International Airport

No one's going to mistake the 1985 made-for-TV air disaster film INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT for, say, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY or ZERO HOUR, that's for sure. But for what it sets out to do, which is to more or less continue the trend begun by Arthur Hailey's 1968 novel "Airport" and continued through four films (AIRPORT; AIRPORT 1975; AIRPORT '77; THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79), it succeeds all the same.

Gil Gerard stars as David Montgomery, the general manager at L.A.X. (basically reworking Burt Lancaster's role from the original 1970 film AIRPORT) who is confronted by any number of crises on this particular day, including a very overworked air traffic control chief (Bill Bixby), who is made even more antsy by a the presence of a rookie, not to mention female, air traffic controller (Connie Selleca); the break-up of a marriage between a pilot (Robert Reed) and a stewardess (Susan Blakely); and so on. But the real crisis comes when a flight from L.A.X. to Hawaii becomes the target of a bomb threat, and the possibility that not only is the bomb onboard in the plane's cargo hold, but that the bomber may be onboard as well. Most of these particular crises can't help but be rather predictable, including the fact that the bomb threat turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by a passenger (Vera Miles) to frighten a fellow passenger (George Grizzard) as revenge for having killed her son in a drunk driving incident. That said, though, the climax, in which the plane is forced to make a straight-in return approach to LAX from the west with its fuel tanks pinned at empty and risk taking a dive into the Pacific, is handled reasonably well.

INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, which, incredibly, required two veteran TV directors (Charles S. Dubin; Don Chaffey), is, again, not overtly spectacular; but it is hardly the worst film of this particular kind ever made. But it does benefit from at least two solid performances, namely George Kennedy (who of course played Joe Patroni in all four original "Airport" films), and Robert Vaughn (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN; BULLITT) as the pilot of the aircraft in peril. It also helps that a great deal of this film was made on location at L.A.X. itself (this being more than a decade and a half before 9/11, of course).

For the things it sets out to do, and manages to accomplish them as well as any TV film of this kind can, I'm giving a '7' to INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

A cast of familiar faces include Robert Reed,Susan Oliver,Vera Miles and Connie Selleca who was,at the time married to the star of the film Gil Gerard.The plane gets off the ground but the tension never does. The script was awful.At one point Vera Miles charactor's age is given as 40.......She was 57 when the film was made and looked it!.And how many times have we seen George Kennedy and Robert Vauyn in this setting?.Too many times.....

Another of the countless 'Airport' (1970) movie imitations, this time the plane is being harassed by a haunting letter written by a would-be bomber.

Every celebrity who sits by their phone waiting for their agent to call is in this one. Well, that's not quite true. If that were true, then EVERY ACTOR IN THE WORLD would be in this movie.

Some of the unlucky participants are Bob Reed as a curiously anti-heterosexual (i.e. gay) businessman, Gil Gerard as a spiffy airport manager, Bill Bixby as a temperamental air controller (and no, he doesn't turn green, darn it), and Connie Selleca (Gerard's then-real life wife) as a dynamo airport worker.

If absolutely nothing else is on TV......

The only reason I decided to watch this TV movie about the drama involving a certain plane is because George Kennedy is in it, having just seen his four Airport films. His character is not named Joe Patroni here but it seems he's once again a mechanic who's also a passenger with his wife (Susan Oliver) on a flight to Hawaii. He's also pals with a pre-teen orphan boy who does shoe shine jobs at the terminal though not with anyone's knowledge. Once again, there's a bomb threat but what happens is not what you think. Among the other players are Susan Blakely who was with Kennedy in The Concorde-Airport '79, Gil Gerald who was in Airport '77 with George, Gil's then-wife Connie Sellecca who was previously a stewardess in the Aaron Spelling-like show "Flying High", Jason Wingreen who was in Airplane!, and Robert Vaughn as the pilot captain. He and George Kennedy are in the next movie I'll review here, The Delta Force. As for this one, well, as TV movies go, it was pretty entertaining for what it was. The fact that some of the actors are listed as guest stars and the fact that Aaron Spelling is one of the producers makes it seem this was a pilot for another of Spelling's series but it didn't get picked up. Just as well... P. S. I recognized Kurtwood Smith, years before he became Red Forman in "That '70s Show", as one of the crew in the terminal.