Airport '77 (1977)

Art thieves hijack a 747, hit fog and crash into the ocean, trapping them and the passengers under 100 feet of water.

Director:

Jerry Jameson

Writers:

Arthur Hailey (novel), Michael Scheff (screenplay),

Stars:

Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Joseph Cotten

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jack Lemmon	...	Capt. Don Gallagher
Lee Grant	...	Karen Wallace
Brenda Vaccaro	...	Eve Clayton
Joseph Cotten	...	Nicholas St. Downs III
Olivia de Havilland	...	Emily Livingston
James Stewart	...	Philip Stevens
George Kennedy	...	Joe Patroni
Darren McGavin	...	Stan Buchek
Christopher Lee	...	Martin Wallace
Robert Foxworth	...	Chambers
Robert Hooks	...	Eddie
Monte Markham	...	Banker
Kathleen Quinlan	...	Julie
Gil Gerard	...	Frank Powers
James Booth	...	Ralph Crawford

Storyline

A luxury 747 carrying valuable art work is hijacked and lands in the ocean, submerged in shallow water. Will the crew and passengers make it off before the plane floods with water?

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Plot Keywords:

rescue | underwater | bermuda triangle | pilot | airplane hijack | 

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Taglines:

Flight 23 has crashed in the Bermuda Triangle... passengers still alive, trapped underwater...

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Hungarian

Release Date:

11 March 1977 (USA)

Also Known As:

Airport 1977

Filming Locations:

Bob Hope Airport - 2627 Hollywood Way, Burbank, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

114 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Airport '77 was the only movie of the Airport series that did not have a real life disaster happen to an aircraft used in the filming. The 707 used in filming "Airport" crashed in Brazil in 1989. The Beachcraft Baron that played the one that collided with the 747 in "Airport 1975" collided with another private prop plane mid-air in 1989. The Concorde used in "The Concorde...Airport '79" was the one that crashed outside of Paris in 2000 killing all 107 people aboard and four people on the ground, and hastened the end of the Concorde program.

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Goofs

The seats on board the executive Boeing 747 have no safety belts.

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Quotes

Philip Stevens: Benji, I'm your Grandpa.

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Connections

Referenced in Ban the Sadist Videos! (2005)

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Soundtracks

"Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beholder"
Composed and sung by Tom Sullivan

User Reviews

Mid Air Ocean Caper Gone Awry

Gazillionaire James Stewart is shipping his collection of art to a museum and he's using his private jet to fly the collection and a few friends down to meet him in Florida.

Of course this attracts the attention of a few crooks who have a pretty well thought out plan and the copilot, Robert Foxworth, working with them. Of course all good plans go awry and they go down in the Bermuda Triangle into some relatively shallow area of the Atlantic.

Hey they could have gone down and been lost for decades like the Titanic was.

That's essentially the plot here and in true Seventies disaster film tradition you load the screen with big names, dress them fashionably and put them in harm's way. The rest of the film is devoted to their rescue.

Incidentally the footage devoted to the air sea rescue is the best thing about Airport 77. No member of the audience will not go away impressed with the U.S. Navy's capabilities in that regard.

Jack Lemmon is the pilot and in an action role which is normally against type for him, he does quite well. Almost twenty years before he supported James Stewart in Bell, Book,and Candle and now the billing is most definitely reversed.

My favorites in the film are Joseph Cotten and Olivia DeHavilland, a classy and elegant pair of passengers who so typify the glamor of old Hollywood.

Christopher Lee also performs against type, he's not the villain here in fact he turns out quite the hero among the passengers. Lee Grant is his trollop of a wife and I remember seeing this in theaters and the shouts for joy from the audience when Brenda Vaccaro punches her out.

I'm not sure which is a wilder rescue this one or that other James Stewart film The Flight of the Phoenix. There's no way any of them should survive.

But this is a Hollywood disaster epic, so all things are possible.