Verschollen im Bermuda-Dreieck

Of all the disaster flicks, this seems to be the one I enjoy most, perhaps it was the first one I would see.

But looking back at the hot pants in Poseidon Adventure & Dunaway's dress and the tuxedoes in Towering Inferno, Airport '77 is quite an elegantly dressed cast, aren't they?

The movie would get famed Hollywood fashion expert Edith Head to dress the cast and it shows. Anyone else would have made Brenda Vaccarro look obese trying to put her in that pullover sweater.

Airplane! would make fun of Edith Head being credited for '77 like that, by crediting their own costumer, but 27 years later, the wardrobe makes the cast of '77 appear tremendously dashing, giving the tragedy that greater a feel as well.

Jack Lemmon was an incredible standout as the hero of the piece, in comparison to Paul Newman's sexism in Towering Inferno (he never speaks to Jennifer Jones as a human during their entire ordeal with the children) or Heston's stiffness or McQueen's inexpressiveness.

Two years after her Oscar nomination, Vaccarro was hardly the disaster flicks idea of a leading lady as well, so she is quite a one-of-a-kind casting also.

When I was little, I was most fascinated with Arlene Golonka, who I knew from the Andy Griffith show.

Later, identifying the rest of the cast just made it more and more fun. Dracula, Buck Rogers, Kolchak the Nightstalker (Darren McGavin & Jack Lemmon were a powerhouse duo).

Then the names and stars figured into it. DeHavilland, Cotten, Grant. No one looked more out of place than Olivia DeHavilland in an underwater airplane.

Robert Hooks as the crippled bartender and Tom Sullivan (who is actually blind) as the pianist added even more flavor.

There is M. Emmet Walsh, "The Name, But What Which One Is Him?" actor. He is the doctor, and I do enjoy his one scene when he explains who he really is.

Monica Lewis, disaster movie staple. She would appear in Earthquake and Concorde: Airport '79. Check out her expression as she and Olivia DeHavilland enter the lifeboat. It reads "Miss DeHavilland, I'm one of your biggest fans. I really enjoyed you in Gone With The Wind." Lucy Ricardo lives.

Should it have been a commercial airline, instead of a private plane? Not necessarily.

I enjoy watching it now and observing a few of the female extras at the beginning of the crash don't seem to be present anymore by the end. It seems that they weren't available for filming then.

I would argue, as a movie, that this one is more fun to watch than the first one. Lancaster and Seberg in the first Airport movie are comical to me trying to be so serious.

And the second Airport movie, Airport '75, is funnier than Airplane.

There is a very strong and different feel from Airport '77 than the other Airport flicks or the other disaster films in general.

I was first exposed to this movie when it seemed to air on NBC every six months or so back in the early 80s, and as a result it's hindered my ability to enjoy it as a guilty pleasure on home video, even on widescreen DVD. That's because the TV showings were purposefully padded to two parts with more than an hour of extra footage that in this case places the characters in much better context than they appear in the theatrical version, (don't get me wrong, it doesn't elevate it to a topnotch story, but at least the narrative makes better sense). The biggest revelation upon seeing the theatrical cut was how all of George Kennedy's scenes before the crash weren't there any more.

Even at it's best, Airport 77 is only par for the course as far as disaster movies go. The plot is a little more innovative and the rescue scenes of trying to survive and then get the plane raised are more realistic than what we were served up in Airport 1975 with the stewardess flying the plane. Jack Lemmon does succeed as the nominal lead and that helps make one more charitable toward the rest of the supporting cast which is largely wasted in some classic, stereotyped cliched roles. But towards the end, it starts to drag just a bit. You can also see the beginnings of Jimmy Stewart's declining health since he's basically forced to play his part as though he were appearing as a guest on the Johnny Carson show instead of making his character more distinctive.

The widescreen DVD is worth having but I strongly recommend catching the expanded TV version instead, even if it is panned and scanned.

Landing after the TV sitcom-level cast/plot of "Airport 1975", but arriving before the ludicrous "The Concorde-Airport '79" is this slick disaster film entry. Featuring Oscar-winning and nominated stars like Lemmon, Grant, de Havilland, Quinlan, Kennedy and Stewart, it also offers one of the best caliber casts of the '70's disaster cycle. There is no deep thinking involved in watching the film, but it does offer some watery thrills and some fun thrashing around as the plane first skips along the surface of the water and then slips under. Suspense builds as the pressure continues to wreak havoc on the plane's outer skin and, unusually for an "Airport" film, pretty many lives are claimed! The death toll in this film is higher than the other three combined. It's great to see so many once and future stars flopping around in the underwater tomb, but the main attraction is Lee Grant. Clocking in with only about a dozen or so total minutes of screen time, she is utterly hilarious and unforgettable as a shrewish, boozy, sarcastic lush. No one is safe from her rude, brash comments and she is a joy to behold for bad-move connoisseurs. Her husband in the film is Christpher Lee. Fortunately, they didn't marry offscreen or she would have become Lee Lee, but that's another story.......

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.

Following the not-so-spectacular "Airport 1975" comes "Airport '77" which is a welcome addition to the Disaster Movie genre. In typical "Airport" fashion, a routine plane ride, this time carrying various celebrities and other high-profile people, gets into some trouble when it crashes into the ocean in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle....

Though the decor of the flash plane filled with VIP's is dreary compared to the fabulous colours of the chairs in "Airport 1975", the characters are a major improvement, along with the actual danger that the passengers and crew are placed in.

In typical Disaster Movie style, the cast is large, and many of them are forgettable, however, stand-out performances in "Airport '77" include Jack Lemmon in a serious role as the likable Captain Gallagher, Lee Grant is Karen Wallace a VIP guest of the nasty variety, the underrated Pamela Bellwood as a young mother, the lovely Kathleen Quinlann is as usual outstanding, but unfortunately under-used here, but the stand-out star of the film is of course Brenda Vaccaro as Captain Gallagher's girlfriend Even Clayton. Vaccaro is certainly one of the better leading ladies in a Disaster Movie, but is also a surprising choice. Nevertheless, she is fantastic, it is a shame she is not more recognized for her work.

Overall, "Airport '77" is a terrific, and often overlooked addition to the genre, with a super cast, great direction, and a very interesting scene in which the plane is raised from the ocean, according to the credits, this is the actual method used by the Navy, which is a nice addition to the film.