April 19, 2016

This was a decent TV-movie about US government reaction to the question of air force personnel coming across UFOs during routine flight tests. It is well-acted and constructed, and at 71 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome. Though I haven't been the biggest Glenn Ford fan over the years, through seeing more of his work, my appreciation and fondness had been slowly but steadily climbing, and it was a decent, fun look at pre-'Starsky and Hutch' a… read the rest.

This was a decent TV-movie about US government reaction to the question of air force personnel coming across UFOs during routine flight tests. It is well-acted and constructed, and at 71 minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome. Though I haven't been the biggest Glenn Ford fan over the years, through seeing more of his work, my appreciation and fondness had been slowly but steadily climbing, and it was a decent, fun look at pre-'Starsky and Hutch' and pop-music-success David Soul and pre-'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman' Greg Mullavey, as well as other decent, recognizable talent from the 70's American crime/police shows and TV-movies I watched growing up here in Canada.

Former actor and later Directors Guild of America vice president and president director Taylor, a mainstay of American TV-movies and shows from 1965-2004 (whom I know most from his work on the original 'Star Trek' series) utilizes a documentary-style approach for the film, complete with military words and times appearing on the screen and narration. It's a serviceable method, though at the very end he undermines it, showing the usual 'All characters and events are fictitious...' blurb...had he not, I would have given it 7/10. It's a decent watch and makes you wonder just how governments around the world have reacted to abnormal events such as those that are talked about here. It's definitely worth a watch if you're interested at all in 'close encounters', like any of the three actors I mentioned, and can appreciate and enjoy the 70's style of television making. My copy was in my infamous Mill Creek 50-pack 'Nightmare Worlds'.

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