To me, this movie is perfection.

the audience applauded

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie was released in 1973 primarily for TV, not a theatrical release. With respect to acting, cast and production quality it was done on a very limited budget, so it is really not fair to compare it to bigger budget Hollywood pictures. One of the ways that the defunct Tomorrow Entertainment chose to save production money was to only license the 1940s music used in the film for a very short number of years (I believe 10 years). The cost savings move by shorter music licensing was hailed by the entertainment industry back in 1973 as an example of thinking outside of the box, but since the music in this movie was so very much a part of the tone and theme of the movie, this means that the impact of the VHS, Beta and DVD versions is disappointing, because the original soundtrack is not there. You have to remember that home video systems like Beta, BetaMax, VHS and DVD really did not exist until years afterwards. What did exist was expensive and not for the average consumer in 1972-1973. Video systems were bulky, reel-to-reel and required a vidicon tube camera to record. Color recording was damn expensive. It is not surprising that the executive producer had no thoughts at the time of a home release product. Home video recording and playback technology was still years away and would not be affordable or mass marketable for years. By the time it was affordable and mass marketable, the permission (license) to use the original music had expired.The movie has some terrific flying scenes. I've flown both helicopters and fix wing aircraft and helped develop military flight simulators in the 1980s, and my hats are off in respect for the stunt pilots on this movie. This particular movie actually inspired me to work in the aerospace industry in the 1980s.It is a decent movie with a decent plot and acceptable acting and interesting characters. Janssen and Meeker play well off of each other. Although the music is dramatically different than what was originally used, I still have this in my DVD collection. I do wish that I could find out who sang "I'll Get By" in the original soundtrack. She was a superb singer who was better than the others I have heard singing that same song.

I've seen "Birds of Prey" only once, decades ago, but I remember it as great fun. It's also a piece of cultural history. It first aired on TV in January 1973, as the U.S. war in Vietnam was officially rushing to an end, and it's a cops-and-robbers adventure about helicopters, the chariots of choice of that conflict.The setting is a big city in the American West. The villains are robbers -- Vietnam vets, perhaps? -- who make their getaway by chopper. The squabbling heroes are two middle-aged men who served together in World War II. One of them (played by Ralph Meeker) is now a successful bureaucrat, serving as the city's police chief. The other (played by David Janssen) is somewhere between a free spirit and a ne'er-do-well, a man who flies a traffic helicopter to earn a living but has never left behind the memories of the air war of his youth. When the robbers take to the skies, the battle of the generations is on.They didn't call such men such as Meeker's and Janssen's characters "the greatest generation" in 1973. They called them "the establishment." This movie is nostalgia for the simplicities of World War II before such nostalgia was fashionable.If the DVD version does indeed feature modern rock instead of the original movie's 1940s sound track, it's a shame. But maybe it's inevitable. Now that the World War II veterans have grown old and the Vietnam veterans have taken their place in the middle-aged zone, few viewers would recognize the great big band standards. Alas, time flies. Like a bird.

Just corny enough to be fun, once the chase starts - hang up onto your seat. Not a movie for those prone to air sickness. Only Blackhawk Down holds a candle to it in terms of 'copter flicks, and the actual stunt flying here is better, a lot better. I'm guessing the copyright holder of the original version of "Three Little Fishies" is hanging onto it tightly, as it's hard to find as it is. I've always thought the movie is really about us old, burned out old-time hero types, always tempted to take that one last fling at glory that we know we really shouldn't. Great fun flick, one of my faves. Needs restored on DVD with some Dolby sound remastered. A must see for anyone who likes helos.

This film was part of the edge-of-your-seat action/chase genre made popular in the '70s. Films like Vanishing Point, and Smokey and the Bandit, where nothing more than a car chase sequence with a little cohesive drama or comedy thrown in.The makers of Birds of Prey obviously had the same thing in mind, but they added an interesting twist; helicopters instead of cars.David Janssen plays Harry Walker, an ex-WWII fighter pilot longing for the glory days of dog fights and heroic aerobatics. He is a now twice divorced, lonely, and somewhat bitter, Salt Lake City helicopter traffic reporter. Ralph Meeker plays Jim "Mac" McAndrew, a former war buddy of Walker's who prefers to stay on the ground, forget flying, war planes, and the past, to focus on the his career as a Salt Lake City cop.On a routine day Walker witnesses a bank robbery from the air. He calls it into Mac who thinks he's pulling a gag. The robbers kill a bank guard and take a hostage then get away in a stolen car. The chase begins. The police join the chase as car and chopper scream through urban Salt Lake City.This was a pretty good film for a made-for-TV movie. The flying sequences are well done and well coordinated. The flying stunts, including diving under overpasses, flying into and out of buildings, tumbling (auto-rotating), and flying between sky scrapers, are all done with real helicopters. No toys on strings or models with goofy trick photography were used. The acting and drama aren't bad, but that's not what this movie's about. Like Top Gun, this movie's about flying.