Airport (1970)

Directed by George Seaton. Starring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, George Kennedy, Jean Seberg, Van Heflin, Dana Wynter, Barry Nelson, Maureen Stapleton, Lloyd Nolan, Gary Collins, Barbara Hale. [G]

This disaster-soap opera filled with stars (genuine and faded) “elevated” simple-minded B-movie strategies, plotting and dialogue, and ultimately became a trend-setter for one of the more odious trends to infect commercial filmmaking. It’s old-fashioned tripe—a polite way to describe something as hoary and outdated—with the plan being to offer crowd-pleasing danger and heroics alongside a bunch of mannequins with faces you’ll recognize. Would you ever get on an airplane with Dean Martin as the pilot? Would you let an overacting Van Heflin on that same plane when he’s clearly hiding something? Would you take time out of your pressing job of running an airport during various crises and road blocks to meet with your spouse for a divorce? Can you believe how many stereotypes and stock characters are able to be stuffed onto the same flight? It’s worse than ridiculous, groan-worthy high drama in the skies and below; it’s a torturous bore. Some will argue you can laugh at it, but I’ve seen Airplane! too many times to appreciate “airplane disaster” trash on the level of accidental camp when I can so easily recall scripted jokes and sight gags that detonate all those crusty clichés. Playing a frisky old stowaway, Helen Hayes scored an Academy Award (I’d check those voting slips with the same suspicions that stewardess Bisset pretends to have when checking her boarding pass). Jessie Royce Landis appears in a minor role, her final film; it was Heflin’s swan song in features, too. Inspired three sequels, starting with Airport 1975.

26/100