Airplane! (1980)
anarchic comedy
directed
by : Jim Abraham - Jerry Zucker - David Zucher
featuring
: Robert Hays - Julie Hagerty - Lloyd Bridges - Robert Stack - Leslie Nielsen
running
time : 1 hour 28 minutes
This spoof of the Airport series of disaster
movies relies on ridiculous sight gags, groan-inducing dialogue, and deadpan
acting -- a comedy style that would be imitated for the next 20 years.
Airplane! pulls out all the clichés as alcoholic pilot Ted Striker
(Robert Hays), who's developed a fear of flying due to wartime trauma,
boards a jumbo jet in an attempt to woo back his stewardess girlfriend
(Julie Hagerty). Food poisoning decimates the passengers and crew, leaving
it up to Striker to land the plane, with the help of a glue-sniffing air
traffic controller (Lloyd Bridges) and Striker's vengeful former captain
(Robert Stack), who must both talk him down. Along the way, we meet a clutch
of stock disaster movie passengers like the guitar-strumming nun, a sick
little girl, a frightened old lady, and two African-American travelers
whose "jive" has to be subtitled. Leslie Nielsen portrays the plane's doctor,
launching a new phase of the actor's career that carried him through the
next two decades in several similarly comedic roles. The trio of directors
Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker responsible for the film would
eventually go on to solo careers, but not before making Top Secret! and
Ruthless People.
Any fool can tell a long succession
of dumb jokes, but it requires a special gift to toss 'em off with the
fleet footed élan and rapid-fire precision that the writing/directing
team of Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker achieve in Airplane! No
pun is too silly, no gag is too obvious, and no stunt is too tasteless
for these men, as long as someone will laugh at it. Unlike the many filmmakers
who followed this film's path, the Abrahams-Zuckers team understood the
notion of context, and if Airplane!'s narrative isn't especially fresh
or original, it's sturdy enough to hold the pieces together and collect
the myriad clichés of disaster films in a confined space so they
can be efficiently picked off, one by one. And they had the foresight to
cast a host of familiar faces in key supporting roles; after years of seeing
the likes of Nielsen, Bridges, Stack, and Peter Graves in second-rate TV
disaster epics, watching a stone-faced Graves ask a young boy if he likes
gladiator movies or hard-as-nails air traffic controller Bridges announce
that he picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue gave gags that were
already funny a surreal dimension that doubled the kick. Anyone who thinks
making a film this funny is simple ought to take a look at the unfortunate
Aurplane II: The Sequel for a reality check on how Abraham-Zuckers made
high art out of low comedy.