Airport (1970) Universal/Drama-Thriller RT: 137 minutes Rated G (some mild language and violence, mature themes) Director: George Seaton Screenplay: George Seaton Music: Alfred Newman Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo Release date: May 29, 1970 (US) Cast: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Helen Hayes, Van Heflin, Maureen Stapleton, Barry Nelson, Dana Wynter, Lloyd Nolan, Barbara Hale, Gary Collins, John Findlater, Jessie Royce Landis, Larry Gates, Peter Turgeon, Whit Bissell, Virginia Grey. Box Office: $100.5M (US)
Rating: ***
This is it, the one that started the disaster movie trend of the 70s. It was always one of my favorite film cycles. It still is. There’s a great deal of fun to be had with a dopey movie that drops an all-star cast into a life-threatening catastrophe like an overturned ship, burning building or airplane in jeopardy. It then becomes a question of who will make it out alive and who won’t. These movies also had cool posters. Most of them had a line of little boxes near the bottom with the main actors’ faces in them. To me, that is the height of disaster movie coolness.
ANYWAY, if not for the success of Airport, based on the best seller by Arthur Hailey, we wouldn’t have The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno or Earthquake. Written and directed by George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street), it’s one of the first movies to cross the $100 million mark at the box office. It’s basically Grand Hotel in the skies. It follows a cross-section of characters during a snowstorm at Chicago’s Lincoln International Airport. The night starts off with a plane getting stuck in the snow on one of the runways. Airport manager Mel Bakersfield (Lancaster, Birdman of Alcatraz) is forced to work overtime to deal with the situation. This puts more tension on his already troubled marriage to Cindy (Wynter, Invasion of the Body Snatchers). As divorce is imminent, he’s been developing a relationship with customer relations agent Tanya Livingston (Seberg, Breathless). On top of that, he also has to deal with an elderly stowaway, Ada Quonsett (Hayes, Anastasia), who’s been getting free rides for years.
Mel’s brother-in-law Vernon Demerest (Martin, Ocean’s 11) is scheduled to co-pilot a non-stop flight to Rome to evaluate Captain Harris (Nelson, The Shining). He’s secretly having an affair with the chief stewardess Gwen (Bisset, Bullitt) who informs him before takeoff that she’s pregnant. All of this pales in comparison to what they’re about to face once the plane is in the air. There’s a mad bomber on board. A mentally unstable man, D.O. Guerrero (Heflin, Shane), in dire financial straits plans to set off an explosive device so his wife Inez (Stapleton, Reds) can collect on a large insurance policy he takes out before the flight. Once informed of the situation, Vernon has to find a way to separate the bomber from his briefcase.
Aside from airline disasters, the one constant of the Airport series is George Kennedy (Cool Hand Luke) as Joe Petroni, a guy who knows more about planes, how they work and what they’re capable of than all the pilots and experts put together. He’s a chief mechanic in this first movie. He’s the guy Mel calls in to deal with the snowbound plane on their longest runway, the very one that will ultimately be needed to safely land the plane in the climax. He has to come up with a way to move it before snowplows move it for him which will severely damage the craft.
As entertaining as Airport is, it takes some time for it to take off. I mean that literally. The first hour or so consists of introducing the characters, establishing relationships and setting up the different storylines before the doomed flight finally leaves the airport. Seaton could have tightened it up a bit. He could have lost the subplot involving area residents protesting the noise from a runway that sends planes flying directly over their houses. It doesn’t really go anywhere. Once the action shifts to the plane, it begins to get good. Although the movie concerns itself with only two passengers (Hayes and Heflin), we also get a troublesome passenger, a priest travelling with two nuns, a couple of black soldiers, three doctors, the niece of a customs officer and a brainy kid too smart for his own good. I personally enjoy this aspect of disaster movies. In any event, the tension builds as Vernon and the crew devise a plan to de-bomb the increasingly nervous bomber. It leads to a scene famously lampooned in Airplane II: The Sequel where Vernon tries to talk the bomber down while passengers gather closely behind him.
Hayes won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Airport. It was well deserved. She’s a hoot as a lively old lady who easily ditches the airport employee assigned to watch her until her flight home to San Diego departs. This is how she ends up on the flight to Rome. Heflin, in his final movie role, is also great as the bomber, a regular guy beaten down by life. He’s unemployed, previously hospitalized for mental problems and about to lose his family. He’s got nothing to lose. It never seems to occur to him that by taking his life this way, he’ll be killing nearly 100 innocent people as well. He’s scary without overplaying it. Lancaster plays it ultra-straight as the airport manager. Martin shifts into heroic mode as the pilot. Seberg offers nice support by almost always being at Lancaster’s side. Kennedy looks like he’s having a blast.
I like the use of split-screen in Airport. It’s so very 70s! We get to see characters communicating by phone. We get to see air traffic controllers and airport officials communicate with the flight crew. It adds something to the movie. This first Airport movie takes itself a little too seriously at times, but it’s still enjoyable. I don’t know that I’d call it great, but it is good.
