- Directed by George Seaton, Henry Hathaway
- Written by Arthur Hailey, George Seaton
- Stars Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 17 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PACKbKt8MOw
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Fear of flying caused by a movie. That’s a phobia. Which is horror. Right? Well maybe. This is a good movie though, taking its time and building tension to the disaster and the aftermath. It’s realistic and big budget, with a large cast of familiar faces.
Synopsis
“I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue!” – wait, wrong Airplane movie.
Credits roll over scenes of snow plows and flamethrowers cleaning up the runways at an airport. It’s a busy day at Lincoln International Airport.
We watch an airplane land in the snow, and from the music, we can tell that it’s very tense. They land short and run halfway off the runway. Emergency vehicles are dispatched and traffic is re-routed to other runways. Mel Bakersfeld is called in to deal with the situation on the ground. Tanya calls to ask him for coffee, but he has to deal with the plane first. She wants to ride with him to the field. Meanwhile, his Karen-esque wife calls, angry that he’s made yet another excuse not to be there for dinner. Mel calls Joe Patroni, an expert, who’s busy tonight, but comes in anyway.
Mel is the airport’s General Manager, and he’s got lots of problems. There’s a bunch of protesters holding signs to close down runway 22. Vernon and Sarah Demarest arrive; She’s Mel’s sister, and Vernon recently sent in a bad report about the airport’s snowy runway, which annoys Mel. Vernon’s a pilot, and he’s a prima donna.
We see Vernon get into a cab and go to his stewardess and secret girlfriend, Gwen’s, house. Mela and his wife Cindy argue on the phone again. She wants him to take a regular job in her father’s company. Vernon comes back to the snowed-in airplane and says that he refuses to take off on runway 22.
A stowaway, Mrs. Ada Quonsett, is brought in to Tanya. She’s an old woman who does this all the time– she couldn’t possibly afford a ticket. Mel comes in and talks to the old woman, who knows they won’t do anything to a little old lady. She details all the different ways of sneaking onto a plane, she’s quite a con artist. They’re going to send her back to Los Angeles on the next flight. Tanya is annoyed with the old woman, but Mel is simply amused. Afterward, Mel and Tanya talk about themselves. Tanya gets called to Customs, where a woman has been caught smuggling items into the country.
A man in a run-down apartment, Don Guerrero, checks that the flight to Rome will depart on time. He packs his passport and starts assembling a bomb. He stops in the diner downstairs and tells his wife that he’s starting a new job and things will be good again. She tells him to stop dreaming, but he says, “I’ll do it right this time.” He gets on the bus to go to the airport.
Meanwhile, Vernon talks to Anson Harris, his co-pilot before the flight. Joe Petroni arrives and takes over moving the plane off the runway. Mel hears that the locals are going to sue him over runway 22, which is too close to the homes nearby. Inez Guerrero goes home to find a letter from the travel company that they overcharged her husband for his ticket to Rome. That’s not what he told her. She calls the airport to see if he’s on the flight, and they tell her she has to come in person.
Gwen tells Vernon that she’s pregnant with his child. She knows he’s married and can’t marry her. He offers to get her an abortion, but she’s not sure if that’s a good idea. She thinks she might want to keep it, maybe for adoption.
Mr. Guerrero buys a bunch of flight insurance that pays out if anything bad happens on the flight; he carries the bomb in his briefcase. Meanwhile, his wife arrives outside the airport. Harry, the old, experienced security guard, notices that Guerrero acts suspiciously.
Mrs. Quonsett hears that there’s a plane going to Rome and fakes a seizure, which gives her the opportunity to give her guard the slip and board that plane. She sits down right next to Mr. Guerrero. Captain Vernon is informed that the head count isn’t right, there’s an extra person, but he’s in a hurry because of the weather and insists on taking off right now. Mrs. Guerrero runs to the boarding ramp, but she’s too late; she suspects what he’s up to.
Tanya figures out where Mrs. Quonsett went and calls the plane. Gwen goes back to see if the old woman is there, which she is. They decide not to do anything about her until they land.
Vernon and Anson talk about abortions and unplanned children. Mrs. Guerrero is really upset, and someone brings her to Tanya, who recognizes the name of the last man on the flight. Cindy shows up and tells Mel she wants a divorce and that their daughter has run away.
Tanya tells Mel about Guerrero, and they figure out his plan: suicide by bomb for the insurance money. His wife says that he used to work with explosives in his old job before he went to the mental hospital. They call Vernon aboard the plane about the potential bomber.
Mel calls Patroni inside to talk about structural stuff if the bomb goes off. It’ll blow a hole in the plane which will suck out everything within twenty feet of the bomb. The plane might still be able to fly. Anson decides to turn the plane around and head back where they came from, while Vernon goes back into the passenger compartment to see what’s up. Mel’s boss comes in and wants to shut down the airport, which is bad timing.
Gwen confronts Mrs. Quonsett about her missing ticket. They bring her to the pilot’s cabin. It’s a ploy. Vernon doesn’t care about her being a stowaway, he wants her to go back to her seat and help with Mr. Guerrero. The old lady works a distraction, and Gwen grabs the suitcase with the bomb. Guerrero grabs it back and heads to the back of the plane. Vernon tells him that everyone knows what’s going on and his insurance won’t pay out.
Vernon talks Guerrero into giving up the bomb, but then some random guy comes out of the restroom behind him. Guerrero ducks inside, and the bomb goes off. Since it was in the restroom, the damage isn’t super severe. Vernon returns to the cabin and sends the second officer back to clean up things. The second officer notices a big crack in the roof and reports back to Vernon.
The air controller calls Vernon; they may have to land on too-short runway 22, which annoys everyone. It’s up to Mel and Joe Patroni to get that other runway clear! Joe swears he can drive the stuck plane off the runway, but he needs fifteen more minutes. There is drama and angst as Joe pushes the engines to the limit before the bulldozers can wreck his plane. Joe gives it all she’s got, and the plane finally gets off the runway, freeing it up for Vernon’s flight.
The concern now is the crack on the plane. “One bounce, and we’ll leave the tail behind.” It’s cloudy, so they have to go in blind on their landing path. A priest smacks a whiny passenger for panicking. It’s tense, but they land safely and intact.
Vernon runs back to talk to Gwen, who might lose an eye or her baby. He tells her that they’re gonna be fine. The news people are all over the airport by the time the passengers disembark.
Mrs. Guerrero rushes in to apologize to the passengers for what her husband did. Sarah, Vernon’s wife, overhears that Gwen is pregnant and knows that her marriage is over too.
Mrs. Quonsett is given a legitimate plane ticket for her help. Mel and Tanya go out for breakfast.
Commentary
Quite a few interesting split-screen shots that resemble comic book layouts, which show things like both sides of a phone conversation. There are many elaborate sets and a huge cast of actors that were recognizable at the time.
It’s long; the plane doesn’t even take off until 70 minutes in. The film still mostly holds up; obviously, airport security is leaps and bounds more secure now than what’s shown here, but this was pretty accurate for the time period.
It was good. It was well-acted, the effects are good for the time period, it’s actually tense where it needs to be, and there are bits of humor here and there to keep it going. Only one person dies, so there were actually more divorces in the film than there were fatalities. It’s only a minor disaster, but the film and its sequels caused phobias for generations.