A rather sluggish international crime film
that should have been so much better. A lost opportunity. The plot line is
decent enough but the director just drags it along like a dead camel behind
him. But at least the viewer gets a nice tour of Beirut before it was all
bombed to hell. It looked like a nice place.
Engine trouble forces a passenger plane
to make an unscheduled stop in Beirut for 24 hours. The crew consists of
the pilot (Lex Barker), his co-pilot, the navigator, the cabin crew (Mickey
Rooney) and three very attractive all-European hostesses. Passengers today
may think that is make-believe but that is how it used to be. Turns out that
Rooney has been a very bad boy and a gang of smugglers is very happy to see
him - in order to kill him. The boys all decide to protect him and amazingly
are all pretty good with their fists.
Walter Slezak is the very polite villain
and one of his assistants is Maria Rohm. So a fine little plot as they run
all around Beirut but they throw in some pointless domestic problems and
everyone basically acts like it is no big deal to have a gang of killers
out there looking for them. Rooney is annoying as the lying manipulative
cause of their danger but effective.
