Airport ««««
G, 137m. 1970
Cast & Credits: Burt Lancaster (Mel Bakersfield), Dean Martin (Vernon Demerest), George Kennedy (Patroni), Jean Seberg (Tanya Livingston), Jacqueline Bisset (Gwen Meighen), Helen Hayes (Ada Quonsett), Van Heflin (D.O. Guerrero), Maureen Stapleton (Inez Guerrero), Barry Nelson (Anson Harris), Dana Wynter (Cindy), Lloyd Nolan (Harry Standish), Barbara Hale (Sarah Demerest), Gary Collins (Cy Jordan). Written and directed by George Seaton.
Anytime I hear nothing but either accolades or negative opinions from everyone and their dog about how great or bad a movie was and how I should either see or not see it, I get very skeptical.
When that happens the comment real estate agent Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) said in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992) comes to mind. Roma said he subscribed to the “law of contrary public opinion.”
“If everyone thinks one thing, then I say bet the other way,” Roma said.
I apply that train of thought to "Airport" (1970) which ushered in the disaster movie sub-genre that lasted almost ten years during the 1970s before audiences tired of the same formula of big-name stars typecast in perilous situations and what eventually became cheap feeble attempts to wow viewers with special effects eye candy. "Airport", the film, received almost as much negative press from movie critics as author Arthur Hailey’s 400-plus-page novel got from literary reviewers when it was published in 1968 according to an article on Wikipedia.
Literary reviewer Martin Levin wrote in The New York Times saying "Mr. Hailey is a plodding sort of writer, but he has just the talent to suggest the crashing ennui of airport routine, where only a mortal disaster can provide color." When commenting Hailey’s workplace type informative style of writing, another NYT book reviewer, Eliot Fremon-Smith, asked the question “With 'Hotel' and 'Airport' successfully absorbed, can 'Shopping Center,' 'Parking Lot' and 'City Dump' be far behind?"
Chicago Sun-Times film critic, Roger Ebert, opened his 10/18/74 review of "Airport 1975" writing that although the original "Airport" was never one of his favorite movies, he admired the slick, competent way it worked viewers over for two hours.
“Its clichés were ancient and its typecasting was relentless, but it didn't bore us,” Ebert wrote.
Notable film reviewer Pauline Kael who was never one to shy away from voicing her scathing opinions of movies she loathed called "Airport" “An empty reshaping of Grand Hotel, held together by disaster in the sky.”
Even executives at Universal Pictures who distributed the film expressed no hope in seeing it blossom into the unexpected box office hit it became. Like Hailey’s mammoth read which spent 64 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, "Airport" – the film grossed over $100 million at the box office on a $10 million budget in the United States and Canada according to Wikipedia.
Much to everyone’s surprise in particular critics and executives at Universal Pictures who expected the movie to flop, writer/director George Seaton’s screenplay adaptation of Hailey’s novel received one of ten Oscar nominations in 1971 that included Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actress win for Helen Hayes for her kindly portrayal of 80-year-old stowaway, Ada Quonsett. More on her in a moment.
What makes "Airport" stand out from the less-than-a-handful of big budget catastrophic star-studded spectacles released ("The Poseidon Adventure" – 1972; "The Towering Inferno – 1974) soon after is it plays out more like a workplace soap opera. The subplot involving a desperate out of work husband and father (Van Heflin) with nefarious plans to blow up a jetliner is not the film’s selling point.
I can summarize the story with barely a complete sentence calling the film “a night in the life of an aviation supervisor (Burt Lancaster) who battles multiple crisis inside and outside the workplace.” When Lancaster’s Mel Bakersfield isn’t stressed out wondering if TWA’s top airline mechanic, Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), can get a stuck Boeing 707 off his only runway during the city’s heaviest snowstorm, he is warring with his soon-to-be ex-wife (Dana Wynter) on their disintegrating marriage. As the saying goes, it's always something. Bakersfield must put up with the criticisms from his sister’s husband –veteran pilot Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) who never wastes a moment citing Bakersfield’s ineptness on how he runs one of the nation’s busiest airports calling the agents and ground crews “penguins.”
“Take the wings off this and you could use it as a tank,” Patroni says. “This plane is built to withstand anything except a bad pilot.”
A majority of the characters exhibit a brief moment of emotional weakness that make them believable. Martin’s Demerest - in a role the actor said was one of his favorite characters he played according to IMDB, develops moral scruples, if not, a sense of urgent responsibility, at the unexpected news he gets from a stewardess (Jacqueline Bisset) he has been having an affair with.
G, 137m. 1970
Cast & Credits: Burt Lancaster (Mel Bakersfield), Dean Martin (Vernon Demerest), George Kennedy (Patroni), Jean Seberg (Tanya Livingston), Jacqueline Bisset (Gwen Meighen), Helen Hayes (Ada Quonsett), Van Heflin (D.O. Guerrero), Maureen Stapleton (Inez Guerrero), Barry Nelson (Anson Harris), Dana Wynter (Cindy), Lloyd Nolan (Harry Standish), Barbara Hale (Sarah Demerest), Gary Collins (Cy Jordan). Written and directed by George Seaton.
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| 1971 Academy Award Nominations Best Picture Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Helen Hayes - Winner Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Maureen Stapleton Best Art Direction Set Decoration Best Cinematography Best Costume Design Best Film Editing Best Music - Original Score Alfred Newman Best Sound Best Writing - Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium |
When that happens the comment real estate agent Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) said in "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992) comes to mind. Roma said he subscribed to the “law of contrary public opinion.”
“If everyone thinks one thing, then I say bet the other way,” Roma said.
I apply that train of thought to "Airport" (1970) which ushered in the disaster movie sub-genre that lasted almost ten years during the 1970s before audiences tired of the same formula of big-name stars typecast in perilous situations and what eventually became cheap feeble attempts to wow viewers with special effects eye candy. "Airport", the film, received almost as much negative press from movie critics as author Arthur Hailey’s 400-plus-page novel got from literary reviewers when it was published in 1968 according to an article on Wikipedia.
Literary reviewer Martin Levin wrote in The New York Times saying "Mr. Hailey is a plodding sort of writer, but he has just the talent to suggest the crashing ennui of airport routine, where only a mortal disaster can provide color." When commenting Hailey’s workplace type informative style of writing, another NYT book reviewer, Eliot Fremon-Smith, asked the question “With 'Hotel' and 'Airport' successfully absorbed, can 'Shopping Center,' 'Parking Lot' and 'City Dump' be far behind?"
Chicago Sun-Times film critic, Roger Ebert, opened his 10/18/74 review of "Airport 1975" writing that although the original "Airport" was never one of his favorite movies, he admired the slick, competent way it worked viewers over for two hours.
“Its clichés were ancient and its typecasting was relentless, but it didn't bore us,” Ebert wrote.
Notable film reviewer Pauline Kael who was never one to shy away from voicing her scathing opinions of movies she loathed called "Airport" “An empty reshaping of Grand Hotel, held together by disaster in the sky.”
Even executives at Universal Pictures who distributed the film expressed no hope in seeing it blossom into the unexpected box office hit it became. Like Hailey’s mammoth read which spent 64 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, "Airport" – the film grossed over $100 million at the box office on a $10 million budget in the United States and Canada according to Wikipedia.
Much to everyone’s surprise in particular critics and executives at Universal Pictures who expected the movie to flop, writer/director George Seaton’s screenplay adaptation of Hailey’s novel received one of ten Oscar nominations in 1971 that included Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actress win for Helen Hayes for her kindly portrayal of 80-year-old stowaway, Ada Quonsett. More on her in a moment.
If I had been in my late 20s or early 30s when Hailey’s book and the film adaptation were published and released in 1970, the deal breaker that would have sent me to the box office would have been the ten Oscar nominations the film received. I have no doubt critics who loathed the disaster picture expressed their displeasure at the news saying the only reason for the nominations was because it was a hit with audiences and saw it as another attempt to draw television viewers when the Academy Awards aired.The picture is the kind of movie that could be touted as an overhyped weekly nighttime soap opera in the tradition of TV’s "Dallas" (1978-1991) for one of the big three prime-time networks in the day (CBS, NBC, ABC). Yet, such a suggested workplace drama series would be short lived. Viewers would find the situations so mundane that having a disturbed passenger and an 80-year-old stowaway as recurring characters would be a last-ditch effort to increase the series’ low ratings.
What makes "Airport" stand out from the less-than-a-handful of big budget catastrophic star-studded spectacles released ("The Poseidon Adventure" – 1972; "The Towering Inferno – 1974) soon after is it plays out more like a workplace soap opera. The subplot involving a desperate out of work husband and father (Van Heflin) with nefarious plans to blow up a jetliner is not the film’s selling point.
I can summarize the story with barely a complete sentence calling the film “a night in the life of an aviation supervisor (Burt Lancaster) who battles multiple crisis inside and outside the workplace.” When Lancaster’s Mel Bakersfield isn’t stressed out wondering if TWA’s top airline mechanic, Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), can get a stuck Boeing 707 off his only runway during the city’s heaviest snowstorm, he is warring with his soon-to-be ex-wife (Dana Wynter) on their disintegrating marriage. As the saying goes, it's always something. Bakersfield must put up with the criticisms from his sister’s husband –veteran pilot Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) who never wastes a moment citing Bakersfield’s ineptness on how he runs one of the nation’s busiest airports calling the agents and ground crews “penguins.”
I won’t argue that much of the dialogue the characters speak are what I would come to expect from actual supervisors and employees in any workplace. Despite headlining the film Lancaster called "Airport" "the worst piece of junk ever made" and only took the role because Universal promised to finance upcoming film projects the Oscar winning actor was interested in according to IMDB.A few like George Kennedy’s Patroni act like they know everything about the world of aviation mechanics and don’t make the role look as though it is just another acting job. In one scene when he gets disgusted at a captain’s hesitancy to apply full power to get the stuck 707 out of the snow, Patroni lectures him on how much he knows every inch of the plane.
What makes Airport’s characters entertaining, however, in a daytime soap opera kind of way is how they deliver their lines so convincingly that not once did I get the impression they only chose this project for the money.
“Take the wings off this and you could use it as a tank,” Patroni says. “This plane is built to withstand anything except a bad pilot.”
A majority of the characters exhibit a brief moment of emotional weakness that make them believable. Martin’s Demerest - in a role the actor said was one of his favorite characters he played according to IMDB, develops moral scruples, if not, a sense of urgent responsibility, at the unexpected news he gets from a stewardess (Jacqueline Bisset) he has been having an affair with.
Even Heflin’s’ Guerrero, who despite being the villain I almost felt a small twinge of sympathy for the guy when he lets his guard down for a few seconds upon learning the folks on the ground are onto his plans to blow up the jetliner he is on as a means for his wife to collect the insurance money. His role reminded me how I’ve often heard that the only way an actor would sign on to play the bad guy is if the character exhibits one or two positive traits that might him slightly likable.
As for Helen Hayes Ada Quonsett, while I have yet to read Hailey’s book which is still available in print and not just online through Kindle, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hayes interjected some of her own dialogue for her character.
When an airline representative asks Quonsett how she got caught sneaking aboard a flight, the stowaway disdainfully blames a fellow passenger she confided her secret to who turned her in.
“They really should wear their security uniforms otherwise how is a person supposed to know,” Quonsett says.
While I’ve seen most all the disaster movies made since the 1970s I don’t consider myself a fan of the sub-genre. What attracted me to "Airport" and the laughably bad sequels the original inspired in 1974, 1977 and 1979 before directors Jim Abrahams and David and Jerry Zucker parodied the franchise in "Airplane" (1980) was my fascination with any mid-air disaster movie that featured crews and passengers in distress. Quality never mattered to me. If the movie featured a jet I’d be interested in seeing it whether the film as is gripping and hard-to-watch like "United 93" (2006) or as bad as "Snakes On A Plane" (2006) where the most memorable line comes from Samuel L. Jackson’s law enforcement character that’s filled with a couple “f” words I won’t write here despite being my own editor of this blog.
In the five decades since Airport’s release I’ve often asked myself if the film can be remade today. The answer is yes and no. No from the standpoint of studios not wanting to risk boring audiences with a soap opera like drama that "Airport" was even if it does headline today’s top stars.
Like the 70s sub-genre that lasted barely ten years, audiences today have tired of the same formula. The catastrophic box office honeymoon that was "Twister" (1996), "Independence Day" (1996), "Titanic" (1997), "Armageddon" (1998) and "2012" (2009) that brought crowds to theaters dwindled in the wake of director Roland Emmerich’s latest 140 million sci-fi disaster release, "Moonfall" (2022) that was gone from movie houses before the month of its theatrical release ended.
From a personal standpoint as someone who has tried his hand at screenwriting, I’d find it easy for me to adapt "Airport" to today’s times. I’d have my version take place a year after 9/11 with the aviation industry still reeling from the nation’s terrorist attacks. Much has changed in the five decades since the film’s release. There’s no smoking aloud on flights by passengers and flight crews as seen in the 70’s drama. The jets today are so technologically advanced with computer software they can practically fly themselves. The pilots are only needed to take off and land. Whereas the Boeing 707 in "Airport" was the star of the film, the known multimillion jetliner manufacturer is no longer seen as the corporation that prided itself on airline safety in the wake of two crashes involving their 737 MAX that killed a combined 346 passengers and crews in 2019.
There is one thing, however, I would keep in my updated screenplay that Hayes’ Ada Quonsett uttered in the 70’s film. When Quonsett is given a lifetime of first-class tickets on any Transglobal flight, the elderly lady takes note of how adventurously easy it was for her to break the law. In my remake, as my Ada Quonsett hands the agent her first-class ticket she’d sadly glance at the long lines of perspective passengers waiting to be screened at the security gates before they are allowed to check in taking into account how much things have changed since 9/11 and tell the travel agent, “You know, it was much more fun the other way.”
As for Helen Hayes Ada Quonsett, while I have yet to read Hailey’s book which is still available in print and not just online through Kindle, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hayes interjected some of her own dialogue for her character.
When an airline representative asks Quonsett how she got caught sneaking aboard a flight, the stowaway disdainfully blames a fellow passenger she confided her secret to who turned her in.
“They really should wear their security uniforms otherwise how is a person supposed to know,” Quonsett says.
In the five decades since Airport’s release I’ve often asked myself if the film can be remade today. The answer is yes and no. No from the standpoint of studios not wanting to risk boring audiences with a soap opera like drama that "Airport" was even if it does headline today’s top stars.
Like the 70s sub-genre that lasted barely ten years, audiences today have tired of the same formula. The catastrophic box office honeymoon that was "Twister" (1996), "Independence Day" (1996), "Titanic" (1997), "Armageddon" (1998) and "2012" (2009) that brought crowds to theaters dwindled in the wake of director Roland Emmerich’s latest 140 million sci-fi disaster release, "Moonfall" (2022) that was gone from movie houses before the month of its theatrical release ended.
There is one thing, however, I would keep in my updated screenplay that Hayes’ Ada Quonsett uttered in the 70’s film. When Quonsett is given a lifetime of first-class tickets on any Transglobal flight, the elderly lady takes note of how adventurously easy it was for her to break the law. In my remake, as my Ada Quonsett hands the agent her first-class ticket she’d sadly glance at the long lines of perspective passengers waiting to be screened at the security gates before they are allowed to check in taking into account how much things have changed since 9/11 and tell the travel agent, “You know, it was much more fun the other way.”
"Airport" is streaming on Netflix in May.
©4/30/25
©4/30/25
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