Airport (1970) Review

Airport

Director: George Seaton
Writer: George Seaton (from the novel by Arthur Hailey)
Producer: Ross Hunter
Studio: Universal
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Helen Hayes, Van Heflin, Maureen Stapleton
Length: 137 min
Genre: Disaster
MPAA Rating: G
My Rating: ***
Oscar Nominations: Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress (Hayes), Supporting Actress (Stapleton), Editing, Cinematography, Original Score, Sound, Art Direction, Costume Design
Reel Nominations: Supporting Actress (Hayes), Supporting Actress (Stapleton), Original Score, Sound, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Editing, Costume Design

Airport is the only film to have had it’s Reel nomination for Best Picture taken away twice. This is because it is entertaining, engaging, and well-made — while I am watching it. Afterwards, however, it seems to fall apart.

I am able to remember how well-done it all is, from the swift editing to the warm cinematography to the sound that makes you feel as if you’re on the plane with them. I can remember how great both Helen Hayes and Maureen Stapleton are, one of them providing the film’s humor and the other the heart.

But then the negatives begin to creep up: Dean Martin’s easygoing screen presence is utterly wasted; Burt Lancaster is completely wooden; Jean Seberg comes off as too annoying to be the object of Lancaster’s affection; the dialogue is no better than what would pass for bad Soap Opera material; it takes far too long to really get going; and Van Heflin is way too over-the-top, a performance defect that ends up damaging the film’s credibility. Are we really supposed to believe that Lloyd Nolan’s customs officer can look at sweating, gasping, shaking, briefcase-clutching Van Heflin and say that there just might be something wrong with that guy?

And while we’re discussing the film’s many lapses in logic, how about that passenger list? Just how convenient for the overstuffed screenplay is it that a mad bomber, a stowaway, two nuns, three doctors, a priest, an annoying kid, Lloyd Nolan’s niece, a pregnant stewardess, and Mrs. C from “Happy Days” would all be flying to Rome on the same flight? It’s all very nice the sake of storytelling, yes, but logical? Not at all.

The fact remains that Airport feels like a great film because of its entertainment value, production values, and the many great actors who starred in it. But the words that these actors are forced to say and the situations that they find themselves in simply do not stand up to scrutiny. The film has a lot of ideas that it wants to cram together in order to hit the audience’s emotions on all levels, but it can’t find a way to do this rationally.

Airport‘s strengths and weaknesses are adequately illustrated by the quality of its visual effects. When a sudden decompression occurs in an airplane at an altitude of 30,000 feet, everything within twenty feet of the open area that isn’t either nailed down or strapped in is automatically sucked out. A filmed representation of this would be very difficult to set up, and yet it all comes off perfectly. But in other shots it is painfully obvious that a model airplane, some string, and a piece of painted cardboard were used to create the illusion of the plane gliding through the night sky.

Just as the visual effects wizards failed with the most trivial of their tasks, the makers of Airport were unable to deliver on the most basic levels. If they had spent a little more time on polishing up the script that would eventually have to support some glorious technical aspects, Airport just might have been worthy of a Best Picture nomination. Instead, it’s a great-looking movie that can’t be taken seriously, a film ripe for a classic parody.