I’ve just put on The Beast Of Yucca Flats (1961), and during the titles a Stinson 108 delivers Tor Johnson to a secret meeting. A Cessna 170A marked ‘New Mexico State Police’ is on a search mission at the beginning of Them! (1954), and a Cessna 170B appears in 1955’s Tarantula.
Unfortunately, the Internet Movie Plane Database is not entirely comprehensive. What are some other 1950s/early-1960s horror films that feature General Aviation aircraft, especially when they appear at the beginning?
There’s another Coleman Francis movie called The Skydivers, also barely tolerable even in MST3K form, which featured Cessnas I think. I’m not sure it qualifies as horror, but it’s a bit hard to categorize Coleman Francis films as any particular genre other than, “my god, somebody take the camera away from Coleman f-ing Francis!”
The Beast Of Yucca Flats also has a Cessna 182, which I’ve heard is the same plane used in The Skydivers.
Does the cropduster in North by Northwest count?
Capt
Not really a ‘General Aviation aircraft’ in the spirit of this thread. I mean, it is a GA aircraft, but so is a Gulfstream V; if you see what I mean. What I’m looking for are airplanes with two to four (or perhaps six) seats that are intended for personal transportation. Examples: Cessna 120/140, 150, 170, 172, 180, 182; Stinson 108, Reliant; Luscombe; Beechcraft Bonanza; Piper Cub, Super Cub, Cherokee; and so on.
I originally wanted to specify ‘B-grade’ horror films, but that would have only started an argument over what ‘B-grade’ is and isn’t. But in any case, North By Northwest isn’t a horror film.
Sorry I seemed to miss the Horror part of the OP
Capt
There was a very unconvincing autogyro in Hitchcock’s otherwise-very-good The 39 Steps (1935).
I have not seen The Deadly Mantis (1957), but it seeps to have a Cessna 195 in it.
There’s a Beechcraft Bonanza in Donovan’s Brain (1953). Haven’t seen that one either. Sounds like a disembodied brain that possesses people.
Does the 1953 version of War of the Worlds count as horror? The main characters escape in a Stinson L-5 about 20 minutes in.
See, that’s why I wanted to avoid ‘B-grade’. War Of The Worlds was not a B-film, but it does fit.
The Cyclops is firmly in the B camp and features Lon Chaney trying to crash a Stinson Voyager.
Sweet! Here are some pics.
That Stinson, a 1948 Model 108-3, N6647M, was lost in a crash in 2001 (injuries: 1 serious, 1 minor). The probable cause was ‘A baffling failure within the exhaust system.’ (Amusingly worded, but it was the failure of the muffler baffling.)
