Airport (1970)

Airport, nominated for Best Picture of 1970, was one of the first (if not the first) of the disaster movies that became so popular in the 1970s (well, at least among my family and friends). I have seen it several times over the years, and I've always enjoyed watching it. It spawned some pretty awful sequels, but the original is still a good example of just how wrongheaded Hollywood has become these days. Airport isn't one of the greatest films ever made, certainly, but it manages to use what was then a big budget to tell a story that draws viewers into it rather than spend the money on special effects to wow the crowds.

As I was watching Airport this time, I began to notice that most of the film was spent developing the characters and their relationships with each other. It's almost 100 minutes into the film (which only runs about another 30 minutes anyway) before the actual disaster itself occurs. So rather than a prolonged special effects bonanza, which I believe is the way it would be filmed today, instead what you get is a film about how interrelated our lives often are. It isn't as if we viewers don't know what's going to happen on the flight--that's abundantly clear as soon as we meet our future bomber (played by Van Heflin) putting together his briefcase--it's just that the film isn't merely about the bomb itself. It's about the people whose lives are going to be and are affected by the mid-air explosion. The suspense is only heightened by the fact that we first learn about the passengers and crew who are on board.

Just as an example, take the case of Dean Martin and Jacqueline Bisset. He plays the captain for the flight, and she's the head stewardess (that's the lingo of the day, not flight attendant). They've been having an affair even though he's married (his wife is played by Barbara Hale of Perry Mason fame). She reveals to him that she's pregnant before the flight takes off, and he's forced to deal with his emotions while simultaneously trying to keep the passengers on the plane safe. Martin's Capt. Demerest is also brother-in-law to Burt Lancaster's airport manager, and the two of them repeatedly clash over airport policy. Early in the film, for example, they haggle over how to handle the snow-covered runways. Knowing all of these details influences the way we respond to later conversations between the two men after the bomb has exploded; needless to say, they exchange some tense words, but you still have a sense that they each want to achieve the same goal. It also makes us empathize with Martin's captain when he must see his lover after she's been seriously injured by the blast. And all it takes is one look from Hale as Martin exits the plane walking with the gurney carrying Bisset to let you know how she feels. No one in Hollywood seems to write characters of such depth these days, people you could get to know and care about before the explosions begin.

So many famous character actors have small parts in this film. It almost becomes a game of "Isn't that so-and-so?" Helen Hayes, of course, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a stowaway who always seems to manage to get her way; she is terrific here. But there's also the great Maureen Stapleton as the wife of the potential bomber and George Kennedy as the guy you call whenever there's trouble and Jean Seberg as the head of public relations for the airport. And that's only the beginning. Each of these characters has enough of a back story for you to become involved in what happens to them all.

A few years ago, when I was teaching a film class at my college, I showed The Poseidon Adventure, one of my all-time favorite films. The students loved it, a reaction I was not expecting. For contrast, I also showed one scene from the film Twister. I then compared it to the scene in The Poseidon Adventure when Ernest Borgnine's cop and Stella Stevens' former prostitute reveal how much they love each other and what they've endured together. The "similar" scene in Twister between Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton pales in comparison. Even the students could tell that from looking at just one scene. It seems that Hollywood, the big studios, at least, have lost their ability to tell stories like Airport or The Poseidon Adventure, where character is always more significant and important than special effects. Think of what we've lost as a result.