Airport 1975.

Review #1675: Airport 1975.

Cast: 

Charlton Heston (Captain Alan Murdock), Karen Black (Chief-Stewardess Nancy Pryor), George Kennedy (Joe Patroni), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Captain Stacy), Gloria Swanson (Herself), Susan Clark (Helen Patroni), Helen Reddy (Sister Ruth), Linda Blair (Janice Abbott), Dana Andrews (Scott Freeman), Myrna Loy (Mrs. Devaney), Sid Caesar (Barney), Roy Thinnes (First Officer Urias), Ed Nelson (Maj. Alexander), Nancy Olson (Mrs. Abbott), Larry Storch (Glenn Purcell), Martha Scott (Sister Beatrice), Norman Fell (Bill), Jerry Stiller (Sam), and Conrad Janis (Arnie) Directed by Jack Smight.

Review: 

There are quite a few times that you see a sequel to a movie and wonder why there was a second one to begin with. Unfortunately, you know, and I know, the reason that there exists a sequel like Airport 1975 (1974): money. People really couldn't get enough of big stars to go with airplanes in trouble, complete with a title that I suppose was made to sound like it came from the future. It appears that the budget was reduced in the four years since the last film in 1970 (from ten to three million), but this one also managed to make over $100 million, and one can only wonder how rentals would go for this fellow turkey. To be fair, one probably can't blame Jack Smight for his direction here. He did his work in both television and film (starting with the former since its golden age in the 1950s), and this was the eleventh of seventeen films that he would direct from 1964 to 1989, with Harper (1966) generally being the one that stands out among his work. I'm sure you might remember Airplane! (1980) when it comes to its take on the disaster genre...and those little gags that might seem familiar to those who have seen both films, what with a kid that is awaiting a transplant as soon as they make an airplane trip (complete with a doctor calling beforehand to make sure they aren't startled), and a singing nun that plays to the kid. Now, technically Reddy was qualified to sing, because she was actually a singer (with one newspaper outlet describing her as the "Queen of '70s Pop", after all)...so keep that in mind in trying to figure out which one is a parody. That 1980 film also had Ethel Merman in a cameo appearance, while this feature has Gloria Swanson playing herself (if you really want to stretch this around into an oblong circle, Linda Harrison accompanies her...while using a second name as "Augusta Summerland"...yes). I am not playing you for a bit, because Airport 1975 actually features Dana Andrews in a brief appearance, and Andrews had starred in Zero Hour! (1957), which Arthur Hailey had adapted from his teleplay a few years prior while eventually writing the novel Airport...and Airplane! would lift lines from said movie. At least one will get to see the pair of Heston and Kennedy again, because they had co-starred in another disaster film with Earthquake (1974), which was also done by Universal Studios.

So yes, there are a few strange folks present here, whether that means a trio of odd drunks overshadowed by Myrna Loy playing a more eccentric drunk...or Swanson, who had apparently wrote all of her lines. Strangely enough, this may actually be better than the original film, mostly because of one thing: it manages to be so cheesy that it nearly defies reason. It is so self-serious at the weirdest times that one wonders how exactly this was the only film credit for screenplay man Don Ingalls, who specialized in television from Have Gun - Will Travel to Fantasy Island. It sometimes feel like a script that mutated from the bins of television hokum and engulfed any famous person they could find, who I hope managed to enjoy the monetary benefits of this sham spectacle. Heston is technically the star, in that he gets to ham the screen up from moment to moment while doing the bare minimum in charisma and minimal plane involvement. One wonders if he was worn out from the aforementioned film about the earthquake. Kennedy blusters through some shouting in a performance that is probably degraded from what one saw in the first film, although it can be said that in the earlier movie he was more of a helpful highlight (since if you remember, the airplane trouble was somewhere sidelined behind lots of gobbledygook about affairs and the airplane industry). Ah, but the real presence is Black, making her shift into commercial work after a string of noted supporting roles. While it isn't a great performance by any means, I'm sure I wouldn't fare much better at fumbling with the controls and not collapsing into panic with trying to fly a plane over mountains (the attempts at chemistry with Heston is a different story), although older fans might recognize that this isn't the first movie where a flight attendant is shown taking a plane to safety (Julie (1956) starred Doris Day in a noir, of all things). Zimbalist plays the unfortunate pilot that gets to spend half his time on a couch with his eyes closed to makeup, so there is that. Swanson, making her final film appearance before her death in 1983, certainly had to have a fine time here, since I imagine a role spent mostly in a chair talking about oneself would make anyone proud. It isn't exactly a parody of herself, but one can still keep their eyes open to wonder how this "interesting" pairing of famed star to alleged disaster movie came to be. Others have the energy of a broomstick when it comes to really sticking out, most notably with a bored-looking Andrews, or a bedridden Blair, or an oddly complacent Caesar to go with Storch (who might as well have been chosen out of a hat), and it is Loy who really seems to stand out best when it comes to pairing eccentricity to the level of cheese needed. At least there is some sort of inherent danger present here, since the chances of even one important character biting the dust is at 1% rather than the level done from the first film, although it hasn't meant the movie has increased its levels of thrill from before. One wonders exactly how the other two Airport movies turn out in raising (or keeping) the standards of disaster movie excitement, really. Airport 1975 (1974) isn't really an accomplishment in anything, but technically being better than its predecessor in being less boring has to account for something. If one desires a movie packed with ridicule and name actors, one might not go wrong here.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.