Airport (1970)

A bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.

Directors:

George Seaton, Henry Hathaway (uncredited)

Writers:

Arthur Hailey (from the novel by), George Seaton (written for the screen by)

Stars:

Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy

Won 1 Oscar. Another 4 wins & 19 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Burt Lancaster	...	Mel Bakersfeld
Dean Martin	...	Vernon Demerest
Jean Seberg	...	Tanya Livingston
Jacqueline Bisset	...	Gwen Meighen
George Kennedy	...	Patroni
Helen Hayes	...	Ada Quonsett
Van Heflin	...	D.O. Guerrero
Maureen Stapleton	...	Inez Guerrero
Barry Nelson	...	Anson Harris
Dana Wynter	...	Cindy
Lloyd Nolan	...	Harry Standish
Barbara Hale	...	Sarah Demerest
Gary Collins	...	Cy Jordan
John Findlater	...	Peter Coakley
Jessie Royce Landis	...	Mrs. Harriet DuBarry Mossman

Storyline

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.

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Plot Keywords:

boeing 707 | jet | airline employee | airport | passenger | 

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Taglines:

The #1 novel of the year - now a motion picture!

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Italian

Release Date:

25 March 1970 (West Germany)

Also Known As:

Airport

Filming Locations:

Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$100,489,151

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$100,489,151

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Ross Hunter Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

137 min

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (35 mm magnetic prints) 70 mm 6-Track (Westrex Recording System) (70 mm prints) Mono (35 mm optical prints)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first of four appearance in the "Airport" series by George Kennedy as the unlit cigar chewing Joe Patroni.

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Goofs

In older releases, when the plane is shown flying out of and over the cloud cover, wires can be seen holding the aircraft up. The wires are not visible in the DVD version, except the first time the plane is shown flying up out of the cloud cover, when you can see the wires holding up the plane.

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Quotes

[Customs Agent Standish catches a woman trying to smuggle diamonds]
Harry Standish: [tiredly] When will they learn? The *duty* would have been about *one-tenth* of what the *fine* is gonna be!

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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.

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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.

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Connections

Featured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Classics from the Vault: Movies that Changed the Movies (2011)

User Reviews

Hollywood's first big-budget disaster film...and still the best

Universal assembled an all-star cast for this film version of Arthur Hailey's best-selling novel "Airport", and the result was a critical and box-office smash that earned 10 Oscar nominations. The film is at its basics pure soap-opera built around the impending bomb on a 707 bound for Rome. The workings of a major international airport are well depicted and the cast provides some great performances. Burt Lancaster, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, Maureen Stapleton, Dean Martin, and Van Heflin all turn in some of the best performances of their careers, and Helen Hayes (who won an Oscar for supporting actress) is endearing as the stowaway, who has worked out quite a system for flying for free. "Airport"'s success signaled the beginning of the disaster movie era that was followed over the next several years by such films as "The Poseidon Adventure", "The Towering Inferno", "Earthquake", "Two Minute Warning", and "Rollercoaster". "Airport" also inspired three sequels, although none of them even approached the original.