Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Airport 1975 (1974)

Director: Jack Smight

Writers: Arthur Hailey, Don Ingalls

Composer: John Cacavas

Starring: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, George Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Susan Clark, Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Dana Andrews, Roy Thinnes, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Ed Nelson, Nancy Olson, Larry Storch, Martha Scott, Jerry Stiller, Norman Fell, Conrad Janis, Guy Stockwell, Erik Estrada, Sharon Gless, Gloria Swanson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Something hit us... The crew is dead... Help us, please, please help us!

Plot: When the pilot of a small aircraft has a heart attack and crashes his plane into the cockpit of a Boeing 747, several members of the flight crew are killed and the pilot is blinded. Miraculously, the 747 stays in the air on auto-pilot with flight attendant Nancy Prior at the controls. Ground controllers, including her boyfriend Alan Murdock, try to teach her the basics but they soon realize they will have to get a trained pilot into the cockpit. Their first attempt fails and Murdock realizes he will have to do it. Meanwhile, various passengers have their own problems including a young girl who is destined to a life saving operation.



My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again? Yes.

Fans of AIRPLANE! (1980) are going to eat this up like mad.  You will be astonished how much they goofed on from this movie.  It's staggering. I caught this one in a theater and the crowd was in hysterics for most of the movie although most of the laughs are unintentional and are often due to how brilliantly AIRPLANE! lampooned it.  Then you've got the outrageously ridiculous song that...well, just watch for yourself and imagine you're in a theater with 200 people howling with laughter...



Great stuff, huh?  There is so much to love about this picture it's crazy.  Karen Black was fun and Charlton Heston is amazing as always being the macho man that he was.  He doesn't over act as much as George Kennedy who steals that prize.  He's sooooooooo serious that it's terribly funny. The plane crash was really well handled and I dug the special effects.  The cool thing about this picture is that despite all of the laughs, warranted or not, it's a very good thriller.  I was wrapped up in it all the way to the end.  I thoroughly enjoyed this film.  I HIGHLY recommend watching this right after AIRPLANE!.  It'll make for one hell of a fun night.  I guarantee it.

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