Airport 1975 Review
Jack_Smight's Airport 1975 was four years and a whole Hollywood world away from George_Seaton's Airport. Gone were the likes of Burt_Lancaster, Dean_Martin, Van_Heflin, Lloyd_Nolan, Dana_Wynter, Helen_Hayes, et al., and, on the production end, Alfred_Newman, Edith_Head, Ernest_Laszlo, Preston_Ames. In their places were a more ragged, and even downright silly, cast (halfway toward the parody of Airplane!), and a threadbare-looking production -- at least by the standards of a feature film. Indeed, Airport 1975 seems like a hybrid, somewhere between a made-for-TV movie and a theatrical feature. It's shot in Panavision, but offers a John_Cacavas score that sounds like a dry run for the music he wrote for Kojak. The opening credits also have a cheap, flat look about them, with minimal style to their design or care in their editing or structure, whereas Airport's opening credits were exciting, as well as a study in slick editing. Even the lack of crowds and extras make the sequel look more like something out of a movie-of-the-week.
Once the movie actually gets going, it looks a little better, though the screen is filled with names that would mainly be associated with television in the years to come, including Erik_Estrada, Norman_Fell, Conrad_Janis, Efrem_Zimbalist_Jr., Sid_Caesar, Ed_Nelson, Beverly_Garland, Christopher_Norris, and Jerry_Stiller, interspersed with such real movie veterans asMyrna_Loy (trying to be this film's Helen_Hayes) and Gloria_Swanson, plus one former star (Dana_Andrews) on his last legs. Add to all that one star treading water in his career (Charlton_Heston); another collecting his biggest paychecks and on his way to the biggest billing of his career (George_Kennedy); one pop singer (Helen_Reddy) doing one of the most wretchedly miserable acting turns ever attempted by a vocalist; Linda_Blair turning in a performance so frighteningly bad that she makes her role in The_Exorcist look benign; and one genuinely talented actress (Karen_Black) trapped in the middle of this mess, and you've got the makings for a real train-wreck of a movie.
That's what happened on subsequent entries in the series, but what averts the same outcome here is the presence of a suspenseful plot supported by excellent special effects and aerial photography (which can only be appreciated seeing the film letterboxed) and the fact that the three stars and the lesser-known supporting players (such as Alan_Fudge and John_Lupton) perform well enough so that the movie leaps over the seemingly impossible chasm of its schlocky casting and production and a script so bad that it even has Sid_Caesar's character making light of the drinking problem that blighted his life. Needless to say, this was not a movie that producer Jennings_Lang was going to be proud of. Like Jaws_2, Jaws_3, etc. from the same studio, it was made to generate easy money for Universal. Interestingly enough, there is one supremely ironic moment early in the film that should have shown anyone involved just how far removed they were from producing anything of real cinematic value. The in-flight movie is George_Lucas' American_Graffiti, which showed a level of invention and a loose, free-flowing approach to cinematic storytelling that makes this movie seem all the poorer. Indeed, American_Graffiti has rated a serious Special Edition DVD from Universal, whereas no one would ever seriously propose a such a release of Airport 1975. Bruce Eder, Rovi
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