1970: Movies Pt. 3

(Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2)


Airport

I added this movie to the list not because it is universally acclaimed as a great movie from the 70's (although it was nominated for and actually won some awards), but because it was the film that kicked off what was one of the quintessential 70's movie genres: the "Disaster film".  This type of film was so widespread in the 1970's that it even warranted its own parody film before the end of the decade, 1980's Airplane! 

When I put the disc in the player and it showed that the film was Rated G, I wondered if I made a big mistake by selecting this movie. While I wouldn't say that choosing to watch this film was a "big" mistake, it is by no means a good movie.  It is supposed to be a tense drama about a snowbound airport and an airplane that has  bomb on it.  However,  it takes FOREVER to get things going.  It is approximately 35 minutes into the film before they even introduce the bomber and its over an hour before the plane even gets off the ground.  Instead, the film spends all that time exploring the characters and their particular personal problems (I guess when the cast includes Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy and Maureen Stapleton, you want to try to give them some sort of plot to show them off, but this film goes way too far).  It took so long to get things going, ad the build up was so cheesy and melodramatic,  that I actually shut the film off and went to bed, because it didn't interest me enough to want to power through to the end that late at night.

I was really hoping that the tension would increase once the plane was in the air an they discovered that there was a bomb aboard, but that was not the case.  Other than a quick confrontation between the bomber and Dean Martin, the entire resolution fell pretty flat.  About the only interesting thing I took away from this film was seeing exactly which scenes Airplane!  and Airplane II: The Sequel chose to mock.  I know this film was a huge success and spawned a few sequels and the other 70's disaster films.  However, I am really hoping that the other disaster films I have not yet seen will prove to be more exciting than this one...