- Actors: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset
- Directors: George Seaton, Henry Hathaway
- Writers: George Seaton, Arthur Hailey
- Producers: Jacques Mapes, Ross Hunter
- Language English, Italian
- Classification: PG
- Studio: 4 Front
- VHS Release Date: 1 July 1999
- Run Time: 137 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00004R65I
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 20,104 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
This film, is fantastic. Multi plots and colourful charectors keep you entertained untill the dramatic finale that can only be described as gripping. The director takes the viewer through the typical struggles between emotinal and proffesional life, with the fate of hundreds and a million dollar airliner lying in the hands of one man and his all encompasing bettle between the two lives.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Although The Poseidon Adventure gets all the credit, Airport is the film that really kicked off the 70s disaster craze. Unlike its three follow-ups, this adaptation of Arthur Hailey's doorstop novel really is as much about the snowbound airport as it is the imperilled plane, one of many plots the movie juggles. Hailey had built his novel around a 1956 Canadian TV movie he wrote called Flight Into Danger, but much of it plays like a Peyton Place-esquire soap opera: will embattled airport manager Burt Lancaster stay married to Dana Wynter or to his job - or will he go off into the sunrise with that nice airline rep Jean Seberg? Will pilot Dean Martin leave his wife now he's got stewardess Jacqueline Bisset up the duff? Will Helen Hayes' scene-stealing geriatric stowaway get caught? Will George Kennedy clear the blocked runway in time to avoid tragedy? Will Van Heflin's mentally troubled demolitions expert set off the bomb in his briefcase? Would there be a movie if he didn't?
Shot like an epic to emphasise the size and scale of everything (it even opens with an overture of sound effects of a busy airport terminal before bursting into Alfred Newman's urgent rumba-led score) it's a big, glossy well crafted entertainment that still holds up surprisingly well, especially in widescreen where the occasional split-screen effects come into their own (not to mention a great gag with a priest and an annoying passenger during the crash landing that's usually lost in the TV panning-and-scanning). It's the least sensational of the series but still the most effective, and there's no shortage of familiar faces in the passenger seats, from Lloyd Nolan, Maureen Stapleton, Jesse Royce Landis, Whit Bissell and the original "Jimmy Bond 007" of the CIA, Barry Nelson. Sadly, setting something of an unfortunate pattern for the series, the 707 used in the film crashed in 1989, somewhat disproving the constant accolades the plane's abilities receive throughout the film ("The only thing a 707 can't do is read!").
The only extra on the PAL DVD is the original trailer, but the 2.35:1 widescreen transfer is good. The NTSC releases are extras free - and the intial US release from Goodtimes is a cropped fullframe version as well!
Shot like an epic to emphasise the size and scale of everything (it even opens with an overture of sound effects of a busy airport terminal before bursting into Alfred Newman's urgent rumba-led score) it's a big, glossy well crafted entertainment that still holds up surprisingly well, especially in widescreen where the occasional split-screen effects come into their own (not to mention a great gag with a priest and an annoying passenger during the crash landing that's usually lost in the TV panning-and-scanning). It's the least sensational of the series but still the most effective, and there's no shortage of familiar faces in the passenger seats, from Lloyd Nolan, Maureen Stapleton, Jesse Royce Landis, Whit Bissell and the original "Jimmy Bond 007" of the CIA, Barry Nelson. Sadly, setting something of an unfortunate pattern for the series, the 707 used in the film crashed in 1989, somewhat disproving the constant accolades the plane's abilities receive throughout the film ("The only thing a 707 can't do is read!").
The only extra on the PAL DVD is the original trailer, but the 2.35:1 widescreen transfer is good. The NTSC releases are extras free - and the intial US release from Goodtimes is a cropped fullframe version as well!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
There have been a few disasters and monsters before this movie. However this is the one credited as the beginning of the airplay disaster movies. These have included some sequels and even the "Air Plane" spoofs.
It is fun to look back at the different actors and remember or see them for the first time in a younger body.
The film has several overlapping and intertwining stories; some of the stories seem like soap operas.
A few mentionable scenarios are Mel Bakersfield (Burt Lancaster); airport manager is accused of placing his work before his family. He gets berated in the middle of a crisis by his probably to be ex-wife Cindy Bakersfeld (Dana Winter). Does he also get distracted by his beautiful and efficient assistant? Throw in a pilot playboy, Capt. Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) that is forced to evaluate fatherhood. For comic relief we have Ada Quonsett a geriatric stowaway. Then for the drama there is someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain if the plane mysteriously does not reach its destination; the man with an attaché case D. O. Guerrero (Van Heflin.)
I am not going to go through the whole story it is for fun if you get to speculate on what is going to happen. How ever I must say one of my favorite characters is Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) operations chief that is tasked with clearing the runway of a stuck 707. See him again as the corrupt lawyer, Uncle Andrew, in Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."
It is fun to look back at the different actors and remember or see them for the first time in a younger body.
The film has several overlapping and intertwining stories; some of the stories seem like soap operas.
A few mentionable scenarios are Mel Bakersfield (Burt Lancaster); airport manager is accused of placing his work before his family. He gets berated in the middle of a crisis by his probably to be ex-wife Cindy Bakersfeld (Dana Winter). Does he also get distracted by his beautiful and efficient assistant? Throw in a pilot playboy, Capt. Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) that is forced to evaluate fatherhood. For comic relief we have Ada Quonsett a geriatric stowaway. Then for the drama there is someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain if the plane mysteriously does not reach its destination; the man with an attaché case D. O. Guerrero (Van Heflin.)
I am not going to go through the whole story it is for fun if you get to speculate on what is going to happen. How ever I must say one of my favorite characters is Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) operations chief that is tasked with clearing the runway of a stuck 707. See him again as the corrupt lawyer, Uncle Andrew, in Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."
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