Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Airport (1970)

10/17/2013

Airport (1970) - A genre is born

♥♥♥♥

An original poster for George Seaton's event picture Airport, which flashes its starry cast and for some reason repeats its title 8 times

Chicago Airport: A blizzard, too few landing strips and snow plows, a man with a mysterious attaché briefcase, impending divorce and a stowaway passenger.

These are just some of the obstacles presented in Airport, the film that's called the first disaster movie ever, defining genre conventions for countless disaster movies to follow by combining small-scale melodrama with big-scale disaster aspects. It is written and directed by George Seaton (Diamond Horseshoe (1945)), adapting the same-titled 1968 novel by Arthur Hailey (Overload (1979)). Henry Hathaway (Nob Hill (1945)) directed some winter outdoor scenes.
The film is entertaining and worth watching particularly for its stars; the glorious Jean Seberg (À Bout de Souffle/Breathless (1960)), Dean Martin (Rio Bravo (1959)) as a veteran sky captain who might finally choose love over individual freedom, and Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity (1953)), who made millions off the flick but still disparaged it gloriously in public, calling it "the worst piece of junk ever made."
The start of Airport is a bit cardboardy, as characters and their wives and girlfriends are introduced, but later on it gets quite exciting, and the film still works perfectly as a lazy afternoon watch.

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: 10.2 mil. $
Box office: 128.4 mil. $
= Blockbuster (returned 12.58 times its cost)

[Airport was released 5 March (North America) and runs 137 minutes. Through profit participation deals, Martin was paid 7 mil. $ for his performance; Lancaster 5 mil. $. Shooting took place from January - June 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and in California. The film grossed 100.4 mil. $ (78.2 % of the total gross) in North America. It was nominated for 10 Oscars, winning one: Best Supporting Actress (Helen Hayes (Ah, Wilderness! (1959, TV movie)). It lost another Supporting Actress nomination (Maureen Stapleton (Passed Away (1992)), Art/Set Decoration to Patton, Cinematography (Ernest Laszlo (The Last Sunset (1961))) to Freddie Young for Ryan's Daughter, Costume Design to Cromwell, Editing to Patton, Score (Alfred Newman (Bus Stop (1956))) to Francis Lai for Love Story, Picture to Patton, Sound also to Patton and Adapted Screenplay to Ring Lardner Jr. for MASH. It was also nominated for a BAFTA, win 1/4 Golden Globe nominations, 1/2 Grammy nominations and a few other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 2/4 star review, translating to 2 notches under this one. The Boeing 707 used in the film was only leased: It later crashed in 1989 in Brazil, killing the 25 people onboard. The film was followed by 4 sequels, the first being Airport 1975 (1974). Seaton returned with Showdown (1973). Lancaster returned in Lawman (1971); Martin in The Red Skelton Hour (1970, TV-series), Swing Out, Sweet Land (1970, TV movie) and theatrically in Something Big (1971). Airport is fresh at 73 % with a 6.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Airport?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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10/17/2013

Airport (1970) - A genre is born

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