Aero Vintage Books

I was recording a few TCM favorites on Memorial Day along with one I'd never seen. It's a forgettable Kirk Douglas film called, "The Hook." I'll let you, the reader, IMDB this 1963, Korean War myopic but, suffice it to say, the highlight is the appearance onscreen of Paul Mantz's B-25 camera-ship along with what I believe is another Mantz owned B-25, N9456Z. These sequences were filmed off Catalina island in SoCal.

I apologize for the quality of the photos as I literally froze the frame and snapped them with my iPad. Here we go.....

This first shot shows N1203 filmed from the other B-25. The Cinerama tail is clearly visible.


The next shot which is supposed to, on film, be the same aircraft, clearly is not. The tall carb intakes clearly show a Hayes modification bird and from the way the greenhouse is painted, I believe this is N9456Z based on the photo on page 61 of Scott's book.


The next sequential shot clearly now shows the Cinerama nose on N1203 as a bomb falls away.


This angle shows to fair advantage the two, very bright flashing light housings just under the Cinerama nose used to simulate machine guns firing.


What do you get when two, 250 pounders stick together? A 500 pounder!


Very hard to see but, both aircraft were painted with red stars in order to represent the North Korean force for which they were flying.

Craig,

Some great stuff here and I sure appreciate you posting it here. I might use some of your screen captures in my next B-25 update (if I can only remember...)

I was glad to see that this movie was already listed on my Tallmantz projects page (https://www.aerovintage.com/projects.htm because I had never heard of it before. The Tallmantz list I worked from showed it was filmed in 1962, which fits the timeline. It must have been first projects done by Tallmantz Aviation, as it was only established in November 1961. Your statement that it was filmed near Catalina makes sense but can you source that? Just for my information.

Please keep mining these old movies...some good if obscure stuff you provide. Thanks much.

Hi Scott,

The reference for the filming off Santa Catalina is the Wikipedia reference for the film. And, of course, since it's on the Internet, it must be true! Actually, it makes a lot of sense and there are indeed a couple of scenes in the film where you can see an island in the background - perhaps Catalina or one or more of the other Channel Islands.

EDIT: Just found this on TCM.com to seal the deal...

When he signed on for The Hook, Douglas was badly in need of a hit, something he hadn't had since Spartacus (1960). He even tried a little self-promotion while making the film, in his own words doing "what the big movie stars do" (Douglas, The Ragman's Son) by renting a yacht to take some friends on a jaunt to the film's location off Catalina Island. Unfortunately, the ship hit rough waters, sending most of the passengers to the railings to lose their last meals, which should have served as a warning to him.