Airport 1975 (1974)

So much average

Simply Perfect

Brilliant and touching

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

While in flight, a passenger plane collides with another plane.I rather corny but pleasing line in this film has been forever locked in my memory for the last 40 years. After the disaster is over and the passengers leave the plane, one young passenger looks up at the sky as says something like "what a wonderful day" to which another more mature aged passenger responds with something like "every day is wonderful, you are just too young to know". Yes, Airport 1975 is far from perfect, but if a line from a film can have that sort of an impact on me, well, who am I to complain about it.But anyway, forgetting all this for a second, as other posters have noted, disaster-satire film Airplane! (1980) has done serious damage to the entertainment value of Airport 1975 when seen today, but if you have not seen Airplane! (1980)...you will get a blast out of Airport 1975.

The alcohol is flowing in this second installment of the "Airport!" series, where Myrna Loy knocks boiler makers and the trio of Norman Fell, Conrad Janis and Jerry Stiller keep their livers working overtime as well. A nervous woman begs the stewardess to keep her filled up, while Gloria Swanson's assistant sophisticatedly orders a martini. Miss Swanson sticks to her tea, complaining about the poisonous food that she refuses to touch.Fans of "Airplane!" will go nuts counting all of the references spoofed in that modern comedy classic, especially the presence of Linda Blair as a young girl in need of a kidney transplant. Try not to think of the passenger's reactions to Lorna Patterson singing when nun Helen Reddy borrows Blair's guitar and breaks out into a folk song. Gloria Swanson's "Sunset Boulevard" co-star Nancy Olson plays Blair's overly concerned mother.The basic storyline has private plane pilot Dana Andrews crashing into the huge two storied passenger plane, killing the pilots and leaving only stewardess Karen Black to frantically fly the plane. While the crash is horrific, I couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of a passenger sliding down the circular staircase towards the plane's bar as if he was heading down a pool slide. The only help of landing the plane is Charleton Heston as Black's non-committal boyfriend, and if course, George Kennedy.With this huge cast of veteran and future stars from every medium, including Martha Scott as the older nun who responds to Reddy's inquiry if Swanson is a Hollywood actress with a very judgmental "Or worse!" Sid Caesar adds more subtle comedy than the trio of drunks as the man sitting next to Loy, subtly commenting on her love for bourbon with a beer back chaser. Familiar faces such as Beverly Garland, Terry Lester, Susan Clark, Larry Storch, Ed Nelson and Roy Thinnes pop in and out, with a young Erik Estrada as one of the pilots. When he looks directly at the camera and gives a big goofy grin a la the blonde pilot in "Airplane!", I had my biggest Danny Thomas spit-take in years! Brian Morrison, of TV's " Maude", plays the young son of Susan Clark whose character is ironically married to series perennial George Kennedy! Alice Nunn, memorable in her cameo in "Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure", is funny in a bit as a passenger hiding her dog in her purse.Take away the unintentional comedy of the film, and you will find a magnificently wonderful bail biter. This is a good old fashioned Hollywood crowd pleaser, reminding the audience of all the wonderful talents they had. One thing that is unbelievable is the big hole in the cockpit not consumed with wind pressure, making it unbelievable that anybody entering would not quickly be sucked out as one of the pilots was earlier. Yes, it gets extremely corny at times, even removing the thoughts of everything that was spoofed, but that hardly matters. I will definitely be adding this to my collection at some point because there were so many little details to pick that you would be bound to miss a few.

The pilot of a small private plane has a heart attack and crashes into the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Captain Stacy is blinded while the rest of the flight crew is sucked out. Chief Stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black) is forced to take over. Captain Al Murdock (Charlton Heston) is the chief instructor for the plane and happens to be Pryor's boyfriend. With mounting problems, they realize that a pilot has to be transferred onto the plane.The problem is that it takes too long to get to the heart of the movie. It's 40 minutes of boring conversations and stories before the disaster actually starts. It's simply too long even for an older movie. The disaster needs more action scenes. Believability like the flight crew goes out the window as in all movies of this type. I would suggest skipping the first 30 minutes and fast forwarding anything with passengers. Also Heston has to stop calling her Honey. The condescending tone gets very annoying.

This is the first airport's airplane movie. The authentic version of the plane's disaster movie of the 1970s. And the best of the whole airport series.The 1970 movie was an unusual day in a life of an airport. This round the new formula is clear and solid : A plane in calamity. Many different characters, mostly viewers. Attempts to rescue lead to a climax with a happy end. Afterwards, they tried to clone Airport 75 in the 1977 movie, then deform it in the 1979 one ! 3 matters did bother me. Firstly the list of cameos / the passengers didn't do anything but the relief, whereas there is no drama but the plane's drama, and anything else it is a triviality.Secondly, the way how the script skips several ways to make more thrilling moments that could have made the atmosphere hotter. To instance : the fuel is leaking and "we don't have enough", you see the lead's wife and son on the very plane however no special danger they suffer other than the main danger, the girl who needs a liver; there is no subsidiary thrill with her line; as if "her status is unstable, she requires immediate medical care", scared drunks on board with nothing to do but being scared; they could have done anything to threaten the peace inside the plane, the media's importunity does nothing but bugging (George Kennedy) and that's about it ?!,.. etc. Certainly, exploding situations like that, in the most exaggerated illogical yet entertaining ways, you can watch after 16 years in Die Hard 2 (1990), which makes Airport 75 more rational and believable in a way.Thirdly, the climactic moment wasn't done very well. I couldn't understand what the trouble in getting the plane on land was? I even couldn't get how (Charlton Heston) stopped it (that moment had been overstepped unfairly). All what he did was swerving it to turn it away from its headway; which is obviously so easy to an extent makes it unfit as a climax for all the excitement before it.(Heston) was so masculine and charismatic. He seemed cool with those shades. Originally, god gifted him with that look of "whatever hard I'll beat it utterly", he makes other guys like Tom Cruise perfect sissies. I suppose the 1970s were the last time to see 50-something-year-old lead in an action movie. (Karen Black) wasn't less charismatic. Aside from being a beauty (always believed that she's French-born), she managed to be convincing and serious. Something I miss with the beautiful dolls of today's movies as well. On the other hand, (Gloria Swanson) as (Gloria Swanson) was wrong, if not pathetic ! The movie is technically competent. I loved its amusing music, good editing, and fine directing. It has a reason to be distinct forever, among its fellow plane's disaster movies, which is the idea of the explosion of the cockpit with everyone in it. However, and despite the clever total tension of it, the movie is generally empty, and a bit poor when it comes to utilize rich areas it already has. Yes, it's the best airport's airplane-in-calamity movie to date, but, one way or another, it has the main lesion of not the plane's movies, rather the whole disaster movies : the script.