American based Federation World Airlines has just acquired a Concorde jet, which will make its inaugural commercial flight from Washington, D.C. to Paris, and then to Moscow as a goodwill ... See full summary »
At the opening party of a colossal, but poorly constructed, office building, a massive fire breaks out that threatens to destroy the tower and everyone in it.
This precursor to later "epic" 70's disaster films illustrates 12 hours in the lives of the personnel and passengers at the "Lincoln Airport." Endless problems, professional and personal, are thrown at the various personnel responsible for the safe and proper administration of air traffic, airline management and aviation at a major US airport. Take one severe snowstorm, add multiple schedules gone awry, one elderly Trans Global Airlines stowaway, shortages, an aging, meretricious pilot, unreasonable, peevish spouses, manpower issues, fuel problems, frozen runways and equipment malfunctions and you get just a sample of the obstacles faced by weary, disgruntled personnel and passengers at the Lincoln Airport. Toss in one long-suffering pilot's wife, several stubborn men, office politics and romance and one passenger with a bomb and you have the film "Airport" from 1970.Written by
LA-Lawyer
The field and terminal scenes were filmed entirely at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, due to the abundance of snowfall during the winter months there, although at first, the film's producers were forced to use bleached sawdust as a supplement, to make up for the lack of falling snow, until a snowstorm hit the Twin Cities area during the production of the film. See more »
Goofs
Near the end of the movie when the passengers are deplaning among the first out are a pair of flight attendants. Flight crew would be the last to leave. See more »
Quotes
[discussing the effects of the bomb on a 707]
Joe Patroni:
The sudden decompression at 30, 000 feet is something you gotta see to believe.
Tanya Livingston:
He'll get sucked out, won't he?
Joe Patroni:
So will anyone sittin' next to him. Until that pressure equalizes, everything within 20 feet to him that's not nailed down or strapped in is gonna get sucked right out of that hole.
Bert Weatherby:
Is it that powerful, are you sure?
Joe Patroni:
Humph! Yeah, I'm sure. When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane, At 20,000 feet, one ...
[...] See more »
Crazy Credits
Unusually, the Universal Pictures logo animation is not shown at the beginning of this movie...it's instead shown at the end. The in-credit notice "UNIVERSAL presents" replaced the usual opening logo. See more »
Alternate Versions
TV prints and early videotape pan and scan versions have alterations beyond simple pan and scan. On some of the multi image scenes, instead of panning to the image best serving the scene, they substitute a full screen version of that segment that was originally part of the multi image shot. Like the scene where Burt Lancaster is talking to his wife and 2 daughters all at once. The theatrical version(and present wide screen DVD) maintained images of his wife, him and both daughters separately(recent pan and scan editions temporarily letterbox or otherwise modify the theatrical composition). On the early TV and video versions, only the person talking is seen in a full screen shot used for that multi image shot(showing more image information then when it was composed as part of the theatrical multi image shot). Also, on the split screen shot of Dean Martin in a cab and Jackie Bisset getting out of the shower, the split screen is recomposed for 4:3, cropping each image to better fit. See more »
Is amuses me how easily many here can offer condemnation of this film. If you condemn it by reason that it doesn't capture the viewer in a way that say The Maltese Falcon or Vertigo did then perhaps I can understand.
It seems however that most of the harsh words are coming from the youngsters without much desire to even know what real films were like. I suppose it's not entirely their fault. I mean an action film to them has to involve no less than 55% CGI effects, 25% scantily clad, or outright nude actresses, oh! and more times than not a totally unrealistic plot.
But you see many years back in the early 70s and beyond they didn't have CGI to make up for lacking plots and poor acting. And at that point and time you couldn't really show full nudity so you couldn't rack them into theaters that way either (note the first scene with the lovely Miss. Bissett where she emerges from the shower and barely flashes just the side of her breast. That was probably pretty racy for the time).
So since you can't have any cheap outs like you can today, Gee Whiz! you had to have a real plot and have the ability to act! Lancaster has always been a favorite and he did act very well in this film. Youngsters see the likes of Dean Martin and George Kennedy and don't know what to think because all they've ever known was a Hollywood that produces computer generated fluff. Frankly guys if your idea of an action movie is watching Speed then you need to widen your horizon (no offense to the great Dennis Hopper).
Airport was not as in depth as the book, this is true. Seldom will you find a screenplay to be written with the same depth. Do you know why? Because you can't make the film last for 9 hours!
I know this is more a rebuttal that an outright review of the movie, but it amazes me how some of the CGI junkies have room to talk when it comes to offering their disdain for films with some of the most historic actors in history. This movie is totally entertaining and works well. And the idea some whine because it may not be 'PC' by today's standards is nothing more than extremist liberal drivel. Dino womanizing is apparently an offensive no-no. But today you can show something 50 times as bad and because its more modern and allegedly more acceptable by this standard, no one blinks. Amazing.
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Is amuses me how easily many here can offer condemnation of this film. If you condemn it by reason that it doesn't capture the viewer in a way that say The Maltese Falcon or Vertigo did then perhaps I can understand.
It seems however that most of the harsh words are coming from the youngsters without much desire to even know what real films were like. I suppose it's not entirely their fault. I mean an action film to them has to involve no less than 55% CGI effects, 25% scantily clad, or outright nude actresses, oh! and more times than not a totally unrealistic plot.
But you see many years back in the early 70s and beyond they didn't have CGI to make up for lacking plots and poor acting. And at that point and time you couldn't really show full nudity so you couldn't rack them into theaters that way either (note the first scene with the lovely Miss. Bissett where she emerges from the shower and barely flashes just the side of her breast. That was probably pretty racy for the time).
So since you can't have any cheap outs like you can today, Gee Whiz! you had to have a real plot and have the ability to act! Lancaster has always been a favorite and he did act very well in this film. Youngsters see the likes of Dean Martin and George Kennedy and don't know what to think because all they've ever known was a Hollywood that produces computer generated fluff. Frankly guys if your idea of an action movie is watching Speed then you need to widen your horizon (no offense to the great Dennis Hopper).
Airport was not as in depth as the book, this is true. Seldom will you find a screenplay to be written with the same depth. Do you know why? Because you can't make the film last for 9 hours!
I know this is more a rebuttal that an outright review of the movie, but it amazes me how some of the CGI junkies have room to talk when it comes to offering their disdain for films with some of the most historic actors in history. This movie is totally entertaining and works well. And the idea some whine because it may not be 'PC' by today's standards is nothing more than extremist liberal drivel. Dino womanizing is apparently an offensive no-no. But today you can show something 50 times as bad and because its more modern and allegedly more acceptable by this standard, no one blinks. Amazing.