Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966) -
"helicopters, Elvis style! Elvis Presley
sings as he 'pilots' his Bell 47J around the islands of Hawaii. This movie will kill you
if you try and watch it..." - NATHAN DECKER
Passenger 57 (1992) - a chopper is used as exec transport by an airline security
officer (Tom Sizemore) in this enjoyably silly hijacking thriller.
The Patriot (1998) - Dean Semler's vaguely sci-fi thriller has Steven Seagal as a
ranch owner fighting to preserve his land from being a testing ground for biological weapons.
When a viral outbreak starts killing the local population, a US Army bio-war quarantine operation
sends airborne troops and scientists into a small western town. It looks as if the production only
had a pair of Bell 206 machines, so the helicopters carrying soldiers and medical teams are re-used
in different shots to give the illusion of many arrivals. In the closing sequence, a JetRanger flies
the hero and his daughter to safety, and a 'hippie' Huey drops flower petals (which provide a cure
for the disease!) all over the town.
Patriot Games (1992) - based on Tom Clancy's novel, this political thriller
features a live-feed visual from an infrared spy satellite that reveals a helicopter assault
by commando troops on the terrorists' desert camp in north Africa, as American agents
(including the hero played by Harrison Ford) watch the operation in real-time at their
CIA base.
Paycheck (2003)
- this SF mystery-thriller by John Woo features one rotary action sequence where federal
agents use a low-flying MD-600N helicopter to chase the antihero (Ben Affleck), who makes good his
escape from trouble on a stolen motorbike. An earlier scene features a Eurcopter EC-130B,
transporting the hero to work.
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The Peacemaker
(1997)
- George Clooney's US agent leads three military helicopters into Russian airspace, while
in pursuit of a truckload of stolen nukes. One chopper is destroyed in the air by a Soviet
missile, before the remaining machines intercept their target and force the lorry to crash
on a river bridge. Later, another chopper scans the streets of New York for the radiation
leak from a backpack atomic bomb being carried by the villain.
The Perfect Storm (2000) - this fishing boat tragedy boasts a spectacular, but
digitally generated, scene of a rescue helicopter ditching into the ocean, when it
runs dry after failing to link-up with a tanker plane for midair refuelling. The whole
sequence is stylishly done, but remains wholly unconvincing. Featured helicopter is the
Sikorsky HH-60G Pavehawk (from 129th Rescue Wing, California Air National Guard).
A Perfect World (1993) -
"as it's set in the 1960s, director
Clint Eastwood employed a vintage Bell 47J-2 for his movie." - NATHAN DECKER
The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - Stewart Raffill's time-travel odyssey has
a couple of WWII sailors accidentally transported forward to the 1980s, where they are
spooked by modern aircraft - including a helicopter, which emerges from the dark sky
like a UFO but crashes off-screen and explodes, after the timewarp causes an electrical
discharge.
Picasso Trigger (1988) - this glam action movie by Andy Sidaris has a chase
scene in Dallas that ends when a rocket fired from the villains' helicopter destroys
the federal agents' car.
The Plague Dogs (1982) - Richard Rosen's animated feature film (based on Richard Adams'
novel) has images of a Sikorsky S-62.
"Although sent to track the dogs, the
helicopter finds the corpse of the bounty hunter (who fell off a cliff) hired by the lab
to kill the escaped animals. Eventually the military is called in, and another S-62 chases
our canine heroes down to the beach." - BILL HIERS
Planet Terror (2007)
- Robert Rodriguez's campy gory sci-fi horror flick has a couple of Sikorsky S-65 transports used by
survivors of the zombie plague to escape from an old army base. One of the big choppers gets airborne,
turning its rotor blades to lawnmower mode, hacking up a cluster of the infected (similar to a sequence
in 28 Weeks Later). Finally, the other helicopter whisks the gun-legged heroine away to safety
on the end of a rope tether. Brief shots of helicopters in flight are obviously CGI work, with a stage
prop appearing in raw footage.
Platoon (1986) - Oliver Stone's best Vietnam war movie features helicopters
in several key scenes, including a battlefield medevac operation.
Plato's Run (1998) - this low-budget noir thriller about mercenaries has an arms dealer
(Roy Scheider) enter his security compound via a private helicopter, and gunmen shooting
from a chopper at the escaping heroes (led by Gary Busey), during a boat chase through the
waterways of Florida.
Police Story 3: SuperCop
(1994)
- has a transport chopper land on a tennis court, and another one that flies out of the
Thai jungle, before the film's main rotary action during a raid on the prison guards' van,
with a hostage ploy. The hero's girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) is thrown out of a low-flying
helicopter into street traffic, and the airborne gunman shooting at the heroine (Michelle
Yeoh, billed as Kahn), blows up a stunt car. The 'supercop' hero (Jackie Chan) jumps off
a roof to grab onto a helicopter's rope ladder for a hanging ride above Kuala Lumpur, and
then the chopper is forced to land on a moving train, before it gets smashed from its
perch by a bridge over the railway tracks.
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The Poseidon
Adventure (1972) - in this famous disaster movie, a Sikorsky HO4S-1 (S55) arrives in
the closing scenes to airlift survivors of the tragedy off the overturned cruise ship.
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Predator
(1987) - in John McTiernan's exciting SF-horror adventure, Arnold Schwarzenegger's
super-macho commando team are dropped off in the dense jungle by military choppers.
Primal Species (aka: Carnosaur 3, 1997) - an elite team of US Army commandos
use a Bell UN-1N Twin Huey as transport to a terrorist hideout. Although the helicopter
is not directly involved in the Special Forces' assault, the camera work and shots of
its takeoff and landing are exemplary.
The Prisoner (1967-8) - for my money, this show is the finest and most intriguing TV
series ever made. Patrick McGoohan's "allegorical conundrum" tells stories of
secret agent Number Six, detained by a sinister authority for refusing to say why he
resigned. The only way in or out of mysterious prison complex "the Village"
- famously centred on the architectural chaos of Portmeirion in North Wales - is via
helicopter (an Aerospatiale Alouette II, with pontoons, piloted by Captain John Crewsdon)
but escape proved to be almost impossible for our hero throughout the 17 episodes.
In the first episode Arrival, the prisoner attempts to escape by stealing the
helicopter but he's returned to the Village by remote control of the machine. In episode
The Girl Who Was Death, a Bell 47-G2 is featured in one of many action scenes.
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photo © Joey Rhodes
(Bell 47 Helicopter
Association)
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The Prize Of Peril (1983) - even before The Running Man, this clever French
version of the manhunt TV gameshow idea features helicopter pursuit of the intended victims,
so that viewers do not miss any of the violent action.
The Professionals (1977-83) - British TV action series concering an elite anti-terrorist
police unit called C.I.5, this had occasional use of helicopters as air support for the ex-cop
and SAS heroes' frequent car chases. In one episode, Foxhole On The Roof, a gunman
threatens a hospital from his sandbag bunker on another building, but the sniper in a police
helicopter fails to shoot the bad guy.
Proof Of Life
(2000) - a
timely chopper escape during the opening scene (supposedly in Czechnya) has the hostage-negotiator
hero (Russell Crowe) picked up (by W-3A Sokol helicopter) just in time to avoid a dangerous shootout.
Later, another helicopter drops the hero's team of mercenary soldiers into a Latin American jungle
region, and then returns - when their mission is over - to airlift some rescued kidnap victims
to safety.
"The 'fictional' South American country was actually Ecuador. The Ecuadorian Air
Force supplied the Eurocopter (Aerospatiale) Gazelle and AS332 Super Puma helicopters
for the production." - NATHAN DECKER / IAN VINCENT FRAIN
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Prophecy (1979) - "hoping to prove his
theory that pollution of the forest has created a mutated creature that's killing campers; a scientist,
his wife, and a tagalong Indian, rent a Bell 206 JetRanger, to fly them out to where the latest attack
happened. They aren't there long before a storm kicks up, and the pilot (identified as 'Huntoon' in
the movie's novelisation) says they can't fly again in such bad weather. Thus our heroes are forced
to hike for the nearest Indian village, and the helicopter is all but forgotten about (the fact the
pilot soon becomes one of the monster's victims negates its use anyway)." - BILL
HIERS
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The Protector
(1985) - features an NYPD helicopter (an Aerospatiale 'A-Star' AS-350D,
piloted by Al Cerullo of Island Helicopter) that flies under the Brooklyn Bridge during a
chase on the East River, and airlifts the cop hero (Jackie Chan) from a speedboat just before
it crashes into the bad guy's cruiser and causes an explosion in the city harbour. In the finale
at Hong Kong docks, the big villain attempts escape in an SA-315B Lama, and shoots at the hero
fighting a henchman atop a shipyard crane, but Chan drops a cargo load onto the hovering chopper,
resulting in spectacular crash and burn special effects.
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The Puppet Masters (1994) - the brawl between hero and villain aboard a helicopter
provides an exciting aerial stunt for the finale of this SF conspiracy thriller about
alien parasites taking over USA.
Putney Swope (1969) -
"this is a weird one, a tale of the
swingin' 1960s... We see a Bell 47J-2 helicopter owned by some cool hep cat, painted in
two-tone, with a skull and crossbones, and a Confederate flag adorning the sides."
- NATHAN DECKER
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