The very name conjures up big budget films with 2-3 big budget effects shots and an all star cast generally running around hamming it up. Formulaic to the extreme. And, since the heydey of the disaster film was the late 60s and early 70s (read, before Star Wars), special effects technology wasn’t very advanced, and by today’s standards, often not too special.
Given all that, it’s easy to forget that there were actually a few really good ones made. Case in point, Airport.
Airport may not have been the first, but it was one of the most important of the disaster films, spawning a whole lot of sequels. The problem is it’s easy to dismiss this film given how thoroughly it was skewered in the spoof Airplane! (a film which Entertainment Weekly ranked as the #1 comedy film of all time).
But Airport, actually is a pretty good little film when judged on it’s own merits. It isn’t a horribly improbably incident (like most disaster films), and is often likened to a version of Grand Hotel on a plane. Yes, it’s a soap opera, but an engaging one.
The stand out here is George Kennedy as ground crew chief mechanic. He’s the kind of blue collar hero today’s movies are sorely lacking – a guy who knows his job and can save the day from all the other people who don’t know theirs.
Probably the most amazing thing about Airport, is that it was made over 30 years before 9/11 (which now is most of a decade behind us), but the issues it deals with – terrorists, over crowded airways, overworked air traffic controllers, airports not expanding to meet demand – all these things are still just as problematic, indeed more problematic, today as they were in 1970.
Let’s get one thing straight, Airport may not be art, but it is a fun ride.
Airport 1975
The sequel to Airport is a different matter. Here we have a bigger budget film connected to the first only by Kennedy who is back as Petroni.
This movie is bad.
Really bad.
But it too is fun to watch in the ‘so bad it’s good’ sort of ways. Enjoyed with a six pack, this film might even be funnier than Airplane! the film that spoofs it. I mean just look at this cast: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Gloria Swanson, Helen Reddy, Erik Estrada, Dana Anrews, Sid Caesar, Linda Blair – it’s like a best of Hollywood Squares crossed with a B-movie marathon! And (as a stretch), there’s Conrad Janis, Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller as 3 drunken old farts (in 1975! – were these guys ever young?). Definitely a good movie to have friends over and see who can hurl the best Rocky Horror style one liners at the screen.
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