The Concorde... Airport '79

Review #1926: The Concorde... Airport '79.

Cast: 

Alain Delon (Capt. Paul Metrand), Susan Blakely (Maggie Whelan), Robert Wagner (Kevin Harrison), Sylvia Kristel (Isabelle), George Kennedy (Capt. Joseph "Joe" Patroni), Eddie Albert (Eli Sands), Bibi Andersson (Francine), Charo (Margarita), Pierre Jalbert (Henri), John Davidson (Robert Palmer), Andrea Marcovicci (Alicia Rogov), Martha Raye (Loretta), Cicely Tyson (Elaine), Jimmie Walker (Boise), David Warner (Peter O'Neill), Mercedes McCambridge (Nelli), Avery Schreiber (Russian coach Markov), and Sybil Danning (Amy) Directed by David Lowell Rich.

Review: 

"We believe that Concorde is a magical star that people will go to see in a good motion picture." - Jennings Lang

You remember the Airport movies, I am sure. Based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Hailey, Airport (1970) was an all-star dud. The sequel Airport 1975 (1974) was more of the same. Airport '77 (1977) can be described aptly: "no better and no worse than the previous two features in terms of mediocrity. Sure, there are probably a few more things to make fun of here, but it is the same kind of blah movie from before that made money in a time where people were ripe for seeing these kinds of movies." The screenplay was done by Eric Roth, but Jennings Lang was behind the story along with serving as producer.  Lang had produced the last two Airport films, but he also was a producer on films such as Play Misty for Me (1971) and Earthquake (1974), but this was the only script that Lang ever did. Roth got his start with film scripts such as The Nickel Ride (1974), but he would go on to better work in later years: he wrote films such as Forrest Gump (1994)...and The Postman (1997). The movie was made on a budget of $14 million. It actually made $65 million, making over 75% of its money in audiences not in America or Canada. Keep in mind, the cast is a bit more international this time around, owing to the fact that the Concorde was a plane manufactured by France and British developers. The supersonic airliner plane had its first flight in 1969 before being retired from service in 2003, three years after the only fatal incident of the plane, which by horrible coincidence was the plane utilized for this film. Air France and Aerospatiale (the French national airline and the makers of the plane, respectively) allowed permission to use the Concorde after a few modifications to the script, such as pilots behaving right in the cockpit (so yeah, they could drink off duty and romance, but discussions weren't cool); amusingly, the movie talks about the impending 1980 Olympic Games, for which the summer edition was hosted in Moscow, one that saw America boycott the Games. Of course, the reviews in contemporary times were even more negative than the last three films. The effects used here involve blue screen that deal with primer and paint to help with possible blending. As for Rich, he was the 1978 winner of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, but he did get plenty of work from 1950 to 1987, such as Madame X (1966).

Imagine having the guy from Good Times, the title character from Emmanuelle (1974), a French matinee idol, and George Kennedy in the same movie. Oh, and a plane that deals with obstacles such as air balloons, an attack drone, an evil jet fighter pilot, and bomb sabotage with most of the passengers on board to experience more terror than making the rounds for Christmas shopping. So yes, this is the first one of these films with a cleanly set villain in terms of multi-phased terror, namely because of how overly complicated they make it in the art of trying to take down one person (the first film had a bomb and the third film had a hijacker, but neither had a Plan B). Far be it from just having an assassin take them down (aside from the guy they take down right in front of her), nah, you have to launch a drone at them. Only the power of firing a flare gun out the cockpit window and doing a roll can stop drone power. Hell, the climax of the film involves the plane having to land on a snowy mountain and freeing the passengers before the damn thing explodes! You know, if the Airport movies were meant to be bizarro propaganda against flying, this one is probably the peak of anti-flying entertainment: enjoy the Concorde in the title, just watch out for the possible chance of pilots that either fire flare guns to prevent terrorism or explosions. The stories of the people don't mean diddly poo, since one cares even less than they did before with boring people meeting disaster planes.

Kennedy played a mechanic in the first film, then he played an airline vice president, then he played a aero expert/technical advisor, and now he plays a pilot of the Concorde who gets to have an escapade with the plane and a hooker played by Andersson. Truly, some actors get all the luck (imagine being a reliable character presence and having an Academy Award), even if his performance is more of a gruff sleepwalk more than anything. Delon apparently made this film as his last shot at breaking into American notice, since being a French star wasn't enough - it did not end well, although at least Delon ended up just fine back in his native country where he could get a script worth acting. The fact that he is acting opposite Kristel in bland overtones is especially sad. Blakely can't make any headway into being noticeable among all the cheese, because who cares about people being targeted for murder when the preposterous Robert Wagner is acting opposite you? To say nothing of the middling attempts at comic relief of Walker or Albert (or worse yet, Charo having only one scene to do schtick). 113 minutes of pure unintentional humor is a weird price to pay, but anyone who has seen their way through Dean Martin trying to play a pilot or Gloria Swanson play Gloria Swanson or Bermuda Triangle bullshit will surely have no problem with a movie that practically starts with its head in the sand.

Remember, this was the last of these crappy movies. Of course, this film was released in the same year that saw the Italian thriller Concorde Affaire '79, but the real nail in even thinking about doing another Airport movie probably came with Airplane! (1980), the spoof to end all spoofs with airplanes. If you like crappy movies with recognizable names, this may be up your alley. It may be the worst of the bunch, but those with a sicko committee desire to see how low crappy airplane/big cast movies can go will surely have a ball here.

Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Saving Christmas. 

Footprints on the Moon: Apollo 11 (1969).

Review #1249: Footprints on the Moon: Apollo 11.

Cast: 
Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Pierre Jalbert (voice of Jules Verne), with narration by Wernher von Braun. Directed by Bill Gibson.

Review: 
It should only make sense that I cover two documentaries on the subject of the Apollo 11 mission given today's date being the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, with the first documentary released about the landing being the easiest choice, released in September of 1969. However, it languished in a fair bit of obscurity - despite being distributed by 20th Century Fox (with production by Barry Coe), the film did not receive a DVD release for four decades (with only occasional showings on television, although it is fairly easy to find it on the Internet for viewing nowadays. The easiest thing to say is that this works fairly well for viewing as a curiosity piece, whether for a science class or for days like this. It certainly covers its own bases of the Apollo 11 mission in its span of 95 minutes, with occasional sprinkles of narration from noted aerospace engineer von Braun or snippets of Jules Verne (voiced by Jalbert, most known for his work on the 1960s series Combat!) that make this an engaging sit just as one should expect for a great lunar adventure like this. Von Braun does well with carrying the weight of the adventure scope with clear expression. The references to Verne come off well (given his notable work From the Earth to the Moon - written in 1865) to accompany the gravity of the moment. One will see moments like the rocket launch, the landing of the Eagle, and quite a few moments of the astronauts in the vessel and of course the first step - it surely must have proved fascinating to see it on a big screen only a few months after seeing it on a television screen. Nowadays, you can see plenty of iconic (and not so iconic) moments on the Internet, and it is the freedom to search and look for these kind of things that make for such enduring power for films like these. One could argue that if you've seen one moon landing film, you've seen them all, but the real interest is in how the film gets to that point and makes it something to follow with interest instead of just showing you the moment without any sense of real context or mood. In that sense, the film succeeds with clear intent. This is the only credit listed for both Coe and Gibson as producer and director, respectively, while being the first film edited by John F. Link, who eventually became known work on films such as Commando (1985) and Die Hard (1988). One key highlight involves how the crew would drink water while on the mission, involving a water dispenser, with one ensuing shot being the water floating. It really is a case of having to see it for yourself when it comes to the landing on the Moon, whether through a re-enactment in First Man (2018) or documentaries such as this or Apollo 11 (2019) - one won't have their patience tested, since the eyes will be too busy being in amazement of the enormity of a mission like this that executes without many hitches that hopefully might inspire one to look into the stars tonight and smile. You'll certainly come out of this one with enjoyment, that is for sure.

This ends the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary doubleheader - I hope you folks enjoyed these reviews. I don't normally cover documentaries, but I felt it was necessary in this case to do something that featured the three icons of this historic mission, and it can be interesting to compare the two films in how they depicted the mission then and now.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.