{"id":2067,"date":"2024-08-05T19:20:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T19:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2067"},"modified":"2024-10-14T00:35:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T04:35:24","slug":"airport-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/05\/airport-77\/","title":{"rendered":"Airport \u201977"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Airport \u201977 <\/strong>(1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 113 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, mature themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jerry Jameson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Scheff and David Spector\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Cacavas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Lathrop\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 11, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee, George Kennedy, James Stewart, Robert Foxworth, Robert Hooks, Monte Markham, Kathleen Quinlan, Gil Gerard, James Booth, Monica Lewis, Maidie Norman, Pamela Bellwood, Arlene Golonka, Tom Sullivan, M. Emmet Walsh, Michael Richardson, Michael Pataki, George Furth, Richard Venture, Ross Bickell, Peter Fox, Beverly Gill, Charles Macaulay, Tom Rosqui, Arthur Adams, Anthony Battaglia, Elizabeth Cheshire, Charlotte Lord.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $30M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Another plane, another disaster, another cast of all-stars in panic mode. It\u2019s an apt description as any of Airport \u201977<\/strong>, the third installment of the series kicked off by the hugely successful adaptation of Arthur Hailey\u2019s best seller Airport in \u201970.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This time, it\u2019s a luxury 747 owned by multimillionaire Philip Stevens (Stewart, It\u2019s a Wonderful Life) that runs into trouble. The trouble this time is a gang of art thieves who attempt to hijack the plane in order to steal valuable paintings belonging to Stevens. The co-pilot (Foxworth, Damien: Omen II), the leader of the motley crew of crooks, crashes into the ocean after clipping an oil derrick while trying to fly below radar. He splashes down right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. The plane starts to sink due to a huge hole in the forward cargo hold. Now it\u2019s up to the pilot Captain Gallagher (Lemmon, The Odd Couple) to save the day and everybody on board.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The passenger manifest is pretty impressive this time out. They\u2019re all guests of Stevens; he\u2019s flying them in style to his estate in Florida for the weekend to view his art collection. They include an oceanographer (Lee, Horror of Dracula) and his alcoholic wife (Grant, Shampoo) who\u2019s having an affair with his associate (Gerard, Buck Rogers in the 25th<\/sup> Century), a philanthropist (de Havilland, Gone with the Wind) and an old flame (Cotten, Citizen Kane) who happens to be on board, the philanthropist\u2019s aide (Norman, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), a blind piano player (blind musician Sullivan), the young lady crushing on him (Quinlan, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden), Stevens\u2019 estranged daughter (future Dynasty star Bellwood), the grandson (Battaglia, Serial) he\u2019s never met, a doctor (Walsh, Slap Shot) and a little girl (Cheshire, Looking for Mr. Goodbar). There\u2019s also the head stewardess (Vaccaro, Midnight Cowboy) who\u2019s romantically involved with the pilot, the project coordinator (McGavin, A Christmas Story), the bartender (Hooks, Aaron Loves Angela) and the two thieves (Markham and Pataki). Look also for Arlene Golonka, George Furth, James Booth and Monica Lewis (better known as the voice of Chiquita Banana). Oh yeah, I almost forgot. George Kennedy returns as Joe Petroni, now a consultant brought in to help the Navy with the search-and-rescue operation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Maybe I shouldn\u2019t refer to Airport \u201977<\/strong> as a typical disaster flick. Director Jerry Jameson (Raise the Titanic) successfully weaves an action plot into the formula adding an extra level of thrills and tension. Of course, it\u2019s as silly as everything else in the movie. In order to execute the theft with as little resistance as possible, they\u2019ve rigged the plane\u2019s ventilation system with sleeping gas that knocks out everybody except for the thieves who wear gas masks. They have a getaway plan, but it gets derailed when the co-pilot tries to fly through a fog bank at night. Uh, what flight school did he go to?<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, let\u2019s jump to the exciting climax where it\u2019s decided that the best way to rescue the doomed passengers is to raise it up to the surface with big inflatable balloons. It sounds silly but closing titles inform us that everything the Navy does in Airport \u201977<\/strong> is 100% accurate. The movie was made with their cooperation. Okay, I\u2019m willing to believe it even if it sounds as plausible as the helicopter-to-plane transfer in Airport 1975.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What can I say about Airport \u201977<\/strong>? I already mentioned how impressed I am by the big name cast. That the producers somehow convinced Stewart, de Havilland and Cotten to appear in it says a lot for their selling skills. In regards to the acting, I can only say that each player gives the kind of performance the material calls for, one that involves a lot of screaming and panicking. As per usual, the screenplay is filled with dippy dialogue like Grant telling her husband, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of brains, Martin, but you\u2019re not a smart man.\u201d Looking to recreate the magic of Helen Reddy\u2019s song in the previous movie, Sullivan sings a number called \u201cBeauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder\u201d. Moments later, he\u2019s crushed to death by the piano. Geez, everybody\u2019s a music critic! Speaking of grave injuries, the little girl spends most of the movie unconscious with only a veterinarian (Walsh\u2019s character) to tend to her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I think I\u2019ve said all there is to say about Airport \u201977<\/strong>. It\u2019s fun if you like disaster movies. The special effects are actually pretty good, that\u2019s a plus. At the very least, it\u2019s better than what follows, a disaster-in-every-sense movie called The Concorde… Airport \u201979. Cue Dragnet theme.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Airport \u201977 (1977)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Drama-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 113 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (language, violence, mature themes)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Jerry Jameson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Scheff and David Spector\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Cacavas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Lathrop\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: March 11, 1977 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee, George Kennedy, James Stewart, Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Airport-77-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2067"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2824,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067\/revisions\/2824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}