Released: 1970

Dir. George Seaton

It was always exciting when the new copy of TV Guide arrived in the mail. The November 10-16, 1973 edition was no exception, however, this particular volume featured an article that would have an enormous impact on me. The headline heralded ‘A Very Special Week’, loaded with specials, premieres, and big movies. Images of Bob Hope, Julie Andrews, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis jr., William Holden, The Waltons, and the King himself, Elvis Presley splashed across the cover, in rather unflattering artists renderings. But buried inside, on page 19, was an article about the making of a movie scene.

Now, I haven’t seen this article in almost 50 years, but I will never forget the photograph of the interior of a Boeing 707 spread out over two pages of the TV Guide. Half of the fuselage wall was missing, the passenger seats were full, there were large lights, people and equipment scattered about the sound stage floor. The article was about filming a scene involving explosive decompression on a jetliner and went into great detail as to how the effect was created in order to make it as realistic as possible. I was 9 years old, I was fascinated, and the film was Airport.

The 1970 blockbuster made its television debut Nov. 11, 1973, on the ABC Sunday Night Movie, when we sat down as a family and watched. I loved it then, and today I still find it pretty awesome.

At the time of its release, in April of 1970, Airport was considered old fashioned, and that critically worked against it. Considering some of the other films released that year, MASH, Five Easy Pieces, Little Big Man, Catch-22, Brewster McCloud, Patton, Airport was underwhelming to the critics. However, audiences ate it up, making Airport the highest grossing film of 1970. Maybe old fashioned isn’t such a bad thing.

Airport is entertainment with no message, or higher meaning. It’s self-aware, and knows exactly what it is, unapologetically, and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. For 2hrs and 17min you are lost in the world of a mid-western airport, during a snowstorm, filled with crisis and danger, and the people who must handle it all. And I think that’s where the success of Airport lies. The world it creates.

Filmed in 1969, Airport could easily state: Set in 1969. Or at least as Madison Ave. had envisioned 1969. The film is a time capsule of the golden age of jet travel, like glossy travel ads come to life, when men wore suits and women furs and their finest jewelry, boarding a Boeing 707 to fly off to exotic Rome or Pittsburgh. The opening shot is the bustling terminal of the fictitious Lincoln International Airport in Chicago, filled with passengers, flight crews, airline employees, and possibly a sailor or two. (Every movie with an airport scene seems to have a couple of sailors milling about for some reason.) As the shot fades in from black, there is the whoosh of jet engines, an airline departure announcement, and the scene is set, que the plows, it’s going to be a snowy ride. Right from that opening shot you are emersed into world of civil aviation, seen and unseen. The control tower, to air traffic control, public relations to customs, closed door bureaucracy and airline maintenance. And of course, the always familiar departure gate.

With all of producer Ross Hunter’s trademark elegance, you’ll be flying Trans Global Airlines Flight Two, named the Golden Argosy, to Rome, and not some flying bad neighborhood Newark to Disney World, sat next to some guy wearing a dirty t-shirt and flip-flops. This is when air travel was fun and an adventure, with only one obnoxious passenger instead of an entire section. Nuts to the man in 21D. Jaqueline Bissett is your head Stewardess and Dean Martin is your pilot.

Arthur Hailey, author of the 1968 bestselling novel which Airport is based, conducted enormous amounts of research, and writer, director George Seaton awarded those efforts by staying faithful to the novel. Seaton often incorporates the technical details of the novel into the dialogue in a way that is not overwhelming to the viewer. The environment is well established.

Filmed in and around Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, with some use of studio sets, the terminal scenes evoke an ambience that hasn’t changed much in 50+ years. It was just classier back then. “American Airlines regrets to announce all flights are canceled…”

Special attention is made with the scenes onboard the 707. Thinking back at that picture of the 707 set, then re-watching the movie, I realize that with only a few exceptions, cinematographer Ernest Laszlo’s camera is kept within confines of the airliner’s cabin. Our point of view being as if we are onboard as well. The cockpit scenes cheat a bit, probably due to the confined space, and is filmed in a more standard Hollywood fashion. Passengers shouldn’t be in the cockpit anyway.

Now, I could go into the plot, but we don’t have all night, so here’s a condensed breakdown: At the centre of the film is airport manager Mel Bakersfield who must confront multiple crises, the least of which being the break-up of his marriage. Mel navigates through a disabled jet blocking the primary runway, an antagonistic airport commissioner, a neighboring community that hates the noise from the airport, a desperate man with a bomb on the flight to Rome, an elderly stowaway, his pushy brother-in-law, his mistress deciding to take a job in San Francisco, and the worst snowstorm in six years. He has no time to worry about the future, he’s only trying to survive the present. It’s quite a load, perhaps a tad unrealistic. Maybe after he retires Mel will write a book about it so they can turn it into a movie. But at the end of the day, it is indeed simply a movie, and we’re along for the ride. A movie about an average day at the airport would be quite dull, unless you enjoy watching planes take off and land, or being mesmerised by luggage on the baggage carousel, so why not throw in the works.

Flight Two is captained by Vernon Demerest, played by Dean Martin, a better actor than many give him credit for, and here he is in fine form. In Hailey’s original novel Demerest is a jerk of the highest order, thoroughly unlikeable. Fortunately, in the only real deviation from the novel, Demerest is presented as more likeable. Yes, he can be a jerk at times, however playing on Martin’s strengths, he is charming, even a little mischievous, but all business when it counts the most. It’s a far cry from his ‘drunken, rat pack’ persona, which he left behind in the studio of his TV show.

The cast is rounded out with Jean Seberg as airline rep. Tanya Livingston, George Kennedy as TWA maintenance chief, Joe Patroni, Van Heflin as D.O. Guererro, Maureen Stapleton as Inez Guererro, Dana Wynter as Mel’s soon to be ex-wife, Barbara Hale as Demerest’s wife, Barry Nelson as Capt. Anson Harris, and Helen Hayes as Ada Quansett.

Airport has been cited as the movie that started the 70’s disaster movie craze. I think that title belongs to The Poseidon Adventure, and I’ve never found any evidence that Irwin Allen was ever inspired by Airport. I have never considered Airport a disaster film, and I don’t think it was ever meant to be. It’s a melodrama, based on a hugely successful novel. It’s not new, there have been airplane in distress movies for as long as there have been talking pictures. The High and the Mighty, in 1954, possibly being the most famous, and I wouldn’t necessarily call it a disaster film either. Perhaps tension filled, high flying drama, and I think that describes Airport as well. Both films are worth a look.

Many people believe that Airport is mercilessly made fun of in 1980’s disaster movie spoof, Airplane!. There is very little of Airport’s DNA in Airplane!. It’s 1956s Zero Hour and Airport ’75 that receive the most obvious abuse. Nor does Airport bare any resemblance to the three disaster themed sequels that followed. The only element linking them, and I use that term loosely, is the presence of George Kennedy as trouble-shooter Joe Patroni in all four films. But I’ll leave that discussion for another day.

Airport confronts the story it is given as realistically as possible, with characters doing what they need to do to solve the problems as well as moving the plot forward. Not all of the plots are resolved by the film’s end, as the action takes place within an approximate 12hr time frame, and resolving absolutely everything would be cheap and unrealistic. Although I think Gwen and the baby are going to be just fine.

Airport should not be taken too seriously; however, I think that would spoil it. Airport is an entertainment, that strives to make its environment as real as possible, without sacrificing the escapist element of movie going. That’s its greatest virtue and makes something that at one time was considered old-fashioned into something timeless. Plus, it’s fun to watch on a snow day.

Have I seen better films than Airport? Of course. However, Airport is special and will always be a favourite. My fondness for Airport goes beyond being a ‘guilty’ pleasure, call me old fashioned, I genuinely find Airport a good, entertaining film. Airport isn’t high art, but it is well crafted by its production team, who wanted to bring the audience a quality visual presentation of Arthur Hailey’s original novel, and they succeeded. The film also brought to me a passion for movies, of all kinds, and an interest and respect for what goes into making them. So much so, I studied film production in the late 1980s. Although Airport didn’t serve as an inspiration for any of my productions, I found inspiration from films I was watching and discovering at the time, but Airport was always in the back of my mind as the place where it all began for me. That and a long-lost TV Guide article. Runway Two-Niner is clear and open.

Airport is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Universal Home Video.