Airport '77 (1977)

Art thieves hijack a 747, hit fog and crash into the ocean, trapping them and the passengers under one hundred 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	...	Don Gallagher
Lee Grant	...	Karen Wallace
Brenda Vaccaro	...	Eve Clayton
Joseph Cotten	...	Nicholas St. Downs III
Olivia de Havilland	...	Emily Livingston
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
Monica Lewis	...	Anne
Maidie Norman	...	Dorothy

Storyline

Mr. Phillip Stevens is flying in a load of V.I.P.s to the grand opening of his art collection when a trio of hijackers knock out the passengers with gas and try to steal the priceless cargo of art treasures. But everything goes wrong for the hijackers when the 747 crashes in the Bermuda triangle. While the passengers remain alive in the shallow water, a daring rescue operation is planned to bring the plane up without breaking it in two.

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Plot Keywords:

repeat sequel | plane | rescue | hijack | flooding | 

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Taglines:

All new, bigger, and more exciting than AIRPORT 1975!

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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:

Stage 27, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

114 min 182 min (TV)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Legendary Hollywood Costume Designer Edith Head received her thirty-fifth and final Oscar nomination for her work on the costumes in this movie.

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Goofs

At the start of the film when the plane comes into land, it is a Boeing 747 in white coloring and a black nose tip, however later shots show a Boeing 747 in red, white and blue coloring and a grey nose tip.

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Quotes

Karen Wallace: Excuse me, I don't mean to intrude, but could you move your ass, dear?

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Crazy Credits

Before the end credits, this text appears. "The incident portrayed in the film is fictional; the rescue capabilities utilized by the Navy are real".

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Alternate Versions

In deleted scenes shown in the television version, Brian Morrison appears again for the second time as Joseph Patroni, Jr, having previously been seen on-screen as Joe Jr. in the theatrical version of Airport 1975, and later appearing as Joe Jr. in deleted scenes shown in the television version of The Concorde: Airport '79.

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Connections

Referenced in Circus of the Stars #2 (1977)

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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.