Ok, here is more than just a few words. I really liked
Fate is the Hunter, which was a blind buy for me. I wanted to watch it sooner but I have been flying a lot the past two months to West Texas and wasn't keen on watching a movie about an aircraft accident....lol.
[Show spoiler]
The story is the autopsy of an air crash. The special effects are good by the standards of the day. The opening sequence is pretty frightening; what begins as a routine flight.... checking in the passengers, introducing the audience to Captain Jack Savage (played by Rod Taylor, The Time Machine) and the flight crew, as well as the manager of flight operations Sam McBane (played by Glenn Ford)...... ends in terror as the captain struggles to land the plane after a series of mechanical problems knock out both engines. The opening credits blaze onto the screen moments later, and the effect is electrifying. The story then becomes an investigation of what happened. The airline wants to blame the pilot when it begins to look like mechanical problems may not have been the cause. Ford's character is a friend of Taylor's Jack Savage from when they flew transport aircraft together in the army air corps during WWII, and spends the rest of the film trying to piece together enough evidence to save the reputation of his friend. Ford believes it had to be mechanical failure no matter what the ongoing FAA investigation seems to indicate. In the process, Ford meets several lady friends of Taylor, including Nancy Kwan as a marine scientist who appears to be the love of his friend's life. As the FAA investigation proceeds, we are introduced to a series of improbable events that occurred leading up to and during the flight, any one of which by itself may not have been of concern, but taken together they all seem to indicate an outside purpose - the hand of fate, it would seem; hence, the title of the film.
The cinematography is superb, with that luscious black and white Cinemascope look that I really enjoy watching. Ford gives his usual hard-nosed performance, refusing to believe his friend is an irresponsible drunk and lothario who would callously jeopardize the lives of so many people. The film is a melodrama in a good way. There is a lot to be said for the emotional impact of a child's broken doll found at the site of the crash by a mother. It is a brief scene, but is as effective as anything ever put on film. The flashback sequences are effective and serve a purpose of establishing connections between the different characters. While I can see the faults that JMK reports in his Blu-ray.com review, I disagree with his diagnosis. This is an early 60s film, and should be taken on its own merits. I found the story line compelling and the mystery believable. Many of the safety aspects of commercial aircraft we take for granted today only exist because of things like the events portrayed in this film; in the early 1960s, passenger air travel was still a work in progress in terms of safety systems and advances toward more automated flight controls. I get a real kick out of watching these old films with their "Pan-Am" look to air travel, pretty air hostesses, pilots who were invariably veterans of WWII and Korea, passengers who actually dressed up to board an airplane as if flying was a special event deserving a bit of style and elegance. Even walking across the tarmac from the terminal to board a flight using rollaway staircases is somehow much more inviting than using a modern jetway.
Fate is the Hunter is a who's-who of early 60s stars, including in supporting roles Jane Russell (as herself), Constance Towers (star of Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor), and the wonderful Suzanne Pleshette. Suzanne Pleshette is particularly good as a stewardess suffering from physical and mental trauma from her ordeal aboard the fated aircraft. Nancy Kwan is also memorable and gives an endearing performance. And it is Kwan who is the subject of the other main reason to get this Blu-ray: the heartfelt documentary To Whom it May Concern: Ka Shen's Journey, included as an extra. Really well done docu-film, at almost two hours it is a tour of Hong Kong and Hollywood from the past seventy years, told through the interesting life of Nancy Kwan, beginning with her parents (her mother a beautiful blond Scottish model and her father a Hong Kong businessman), the Japanese invasion that affected her childhood, and her personal triumphs to become a ballet dancer and actress. I have not yet listened to the commentary with Kwan and Nick Redman, but together with the documentary on Nancy's life, I would rate Fate is the Hunter to be one of the most value-packed of Twilight Time's releases so far
.