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Ahhh, this is delightfully undiluted Hollywood dreck of the most charming and enjoyable kind. Everything.. the dialog, the music, the look has that soap opera look.

It's been said that this project started out as a TV movie but got bumped up to a feature film along the way. The script still sounds like a TV movie and the special effects are very uneven. The large scale airplane shots are great and very cinematic. Some cockpit scenes use badly matched rear projection while others cockpit rear projection scenes look fantastic.

Cliques' abound everywhere, as in the portrayal of Gloria Swanson by... Gloria Swanson. Most of her lines are so delightfully stereotypical it makes Ginger from "Gilligan's Island" look complex. "Of course, I never did anything I was expected to do..."

Then there is Linda Blair who seems to be on a mission with her role as a hopeful kidney transplant patient. That mission is to tell the world "You see, I'm not I'm not a Demon monster, like I played in The Exorcist. I *really am* nice." At the time, the "Hollywood Press" was paranoid with the effect making "The Exorcist" had on Linda Blair.

So, in response to this, Linda plays the Kidney patient with a nose scruntching, smiling sweetness that makes you think she is possessed once again... by a Von Trapp kid.

Still, I thought Linda Blair would end up launching pea soup at Sister Helen Ready as she sang that... song.

Charlton Heston is his ultra macho self and whenever he's in a movie, I'm usually loving it. This is no exception.

I was a kid when this came out and there was this glamourous, sleek mystique to airplanes and airports for me. Flying was a much more exclusive and expensive thing back then, before deregulation. Also, seeing these giant pieces of metal leave the ground was almost like magic and yes, it would be a thrill to be in it but... what if something went wrong?

So, it was with these feelings that I went to see this movie with in early 1976. I really was wanting to see "JAWS" and it was just a happy accident that "JAWS" was double featured with this movie. Seeing one movie in a theater was a special deal for me. Seeing two was practically an event.

I came out of the theater thrilled with both movies, thinking they were cut from the same cloth. Of course, as we come to now, "JAWS" is still an indisputable classic and one of the best movies of it's type ever.

"Airport 1975"... well... provided 90% of the inspiration for one of the best comedies ever: "Airplane!". "Airport 1975" itself is a campy, fun, escapist thriller/adventure. It's cinematic junk food that tastes terrific. It's nostalga to me doesn't hurt it a bit either.

"Airport 1975" has a kinship with "Earthquake", in that both had Charlton Heston and George Kennedy. Both provided Universal television shows (The Incredible Hulk, Battlestar Galactica, etc.)with opportunities to build shows around the stock footage they could use from both films (The Hulk gets stuck on an airplane that is Columibia 409, A simulation of a cylon attack uses Earthquake's scenes of destruction, The Hulk gets stuck in an Earthquake's earthquake too).

Both became "events" when they came to network TV, adding (or even filming) additional scenes to make a full evening (or even a 2 evening) television event.

Both had those 1 sheet posters with several little "mug shots" of all the stars in the movie.

Both are sometimes laughable in terms of characters and story but are remarkably lovable none the less.

A mid-air collision leaves a 747 without a pilot. Charlton Heston, Karen Black and George Kennedy star in this campy far fetched adventure. Acting is wooden and unconvincing and the plot ranges from strange to absurd but the air sequences are by far the best in any air disaster film and well worth a look. It is a typical disaster film for it's time but is thankfully one of the good ones unlike The Concorde or The Swarm. People give it a hard time claiming it to be one of the worst films ever made but it obviously isn't as there are many millions of mainstream films worse than this and many worse disaster movies if you want proof watch any of Irwin Allen's late 70's productions.

Dedicated filmgoers collect so many varied pleasures as the years go by. Who can forget the first time they saw Welles' Citizen Kane? Ozu's Tokyo Story? Antonioni's The Eclipse? What gems of insight and emotion have been mined from the works of Jean Renoir, of Max Ophuls and Fritz Lang, of Hitchcock and Mizoguchi? Yet, if I had to choose between saving all of their films or preserving Airport 75, I must admit that I would hesitate.

When it comes to a film as rich as Airport 75, where does one begin? Perhaps a drum roll of the cast that adorns this archetypal 1970's disaster epic is as good a way as any to get started: we have Charlton Heston and Karen Black as the leads, and, in a display of has-beens and never-was's that would make any Hollywood Squares devotee salivate, there's Susan Clark, Sid Caesar, Jerry Stiller, Norman Fell, Martha Scott, Beverly Garland, Sharon Gless, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Erik Estrada all on board.

And that's just for starters! Myrna Loy plays an elderly tippler, Helen Reddy is a singing nun, Linda Blair is a cheerful girl in need of a kidney transplant, and, in the pièce de résistance, Gloria Swanson is.Gloria Swanson. If you loved Airplane!, which lampooned Airport 75 in particular, you should go straight back to the horse's mouth and rent this seminal entry in bad cinema.

In a lengthy opening tracking shot that invites comparison with Orson Welles' similar feat in Touch of Evil, we follow cross-eyed stewardess Black into an airport as the names of the guilty keep coming and coming via the credits, a veritable orgy of cut-rate players. When the names finally stop, Heston quickly propositions our heroine. `I can do wonders in thirty minutes,' he promises, but Black's having none of it. `Maybe I'm tired of one-night stands,' she whines, as we imagine, quite against our will, the alarming image of the two of them in the sack. After she leaves him, the credits begin again and inform us that Edith Head designed the clothing (only senility can possibly excuse the neckerchiefs she gave to the stewardesses.)

When asked the secret of her ageless appearance by adulatory reporters, Swanson explains, `I won't take poisoned food, I don't like it.' Nuns Martha Scott and Helen Reddy observe her impromptu press conference intently. `It's one of those Hollywood persons,' says Scott with disdain. `You mean an actress?' asks Reddy. `Or worse,' Scott replies, rolling her eyes to heaven. Black tries to shield a new blond stewardess from the lustful advances of Erik Estrada, but this novice can take care of herself. `I'm emancipated, liberated and highly skilled in Kung Fu,' she boasts. `Whatever happened to womanhood?' wonders a pilot in response.

As the cast from Hell shuttle over to their flight, Swanson just won't shut up. When Norman Fell doubts if the plane will fly, Gloria says, `In 1917 I was flying in something wilder than this. You know who the pilot was? Cecil B. DeMille!' Just about everybody in Airport 75 proves to be as ready for their close-up as Swanson, especially little Linda Blair; when she is wheeled onto the plane, bad film-going delight turns into purple junk food ecstasy. She smiles satanically at everyone and says, `It's so exciting! The people are so interesting!' to her mother Nancy Olsen, who once played the ingenue in Sunset Boulevard, making this her second film with Swanson in which she doesn't share a scene with the silent diva.

`Jokes' drop like potato pancake batter into deep-frying fat. `I'll take you into the lion's den,' says Black to her blond Kung Fu-fighting co-stewardess. `Who's afraid of the lion's den, I'm Jewish!' quips blondie. Later, she calls the horny Estrada a `disgrace to your race,' and truer words were never spoken. Two old ladies cluck over a book called Epicurean Sexual Delights, and another woman anxiously hides her dog. People keep saying, `You've gotta see Gloria Swanson-she looks terrific!' Yet the camp high point, of course, is the now legendary scene where Sister Helen sings a jaw-dropping song to ailing Blair about how `you best friend is yourself.' You want so much for Blair to projectile vomit pea soup all over the plucky nun, but, alas, she just keeps smiling. The plane is filled with all kinds of weird goings-on and bizarre talk, but, as far as appalling remarks go, Fell takes the cake. `I once had a girlfriend who was half French and half Chinese,' he says. `I came home one night and she ate my laundry!'

Airport 75 exhibits a deliciously crummy television aesthetic. When the plane is hit, most of the pilots (including, thankfully, Estrada) are sucked out into space. As Black, The Cross Eyed Stewardess Who Has To Fly The Plane!, takes over the controls, the fact that she is traveling at airplane speed and is sitting right next to a massive hole in the cockpit is represented visually by her cast-iron hairdo blowing gently in the breeze! The way that Heston talks her through her ordeal is purely sexist, with all kinds of, `Baby, calm down honey,' stuff. It's as if all the controls were phallic-there's constant hilarious innuendo about nose dives and `keeping it up.'

As for Black, who really carries the whole movie, this is an immortal performance. With her dueling lazy eyes, she is able to keep watch over all the buttons and switches at once; she flares her nostrils, bugs her freaky orbs, and even sticks out her tongue when trying to get a pilot into the plane. When Heston, in an atrocious yellow turtleneck, manages to get aboard, Black tells the passengers that they'll have to shut down one engine. I adore the voice of one of the extras who pipes in, `We're gonna die!' in a dry, matter-of-fact voice.

They do land the plane without a hitch, and the ending, appropriately, belongs to Swanson. When she slides down the emergency landing shute, La Swanson's body double flashes us a glimpse of white panties (definitely the funniest image in the movie.) When her assistant murmurs that it's a good morning, Gloria says rather touchingly, `Every morning is beautiful, you're just too young to know.' This demonstrates that Airport 75 is, finally, a contemplative film about life and its finish-or at least the finish of many show biz careers.

Though Airport 75 is the height of the Airport oeuvre, Airport 77 is worth checking out for Lee Grant's astoundingly bad performance as an alcoholic (on television there is also an extra hour of flashbacks to the passenger's lives!) And Airport 79: The Concorde has pilot / airline manager extraordinaire George Kennedy wrapping it all up with the line, `They don't call it the cockpit for nothing sweetheart!' as stewardess Sylvia Kristal recoils in horror. Kennedy appears in all four Airport movies as the same character, Petroni. Why anyone let this guy near an airport after a while is up for debate-it's like continuing to invite Jessica Fletcher to your parties: you know someone's going to get killed.

This is the second of four movies in the "Airport" series . It's exciting and amusing but full clichés and stereotypes with mediocre performance by all-star-cast . The movie is another jetliner epic with hero Heston . A commercial airline of the American Airlines 747 Boeing (piloted by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. , Roy Thinnes , Erik Estrada) is crashed to another smaller plane (piloted by Dana Andrews) . Then the flight attendant (Karen Black who brings conviction to her character as dedicated stewardess turned pilot ) taking on control of the dangerous travel and forcing daring rescue attempt (by Ed Flanders and Heston) . The film is detailing hectic flighty piloted by a stewardess and the relationship among passengers . All clichéd and stock roles with regurgitation of all usual stereotypical situations from disaster films , the nuns ( Helen Reddy as singing nun and Martha Scott ), an aging alcoholic woman (Myrna Loy , but Joan Crawford was firstly approached to play the character who turned down), nervous passengers , an old actress (Gloria Swanson) . Taking place on freeze skies and Rocky Mountains as background , the airplane heading to Salt Lake City . If you've seen the original ¨Airport¨ ( by George Seaton ) based on the Arthur Hailey's novel 'the daddy of them all' , you have seen them all .

The picture contains thriller, suspense , drama , moderate tension and is quite entertaining although with some flaws and gaps . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre in the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series benefits from a strong acting by Charlton Heston who spent time on a simulator in preparation for the role , bringing life to character , he also starred a similar role at ¨ Skyjacked (1972)¨ by John Guillermin . Gloria Swanson performs herself in her ending movie . Look quickly to Nancy Olson , Linda Blair , Sid Caesar, Beverly Garland , Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller , Ben Stiller's father , among others . And , of course, appears the classic character Patroni played by usual George Kennedy . The motion picture was regularly directed by Jack Smight , habitual TV director and occasionally for big screen (Midway , Harper , No way to treat a lady) . It's an inoffensive diversion but is sometimes tediously unspooled and it was parodied heavily in Airplane! (1980) by Jim Abrahams and David Zucker . The film will appeal to Charlton Heston fans and disaster genre enthusiasts .

Just about every 1970s disaster cliché and typical cast member is present in this ludicrous, yet entertaining movie. The first of a long line of sequels to the original Airport from 1970, this film raises the bar in terms of ridiculous situations and casting of washed-up actors. One cannot however ignore the interesting scenario of an untrained person having to fly a jumbo jet if the entire crew somehow would become incapacitated.

Karen Black (an underrated talent) plays the lead stewardess on a 747 flight who has to take over the flying duties after a Cessna crashes into the cockpit and either kills or severely wounds the pilots. Luckily the script only calls for her having to make adjustments to the plane's course instead of actually bringing it safely into the gate! Instead, the plan is to lower a trained pilot from a jet helicopter into the 747 cockpit so he can make the landing. Of course there are complications involving sick passengers, fuel leaks, mountains, and finding a good rug for Charleton Heston to wear. Can this motley crew of actors bring the plane down safely?? I wonder.

You gotta love the casts of these kind of movies. I can take Cid Ceasar, Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson, and Linda Blair as passengers. I can hold my nose and accept Helen Reddy as a singing nun. The welcome sight of George Kennedy in some sort of administrative role certainly helps. But what in the world was former NFL quarterback Jim Plunkett doing on board? And sitting in coach, yet?? I guess he hadn't won a superbowl yet, so he didn't rate first class! 6 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

AIRPORT 1975

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)

Sound format: Mono

A terrified stewardess (Karen Black) is forced to take the controls of a Boeing 747 after it's struck by a private aircraft in mid-flight, incapacitating the entire air crew.

Anyone who's seen the likes of AIRPLANE! (1980) is going to chuckle in all the wrong places whilst viewing this opportunistic melodrama, which was ripe for parody long before the Zucker brothers tore it apart in their landmark comedy. On its own terms, Jack Smight's film - devised in the wake of such ultra-successful disaster spectaculars as THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) - is a surprisingly routine affair, directed with complete indifference, and played to the hilt by a commercially-dictated 'all-star cast', including Helen Reddy, Gloria Swanson (her final screen appearance), Linda Blair, Dana Andrews, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy and Charlton Heston as an experienced pilot summoned by authorities to help land the plane safely. Black gives a truly committed performance as the frightened stewardess forced to confront the situation head-on, and she's matched by disaster-movie stalwart George Kennedy as a flight engineer charged with overseeing the rescue operation, knowing that his wife and child are aboard the stricken plane. As with all Universal movies of the period, it looks like a widescreen TV feature, and the cheapskate production values are obvious throughout. That said, it's much more entertaining than its mediocre predecessor AIRPORT (1969); followed by AIRPORT '77 (1977).

When I was ten I dragged my poor mother along to see this dreadful movie, because at the time I was a bit of a fan of Helen Reddy (c'mon "Delta Dawn"'s still pretty cool!). I remember finding it rivetting. Now it is not only laughably bad, it's also pretty boring. In 1975 I had no idea who Gloria Swanson or Myrna Loy were - let alone Martha Scott or Nancy Olson. Now I mourn their presence in the film - why do they all have absolutely nothing to do!? Once the film gets going the only thing the writer and director seem to know to do with all this great talent is flash occasionally to them looking worried. I wonder what these great actors thought when they read the script - okay for fifty pages now all I say is "I'm sure we'll all be fine"!?! How on earth did Helen Reddy win the most promising newcomer award at the Golden Globes? For the last hour of the film her only line is "yes, dear"! And why was Linda Blair clutching a guitar desperately to her bosom if she couldn't play it? Obviously just in case a singing nun should happen to be passing by!

One of the funniest stories about this film is that the producers approached Greta Garbo to play the Gloria Swanson role. Can you imagine Garbo breaking her long retirement for this! Poor Gloria, playing herself in her final film, comes across as a pontificating know-it-all, boring her poor secretary senseless with stories of the "good old days". Myrna Loy has an occasional gleam in her eye when working with Sid Caesar, shame they couldn't think of any lines for her to say.

So, ignoring the true talent on board, most of the lines go to Charlton Heston at his teeth-gritting worst. Full marks to Karen Black for keeping a straight face, and allowing later film-makers so much to parody "Does anyone here know how to fly a plane?" (Airplane!). If you get a chance read the MAD send-up in which Linda Blair is flying "without a heart" and Helen Reddy sings a song called "We're all going to die and go to hell someday".

Did the Universal executives add the joke of naming the airline "Columbia"?

One final point - why do all those ugly old men have such beautiful young wives and girlfriends? Another film executive fantasy?

'Airport 1975' is an enjoyable follow-up to the vintage original, which see's a small aircraft collide with a 747,and leaves two pilots dead and one blinded,the amusing and often spoofed plot, has the gorgeous Karen Black, pilot the stricken craft via radio contact, Charlton Heston, plays Blacks love interest,Who comes to her aid.

There is a fine cast of character actors involved in this guilty pleasure look out for Jerry Stiller,( father of Ben Stiller) Linda Blair,who was probably cast in desperate attempt to shake off her Exorcist image, her performance is sickly sweet you would swear she would start spinning her head! Comedy Legend,Sid Caesar, provides some laughs as a loud mouth bit part actor, Myrna Loy,is the alcoholic,whom Caesar tries to woo, popular singer Helen Reddy, is cast as a nun, who provides the films many unintentional moments which arguably inspired 'Airplane!s many laughs,

Despite the film's slating's over the years, 'Airport 1975' is an enjoyable romp from the time-capsule that is the 70's,

As long as you accept that you are about to lose about an 1 hour and 46 minutes of your life because it is just another 1970 disaster film. It is great that there isn't any CGI or high expectations. It is just good old fashion bad acting and a bad script with lots of action.

It does become irritating after about 20 minutes and the 60th time the men call women "honey". If the script actually allowed the men to actually expand their vocabulary, it might be worth watching without rolling your eyes. I am willing to bet they use the phrase honey a couple hundred times.

However, this movie did inspire one of the best slapstick films, Airplane.

Airport '75 was definitely the funniest of that series. It was not as soap opera-esque as the original, nor was it as cheerless as '77.

Humorous elements abounded: The lewd young navigator (Erik Estrada, who at that point could not speak a word of Spanish, despite his seeming mastery of it here). The three obnoxious business passengers (Conrad Janis, Norman Fell, and Jerry Stiller; who would all later, as we know, go on to co-star in highly successful TV comedies) The hapless Cid Ceasar character, who only attended this flight to see the in-flight movie, which promptly broke right before his favorite scene.

The passenger areas look surprisingly comfortable, with ample space for individual passengers. Much better, it seems, than what we are subjected to today (the mid-seventies decor notwithstanding).

The mirthful subtones aside, this is a serious movie. The pivotal point happens when a small private plane goes astray, hitting the 747 right above the windshield. The navigator is killed, the co-pilot is sucked out through the hole (in a manner reminiscent of the commander of the imperial walker being pulled out by Chewbacca in "Return of the Jedi"; and the captain is incapacitated. Poor Nancy the Stewardess (Karen Black) must seize the controls!

It is up to Charlton Heston (before he became a conservative) and George Kennedy, with some help from friends in the U.S. Air Force, to save the day.

Verdict, hardly a brain challenger (If you want your brain challenged, read a book, I always say!) but worth seeing.

As guilty pleasures go, watching Airport 75 (forward thinkingly marketed and released in 1974) is top.

It's been so mercilessly spoofed by Airplane that's it's hard not to get confused like i did between the this and that. When the singing nun Helen Reddy started up I cried with laughter recalling the Zucker/ Abraham version.

They're just so damn sincere. Extra points go to Linda Blair who plays prostrate again. With a nun. You see what I mean? I was imagining all sorts of pressure inducing introductory exposition (5 days to retirement; we'll talk later; we're running out of beer, etc)

Still it's not all unintentional hilarity; once the plane gets hit and the drama unfolds it's a belter. Karen Black plays things beautifully so that you are convinced she can fly and have a nervous breakdown at the same time while her boyfriend (Heston sleepwalking) gave me goosebumps with his "climb baby climb!" I was rooting for her all the way. Even George Kennedy from Naked Gun got suitably intense.

100 minutes of high concept low budget (check out the exploding shed at the climax) camp hilarious fantasy nonsense it's brilliant rubbish to enjoy with mates.

If the near disaster in Airport (1970) wasn't harrowing enough then Airport (1975) should've done it.

Columbia flight 409 was redirected to Salt Lake City on its way to L.A. No worry, it's a small delay but nothing abnormal. At the same time a little twin prop plane was redirected to the same airport except on its way the pilot had a heart attack and collided with the big 747. Now the large jet is without a pilot and has a large hole in the cockpit.

This was a terrific movie as far as sequels go. They brought the same big production and the same intensity. At times it seemed Nancy (Karen Black) was a little too fragile but I can understand. I would have preferred a little less "honey" in reference to her. She was called honey more than she was called her name. This is not me being a feminist (I'm a male to begin with), just me being professional. On a job such as flight control or directing flight control, even if you are a spouse, you should use the person's name.

Professionalism aside this was a good movie.

Airport 1975, spoofed by the parody AIRPLANE! in 1980, has to be the quintessential action/disaster movie of the 1970's right up there with Towering Inferno. Repleat with a Who's Who of Hollywood name talent whose portraits probably appeared in little boxes on the original movie poster, although I don't know how you could fit them all! Everyone from Charleton Heston, George Kennedy (who made a career of playing in films like this) to Helen Reddy and Sid Caesar is somewhere in this film. Even Jim Plunkett, the pro-football quarterback, makes a cameo. This movie, three decades later, seems a laugh-a-minute, a riot in scenes where it's hard to believe the actors weren't on the verge of cracking up. I mean, can you really take this seriously? This film begged to be spoofed, although maybe it stands on its own! The lines and kooky characters alone are worth the price of admission, and most of them make an encore appearance in AIRPLANE! (by different actors). Does a typical group of airline passengers really look like this? But that's what makes it fun and impossible to take soberly. The big question is this: if the filmmakers were attempting to make a thought-provoking disaster movie, where did these guys go to screen-writing school? Screen writing for Dummies? Unless they were writing for laughs all along and we the audience were so dumb we thought we were watching a serious film.

Let's look at the characters. This is utterly fantastic. You've got the full-of-herself over-the-top movie star, Gloria Swanson, playing herself essentially. You know the type "Dahhhling" with the long cigarette holders. A couple of nuns, one of whom just happens to sing, of course, care of Helen Reddy. A couple of Hari-Krishnas. A sick girl flying to an operation. Old drunk guys, care of Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller, constantly asking the stewardesses for more booze. Actually, at one point, the entire coach sections get shamelessly sloshed! I guess who wouldn't knowing your plane might crash! A boy and his mother who just happen to be the son and wife of the director of operations of the airline. Stewardesses who are not only drop-dead gorgeous but are the kindest people you've ever met on an airline. And the pilots, one of whom named Julio played by a young Eric Estrada who can't seem to stop flirting with the stewardesses.

And now we have the even-better part: the lines! Eric Estrada says at the beginning of the movie after seeing some of the beautiful stewardesses "That's why I love my job." Or how about the hot-headed George Kennedy "It's the only chance we've got!" The TV reporter has some of the best: "The plot thickens!" And of course, Helen Reddy sings for, you guessed it, the little sick girl, played by Linda Blair who always played sick girls in the 1970's. That was so embarrassingly bad, I had to fast-forward it. Heston's line at the end of the movie will have you rolling over the floor.

When you watch this, are we really supposed to believe this is to be taken seriously? The action-packed thriller that never let's up on lame but memorable lines or its crazy memorable characters! We spend more time on the plane than at the airport, and yet is called "Airport 1975". That about says it all. This should have been called AIRPLANE.

A 747 jet in flight is struck by a smaller plane, leaving a large gaping hole in its cockpit, and nobody left to fly it except for one very nervous stewardess (Karen Black). Old reliable Charlton Heston heads this all-star cast, though most of the others collecting a paycheck weren't very big. We've got passengers like Jerry Stiller, comedian Sid Caesar, Gloria Swanson (playing herself), Norman Fell, Helen Reddy (playing a singing nun with a guitar), Linda Blair (as a sick girl awaiting an urgent kidney transplant), Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Dana Andrews, and yes - that's even Heston's gal Nova from PLANET OF THE APES (as Ms. Swanson's secretary; she changed her name from Linda Harrison to "Augusta Summerland" for this flick).

Heston is a pilot who's in love with stewardess Black, though not on board at the time of the tragedy. When she gets into a heap of trouble it's up to Chuck to help her fly the airplane herself by talking her through it over the radio. The scene in which the two interact nervously while Heston's attempting to guide her through the mechanics of flying is one of the best and most tense moments in the picture. George Kennedy is on hand as the head of the airline and he works with Heston feverishly every step of the way. Ultimately they have no choice but to attempt a mid-air transfer to place a pilot inside the wrecked 747.

Thanks in part to Heston's heroic presence, AIRPORT '75 is, for me, the most enjoyable of all the AIRPORT movies (which may not be saying much). There was a time back in the '70s where a book called THE GOLDEN TURKEY AWARDS nominated this movie as "one of the worst of all time", and like many other entries in that misguided guide, this is just not the case. AIRPORT '75 may not be a good film, but it's entertaining and there are far worse. CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79, for instance. **1/2 out of ****

"Airport 1975" is a decent time waster of a disaster film. It has all the ingredients in place. First we meet all of the characters in the "all star cast" and, refreshingly, not too much time is spent wasted on this. Just enough to get to know them some before moving on to the main action. The disaster itself is a plane collision between a twin engine (who pilot has suffered a heart attack) and a 747. Despite the fact that the film telegraphs the event for a good 20 minutes before it occurs, the actual scene of the crash is well done.

Karen Black plays the head stewardess who must take control of the plane as the entire cockpit crew has either been severely injured or killed. She spends the rest of the movie trembling and scared as she tries taking instructions from voices on the other end of the radio. I found this section silly since it would seem to me that if something like that were to really happen I would imagine a head stewardess would be able to handle this a little easier. But she can't which gives the director an excuse to bring in Charlton Heston to be the hero. Without this device he would simply stand around and look concerned much like George Kennedy does. It doesn't hurt that a convenient plot point has Heston and Black as lovers on the verge of splitting up. Gee, I wonder if you can guess what happens.

I won't reveal anything further and let you watch and discover for yourself. The film is okay and nothing more. It's well below the wonderful original (which had flaws of its own) but a step up from "Airport 77" and a classic compared to the awful "Concorde - Airport 79". The effects are decent and the exteriors of the airplane are terrific because it is obvious a real 747 was used. One of the problems with the original was the exterior shots of the plane never looked real.

The performances are adequate to embarrassing. Heston and Black head the cast. Kennedy looks bored because he is given little to do. Of the passengers only Gloria Swanson playing herself is memorable. Linda Blair and Helen Reddy (as a singing nun!) are forgettable.

During the course of this entry into the "Airport" franchise, a 747 collides with a private plane, causing some major damage and killing some of the flight crew. (One guy is sucked out through the resulting hole, in a moment probably not intended to be so hilarious.) It's up to the senior stewardess, Nancy Pryor (Karen Black), to take the controls when the Captain (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) has his vision impaired. Fortunately, Nancy has old pros such as franchise stalwart Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) and Alan Murdock (Charlton Heston) to talk her through the necessary steps to navigating through mountains and maintaining a somewhat steady flight.

The assortment of big stars here is gloriously goofy. Legendary Gloria Swanson actually plays herself, in her final feature film. Sid Caesar plays a guy who only took the trip because he wanted to see himself act in the in-flight movie. He also spends a lot of his time chatting up a drink-loving Myrna Loy. Linda Blair is a sickly teenager being transported to a critical operation in another city. (And, of course, time is of the essence in her case.) Helen Reddy is particularly amusing as a singing nun; she also composed the song that she sings here.

And that's not to leave out all the other familiar faces making appearances along the way: Susan Clark, Dana Andrews, Roy Thinnes, Ed Nelson, Nancy Olson, Larry Storch, Martha Scott, Norman Fell, Jerry Stiller, Conrad Janis, Beverly Garland, Linda Harrison from "Planet of the Apes", Guy Stockwell, Erik Estrada, Kip Niven, Christopher Norris, Austin Stoker, et al. Black does a capable job of holding things together, although she sure has some of the funniest "screamy" faces this viewer has ever seen. Heston is typically solid as a rock. And Kennedy is entertainingly volatile, going so far as to throttle pushy reporter Storch.

If any of this sounded recognizable, it should: this movie had to have influenced the later spoof "Airplane!" just as much as the 1950s thriller "Zero Hour!". It *is* a good premise, although the more genuinely thrilling and action packed later portions of the movie tend to battle it out with the ridiculous dialogue, situations (one lady actually snuck her dog onto the flight!), and characters.

A decent comical entry into this series.

Six out of 10.

An American thriller; A story about in-flight collision which incapacitates the pilots of an airplane bound for Los Angeles. Groundstaff talk an air stewardess through piloting and landing the 747 aircraft while passengers aggravate the already tense atmosphere. The cast is nearly as stellar as the first film in the series, and this time we are treated to some good aerial photography. The dialogue fails to land safely in most scenes and is very corny in others but the plot is rather a good one.

The original Airport was essentially a melodrama set in an airport, with the disaster element no more than a plot strand. But I imagine that the studio heads must have noticed that it was the section featuring the nervous passenger clutching a briefcase that the audiences liked best. And for this reason, in Airport 1975, there's little in the way of airport and it is instead disaster mayhem all the way! For this reason, this film and its immediate follow up, are the best in the series for me, as they just cut to the chase and give us what we all want from this franchise.

In this one a Boeing 747 is hit mid-flight by a private jet, resulting in the deaths or incapacity of all the front air crew, leading to the stewardess to fly the plane. Its gloriously high-concept stuff, with Charlton Heston on hand as the hero who has to be dropped into the plane seven miles up in the sky in order to save the day. Like the best disaster movies, the cast is an ensemble of stereotypes, including a singing nun, Linda Blair as a critically ill child and George Kennedy chewing up the scenery as chief engineer Joe Patroni. What makes this one so extra entertaining though, is that so much of it is genuinely unintentionally hilarious - its this instalment above all others we have to be thankful for the comedy classic spoof Airplane! A particular favourite scene of mine being the part where the nun picks up Linda Blair's acoustic guitar and knocks out a tune. For 70's disaster film fanatics, this is an absolute must.

I love 70's disaster films. I love movies that are unintentionally funny. I love bad acting and shoddy production values. I love Karen Black. Throw in a lil' Linda Blair, Beverly Garland, Myrna Loy, Helen Reddy, Jerry Stiller, and a host of other "fine" actors and ya got this laugh-fest. Nuff said.

So, I made a commitment to get rid of any movie from my collection that scored less than a 5 on my scale. I have too many good movies to watch a bad movie a second time. Well, I guess that means this is a good movie, because I want to keep it.

The effects in this movie are shockingly bad. Why bother making the movie and assembling this awesome cast to make it a joke with terrible special effects? If you can make it past Helen Reddy 'The Folk Nun', then you are probably about to tap out at the halfway point. It was particularly hard for me to accept that Karen Black's hair never moved in a cock pit with a hole in the side... or that it got dark outside after the accident for 10 minutes, then had midday sun for the rest of the film... Here's an easy one to fix - someone needed to wipe down sweaty Charlton Heston in his first scenes. How does a production team miss something like that? I mean, Chuck Heston was sweating like Moses in the desert, there was water accumulating on the floor, Karen Black was getting wet just standing in the frame - and no one cuts to get him a towel and some ice? I guess you can say this production seemed a little rushed...

But, hang in there - 'Airport II' redeems itself. George Kennedy is hilarious in how seriously he takes this ridiculous recurring role he found for himself. Karen Black is amazing, and she's worth the 90 minutes.

Also, most of the jokes from the movie 'Airplane' originate from this film. So, it's culturally significant, in spite of itself.

RealReview Posting Scoring Criteria: Acting - 1/1 Casting - 1/1 Directing - 0.5/1 Story - 1/1 Writing/Screenplay - 1/1

Total Base Score = 4.5

Modifiers (+ or -) Cinematography: 1 Technical Effects/Make Up: -1 Cultural Significance: 0.5

Total RealReview Rating: 5