had by then learned their lesson and said of the incident what they were told to say from their higher ups. Not what their eyes and brains told them what they saw and what they knew to be the truth.

Even though UFO's are still considered by many in the news media as mass hysteria at worse or the results of an overworked imagination at best they are real enough for the US military to have covered up and stamped Top Secret and Eyes Only thousands of documents about these elusive objects since at least back to 1947, which shows what those who are in the know really think about them.

The incident that happened in the movie "The Disaperance of Flight 412" is not unique to those who served in the USAF over the last fifty or so years. With intelligently flown aircraft being spotted all over the USA, as well as the entire planet, unopposed with those responsible for the safety of the people not being able to stop them or shoot them down It's no wonder that the government doesn't want this information, if true, to become public.

A colour version of b/w '50s era creature feature, without the creatures. With a young David Soul and an old Glenn Ford, both with acting range from confused thru frustrated. Both get to pound a desk.

I watched to see Ford, but it was just pathetic.

It's very interesting to watch a movie like THE DISAPPEARANCE OF FLIGHT 412, especially in light of what has recently -as of this writing- been divulged by the Pentagon concerning the UFO phenomenon.

When the titular aircraft detects unexplained objects on radar, the crew, led by Capt. Bishop (David Soul), is taken to a top secret location by the "Sunglasses Squad" (aka: NORAD / SID) for "debriefing". As is common in this sort of film, the government types are far more mysterious and creepy than any unknown, extraterrestrial encounter!

The way that SID handles the situation seems extreme, and more like something one might expect from a KGB reeducation operation!

Glenn Ford and Bradford Dillman are superb as the Air Force officers trying to get to the bottom of what happened to their men and their plane. Ford plays one of his best later career roles. Soul proves that he can portray far more serious characters than Hutch. He's very convincing here.

A solid piece of 1970's made-for-TV science fiction...