San Francisco International

Jim Conrad runs a busy San Francisco airport in the way he thinks it should be run, and his hands-on style rubs his superiors the wrong way. On a single day he has to deal with two urgent problems: a young boy, upset by his parents splitting up, takes off in a little red prop plane and draws a frantic response, and a crew of thieves targets a money shipment headed through the field. The story moves between the tense effort to keep the youngster safe and the effort to stop the heist, with Conrad juggling authority, procedure, and on-the-spot decision making as events accelerate.

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and created by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, this 1970 television pilot stars Pernell Roberts as Jim Conrad, with Clu Gulager, Beth Brickell, Van Johnson and Nancy Malone in supporting roles. When the show was picked up for series, Roberts was replaced by Lloyd Bridges.

As a TV movie meant to launch a series, it had no theatrical box office to report, airing instead as a pilot on television rather than in cinemas.

Audience reaction has been mixed to negative, reflected in an average user score that sits on the low side. Critics at the time and later viewers have pointed to routine plotting and familiar TV-movie production values, while noting the straightforward themes of responsibility, authority, and personal strain under stress. Performances and the airport setting provide some interest, but overall it never became a critical favorite.

Today the title is mostly of interest to TV historians and collectors, remembered chiefly for its status as a pilot and for the casting change that followed. It hasn’t left many quotable moments in the wider culture, though the combination of an airport procedural and a moral center in the lead character makes it a snapshot of early 1970s television drama.