I was channel surfing last night when I discovered that one of the cable networks was running all three Airport movies (Airport, Airport '75, Airport '77). It was fun, revisiting the pop culture of my latter high school and early college years, but it was also disquieting. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I loved seeing the old Hollywood stars--everyone from Gloria Swanson to Olivia deHavilland, Joseph Cotton to Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston to Burt Lancaster, Lee Grant to Helen Hayes--mixing it up with young, important (in the day) stars like Brenda Vaccaro and Karen Black, Monte Markham and Erik Estrada (yes, that one--playing a curly-haired obnoxious kid)--and, of course, the acting link uniting all three films, George Kennedy. Not to mention the colorful cameos provided by everyone from Sid Caesar to Jerry Stiller to Darrin McGavin. It was both interesting and instructive to see how real stars, with real star power, tried (albeit with varying degrees of success) to make very, very thin material worthwhile.
[For my money, Burt Lancaster's best role ever was not in Airport; it was as Doc Graham in Field of Dreams. Efram Zimbalist, Jr., as the wounded but gallant pilot in Airport '75, was about the only credible thing in that film. However, Olivia deHavilland, in Airport '77, was a totally delightful hoot as a Steel Magnolia with a penchant for playing poker.--Ed]
But the clothes were awful, each movie's plot was less and less credible than the one in the movie before [--not to mention that the state of airport security was less than woeful . . . especially by current standards.--Ed.], and the attitudes! Well, all I can say is, we have come a long way, baby!
No matter that several female characters in the films had important careers of their own, requiring them to make significant, often split-second, decisions. In danger and crisis, all females cry, wail, and wring their hands because they don't know what to do until they are rescued by some big, strong, handsome man. (And while I agree that Jack Lemmon with a mustache was good-looking in an offbeat sort of way, his obviously thinning hair shot his credibility for me as a romantic lead. Charlton Heston in a too-thin yellow turtleneck that showed only his relative lack of torsal muscle tone, was, well . . . eeeeeuuuuwwwwww! Give that man a bra!) The only independently competent thing any of the females seemed to be able to do was provide care and comfort for the injured.
And every one of them, no matter how old, was a "girl." And no matter what her name was, she was "honey." And she had to be spoken to in strong, stern, parental tones to calm her fears so that she would be able to focus on what she was being told to do. 'Cause that was the only sure way to make her do it competently.
I thought I was going to puke.
Not to mention that every single "bad guy" somehow or another "got his" by the end--with just enough innocent victims along the way to make the bad guys' deaths somehow even more justifiable than they'd have been otherwise. The morality of these films was starkly black and white despite all their widescreen Technicolor splendor.
Still and all, if it weren't for these three films, we'd never have gotten Airplane!; that alone justifies the continued existence of the Airport film trilogy.
And stop calling me Shirley!
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