Back in the 1970s, disaster movies were all the rage. Famous pictures such as The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure were part of this genre. Cinema history records that this whole trend was kicked off by the first film in the Airport movie series, unsurprisingly titled “Airport”.
Airport grossed over US$100 million in 1970 on a US$10 million budget, becoming Universal Pictures highest grossing film to that date and one of the highest grossing films of all time (adjusted for inflation, Airport is 52nd on the Top 100 list). That meant sequels were inevitable (ka-ching!) and they eventually made four pictures in total.
Airport Movie Retrospective
The video below, titled “The Airport Series: A Retrospective 1970-79” is a light hearted look at all four movies. It runs for just under 20 minutes and allocates roughly equal time to each film.
There are a couple of running gags throughout, such as the various roles that George Kennedy plays as Joe Patroni. The humour in the presentation is quite well done, with some fun callbacks to various actors most well known roles.
Naturally it begins with Airport, moves on to Airport 1975, then to Airport ’77 and finally to The Concorde… Airport ’79. It’s interesting to see which films the reviewer likes the most. While he also slates the final movie like most reviewers (called Airport ’80: The Concorde in various international markets), he overlooks what everyone always misses, which is the gorgeous air-to-air photography of the aircraft seen throughout the movie.
Don’t be deterred by the narrators constant referencing to Airplane in the beginning. Happily that stops before the second movie of the four is presented, which is a good thing.
Overall Thoughts
I found the video to be quite a good overview of each Airport movie. If you haven’t seen the films, there are some spoilers, but the creator has managed not to include ALL the money shots from each film.
I’ve enjoyed these movies since I was a kid and will watch them again every few years or so. For someone who is into planes and aviation, they’re virtually a must watch and two of them even made my list of great aviation movies.
Have you seen the various Airport movies? Which one is your favourite? What do you think of the retrospective? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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I’ve seen them all, but the first Airport ’75’ is my favorite. Love your blog by the way. Thanks a lot.
It’s a pretty good one – I like them all, really. Thanks for the kind words too – appreciate it 🙂