High Seas Hijack

After Godzilla had retired in 1975, Toho had used their SFX dept to work on disaster films. This is one of them, indeed made by Toho. THE SUBMERGENCE OF JAPAN(1973)(TIDAL WAVE-US 1975) PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS(1976)(LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH-US 1978) and this film which was released in the US as HIGH SEAS HIJACK. The plot is basically, an oil tanker is hijacked and will be rammed full speed into a fuel depot in Tokyo Bay thus causing a massive uncontrolled fire, unless terrorists get what they want. The film was picked up by UPA/Henry G Saperstein and after a limited theaterical release around 1979, it was released directly to TV, showing up on late nights and most recently, on AMC(before they changed their format). It's rife with stock footage from past Toho films including THE SUBMERGENCE OF JAPAN and, oddly, GODZILLA VS HEDORAH(some exploding oil tanks footage) and to confound it further, newly shot footage of Peter Graves and some other caucasians was filmed in what appears to be a very 1970's office as he "monitors the situation" which like inserting Raymond Burr into GODZILLA, it was a way for a familiar face to narrate what's going on for the audience. This makes it a mishmash of a film. It intends to be something really big and, it's not. Even action on board the ship looks very set-bound and poorly lit. Not bad but, not that good.

I recently saw this on AMC of all places. It qualifies as a Movie, but is neither American nor a Classic. Pretty inept action story with inserted footage of Peter Graves (ala Raymond Burr in Godzilla). If you want to waste 90 minutes of your life go ahead but otherwise beware.