I expected Linda's head to start turning as it was made clear it was the Devil that made this situation happen. The usual collection of high priced talent is on the passenger list and several generations of Hollywood are represented by people from Gloria Swanson playing herself to young Linda Blair as a kid who is flying to Los Angeles for a kidney transplant and is critically off her dialysis machine for the duration of the flight. What they try and succeed in doing the second time around could never happen in real life. Which Black does as the airline folks headed by Heston and George Kennedy try an absolutely impossible rescue. What to do, but let the stewardess take over. The crash kills co-pilot Roy Thinnes and blinds pilot Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Karen Black who's Heston's gal pal is the chief stewardess on a transcontinental flight when Dana Andrews's private plane hits it midair as Andrews suffers a heart attack. Reviewed by bkoganbing 4 / 10 "The Stewardess Is Flying The Plane"Īirport 1975 gets as many as four stars for the nice special effects and for the efforts of a whole lot of high priced talent headed by Charlton Heston to keep a straight face while getting through this improbable story. It is worth watching if you want to see where AIRPLANE got all it's inspiration-too bad, at times, it's hard to tell they're not BOTH meant to be comedies! Her entire head is shiny as if dipped in wax or sprayed with cooking spray! Perhaps this was some "clever" way to make the aging star look young, but to me it just made her look really strange.īad, but certainly not among the top 1000 worst films ever made-let alone top 50. There was some genuine tension and excitement-too bad it didn't make much sense.īy the way, is it just me or did it look like Gloria Swanson had her head waxed for the film? Take a close look and you should easily see what I mean. Think about it-a guy has to tether from a helicopter through a tiny hole in order to fly a stricken 747 in mid-flight! At least, though, there were far fewer guest shots here and the dialog centered more on the plot. Once the action starts later in the film, it improves greatly-though you certainly have to suspend disbelief to accept the premise.
In fact, all the guest stars with all their assorted problems made the film seem a lot like the movie AIRPORT morphed with THE LOVE BOAT!! Silly, soapy and sappy-that about sums it up. At times, it sounded more like a Matt Helm film than an air disaster film! Also the film made the mistake of having way too many "guest stars" and spent too much time bouncing around-making it look choppy and amateurish (despite the big budget). The biggest problem was the wretched dialog-and especially all the inappropriate sexist remarks and double-entendres coming from the flight crew. Now parts of the film are really bad-in particular the first half or so. Now I am not saying it's good-after all, I gave it a 3-but it just isn't THAT bad a film. However, after finally getting to see it, I think it was not nearly bad enough to make it to the book. This movie was included in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way)" by Harry Medved. Reviewed by MartinHafer 3 / 10 Bad? Yes, but not THAT bad. Meanwhile, various passengers have their own problems including a young girl who is destined to a life saving operation. Their first attempt fails and Murdock realizes he will have to do it. Ground controllers, including her boyfriend Alan Murdock, try to teach her the basics but they soon realize they will have to get a trained pilot into the cockpit. Miraculously, the 747 stays in the air on auto-pilot with flight attendant Nancy Prior at the controls. When the pilot of a small aircraft has a heart attack and crashes his plane into the cockpit of a Boeing 747, several members of the flight crew are killed and the pilot is blinded.