Alistair MacLean: His Legacy

The Scottish novelist Alistair MacLean passed away in 1987. During his life he produced some thirty highly successful thrillers. Around 1980, MacLean was commissioned to write a series of story outlines to be subsequently developed for television and the first story would become Air Force One is Down. MacLean managed to write eight storylines featuring a fictional UN agency called United Nations Anti-Crime Organization (UNACO). Though MacLean owned the rights to those outlines, he decided he personally did not want to develop them into full-blown novels.

[Alistair MacLean (1922-1987)]

In the end the production company decided that it was probably better to introduce the series with the second storyline, Hostage Tower. The movie, starring Peter Fonda and Maud Adams, was broadcast in the USA in 1980.

No further movies appeared until Death Train (1993) and Night Watch (1995), both starring Pierce Brosnan and Alexandra Paul, were broadcast.

But now, almost 30 years after the release of 'Night Watch', the world can still be entertained by Alistair MacLean because his novel 'Air Force One is Down' is now made into a mini-series featuring Linda Hamilton (yes, from 'The Terminator') as President Harriet Rowntree. If deemed successful, the production company Power – a name itself worthy of an Alistair MacLean novel – has announced that they plan to serialize 'Puppet on a Chain' and 'The Dark Crusader' too.

For Linda Hamilton this adaptation of a novel by Alistair MacLean is kind of a reprieve because she also starred in the movie 'The Way to Dusty Death'.

I suppose you might think that this is just some sort of quirk but no, it really looks like the stories of Alistair MacLean are given a new lease of life. Warner Bros. has recently announcedplans to remake the movie'Ice Station Zebra'. The original aired as far back as 1968 and starred Rock Hudson and Ernest Borgnine.

First publication: 19 July 2017
Second (updated) publication: 3 april 2025