The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979)

Sorry, this movie sucks

One of my all time favorites.

Absolutely brilliant

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The final film in the Airport series resorts to risqué humour and implausible villainy. The photography of Concorde, a British-French turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, is impressive. It's understandable producers would see Concorde as the new and sensational staging for a disaster. George Kennedy takes the lead role in proceedings, and frankly, for a man of his talents, and credit to the series, he deserved a better script. With less of a stellar cast we are left with an empty vessel - a contrived plot and below par acting. The adventure is drab because it is filmed with the kind of simplicity associated with an episodic television drama. It's not the special effects that impedes suspense but the lack of storyboarding and direction. Antecedent films had scale, but Airport '79 has a stub of an ending with screen curtains pulled across quickly as if the writer had given up. The audience deserved better for sticking with it. In fact, the scene was set for a potentially original finale with a new form of danger, and escape.

A few minutes into this movie, Becca turned to me and said, "There isn't anyone good in this one like the others." I disagreed. This film is filled with some of my favorite people and while it's the worst film in the series, it's also my favorite. If they ever make a blu ray of it, I demand to do a commentary track for it!Directed by David Lowell Rich (Satan's School for Girls, Eye of the Cat), this film is quite relevant today, as it's rife with corrupt corporations, drone planes and media scandals. You've got Robert Wagner playing a corrupt arms dealer who is in love with Susan Blakely, yet he keeps trying to kill her.For the ladies, there's Alain Delon as the dashing captain. And for the men, there's Sylvia Kristel as the gorgeous airline hostess. And for the fans of The Omen, there's David Warner as a henpecked flight officer.There may never be a movie as sexist as this one. Just look at the way the character of Patroni has changed. He's no longer a ground crew guy who will kick a pilot out of his own plane. Now, he's flying the plane while making sexist jokes at every opportunity To wit:Isabelle: You pilots are such... men.Capt. Joe Patroni: They don't call it the cockpit for nothing, honey.Or when he asks Delon's character about Vietnam:Capt. Joe Patroni: Gee, I remember this Eurasian gal. She had these great big blue eyes. They called her the tarantula. You ever run into her?Capt. Paul Metrand: No, I don't think so.Capt. Joe Patroni: You'd remember if you did. She was a real ball breaker!That makes me wonder - how was Patroni in Vietnam? Wasn't he already working in the Chicago airport back in the original? Well, now his wife is dead, his son is in college and he's ready to party. In fact, when they get to Paris, he gets set up with a prostitute and has the night of his life. Is he mad when the ruse is revealed? Hell no! It makes him overjoyed as he slaps his pal's back!Then there's Eddie Albert as a rich businessman and Sybil Danning as his wife, to which Patroni comments "She's his fourth wife. There's this story that back in the 20's when he was barnstorming he made a bet that he could put it to this good lookin' wing walker. He boffed her right out on the wing a thousand miles above El Paso. His ass got so sunburned he couldn't sit down a week!"What is happening with this film? I literally yelled at loud several times during it, shocked at how raw it seems in the world of political correctness. But this isn't Blazing Saddles, a film that uses non-PC language for comic effect. This is a scummy cash-in, the final film of a once high prestige franchise. And I loved every minute of this strange bird!Martha Raye gets locked in a bathroom as a plane faces turbulence! Jimmie "Dynomite" Walker smokes up and carries his saxophone everywhere! Cicely Tyson just wants to get her son a new heart! John Davidson performs his own marriage ceremony to a Russian gymnast! Mercedes McCambridge, the voice of Pazuzu, is in this! And Charo is in the credits and has around thirty seconds of screen time, thirty seconds which had me screaming in pure joy!Have you realized yet how much I adore this movie? How can you not love a film where a heat sinking missile is defeated by rolling down the window of a supersonic airplane and shooting a flare gun out the window? And after the plane went through such chaos between New York and Paris, why would anyone allow it to fly again the next day? Why wouldn't security be increased? And why not crash land the Concorde in the alps? Why would they even get on the plane in the first place?Even better, there's a news report earlier in the film that sounds like it came straight out of The Simpsons, a strange piece of comedy in a film that has been serious so far. That's because that voice belongs to Harry Shearer!Obviously, we wouldn't have Airplane! without these films. But after watching the last two films, it's pretty hard to parody what has become a parody.

Fourth and final entry in the series that began in 1970. That first film helped kickstart the all-star big budget disaster trend in 70's cinema, and this final outing helps just as much at putting the final nails in the genre's coffin. Of course "Airplane" the following year would make fun of the entire previous decade's worth of disaster films.Alain Delon gets top billing as the captain of the title craft. With Susan Blakely and John Davidson as reporters, Robert Wagner as a crooked arms dealer, Sylvia Kristel as the head stewardess, Eddie Albert as the airline owner, Sybil Danning as his trophy wife, Avery Schreiber as a Soviet Olympic coach with a deaf daughter, Andrea Marcovicci as the oldest Russian Olympic gymnast ever, Mercedes McCambridge as her busybody chaperone, Cicely Tyson as a mother to a child desperately in need of a heart transplant, Nicolas Coaster as the doctor to perform it, David Warner as the dieting flight engineer, Bibi Andersson as a prostitute, Jimmie Walker as a pot-smoking sax player, Charo as Margarita and Martha Raye as the woman who can't stay out of the bathroom (no, really).George Kennedy costars as Patroni, the only character to appear in all four films. This time he has a larger part as co-pilot of the title passenger jet, on route from the US to Paris, as Wagner's evil arms dealer hatches numerous inept plans to bring down the craft and destroy incriminating evidence. The dialogue is trite and banal as usual, and the various relationships and mini-dramas amongst the bloated cast never rise above the mundane.Keep your eyes open for an early appearance by Ed Begley Jr as Rescuer #1. Like many films of the era, the studio also cut together an extended version for TV broadcasts that added even more subplots and characters, played by the likes of Jose Ferrer, J.D. Cannon and Alan Fudge, but the version I watched was the original.

Ordered the complete AIRPORT movie set recently. Always been a fan of the Airport series. First three, Airport (70), '75, '77, I've seen numerous times and always liked all three. For some reason I've never seen Airport '79 though. Ladies and gentleman, this has to be the all time hokeyest movie I have ever seen in my 50 years of life! Bad acting. Bad writing. Bad plot. Stupid plot. Bad special affects, even for 1979. Just bad everything. Honestly, after the first 15-20 minutes I was ready to turn it off. I was like, when is this movie going to get going. I cannot believe all the well known actors in this movie actually consented to being apart of this joke of a movie. I don't think there is one movie I have ever not said you have to see at least once until I viewed this one. I would NEVER recommend this movie to anyone even as a joke and I will never watch it again.