The Concorde... Airport '79

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.

In the beginning, there was "Airport", an A-list, ultra-slick adaptation of a best-selling book, nominated for multiple Oscars (including Best Picture!) Then came "Airport 1975" with too much humor (intentional and unintentional) and Karen Black flying a damaged 747. "Airport '77" had a private plane sinking beneath the ocean while rich passengers dropped like flies. In an inane attempt to continue the exploitation of the original film (and cash in on the notoriety of the then-new Concorde, the fastest commercial plane ever), this film came along and ended the series for good. A year later, "Airplane!" would slam the coffin lid and seal it with it's hysterical sending up of the many clichés of the air-disaster genre. Here, Wagner is a high-powered industrialist who's been selling arms to enemies of the U.S. When his reporter mistress Blakely is informed of this, he tries kill her. After she boards the Concorde en route to Moscow, he (ludicrously) decides to pull out every stop in the book to demolish the aircraft, even though it is full of Olympians, TV journalists, music legends, human organs and little old ladies who can't stay out of the bathroom! The entire film is both stagnant and simultaneously uproarious at the same time. The director, writer, editor and the actors can't seem to get ANYTHING right! (See Blakely's ridiculously unconvincing newscast in which she never once looks into the camera and in which clips from events AS THEY ARE HAPPENING IN REAL TIME parade across the screen.) It also contains some of the most abominable blue-screen and model special effects ever to be seen in a major studio film. The cast of the film is huge and full of names, though most of them are given, literally, nothing to do but embarrass themselves. Wagner looks very tired and hardly bothers to vary his facial expressions. Blakely works hard but is defeated by the stupidity of the character and the script. Kennedy (the one actor who was in all four films) is promoted to Captain this time, but is reduced to cracking crude sexual jokes and (in the film's most celebratedly lunatic scene) cracking open the cockpit window and shooting off a flare! Haggard, former screen-god Delon as another pilot tries to beat preposterous dialogue like, "Your hair is my french fries" in his affair with sex kitten stewardess Kristel (whose calf-length uniform has a split up to her thigh!) Other oddities include McCambridge spouting a dreadful Russian accent and flouncing around in curtain-like tops as a gymnastics coach, Walker as a pot-smoking sax player, Lewis as a jazz legend (!) who feels she may be losing it, Schreiber as a Russian coach with a deaf daughter (at least she can't hear Lewis singing!) and Raye as a grandma with a bladder control problem (first dentures and now this?! What? Did June Allyson turn the part down?) Special mention must be given to the side-splitting appearance of Tyson as a mother escorting (!) a frozen heart to her dying son. (Since when do parents go off and collect organs while their kid is expiring somewhere else??) In an apparent attempt to disappear from this rancid film, she hides her face under every imaginable object. Already buried under Victoria Principal's fright wig from "Earthquake", she uses hankies, a clutch purse, blankets, ANYTHING to obscure her face from being seen, eventually turning away from the camera entirely! The endless cast list also contains Albert as the airline owner and Danning as his trophy wife, Davidson as a reporter, Charo as a pushy passenger attempting to stowaway a Chihuahua and Marcovicci who gets another special mention. Unbelievably, she plays a 24 year-old gymnast (!) going for her third gold medal, which is crazy enough except that she was 31 in real life! Just one more nutty aspect of this thoroughly retarded film. Perhaps the most bizarre of all is the fact that the plane goes through several traumas, spinning violently and nearly crashing, yet after a layover in Paris, virtually every single passenger GETS BACK ON! As if things weren't bad enough, the Olympics that were pushed so heavily in this movie wound up being boycotted that year by the U.S., so the whole film was outdated before it was even released anyway! Good for a few laughs, but worthless as drama.

One year before the hilarious Airplane! this film was released on an unsuspecting public. Its easy to see what fueled the Zucker brothers to lampoon the Airport series so shamelessly. Let's look at the cast: George Kennedy, Alain Delon, Robert Wagner, Susan Blakely..not bad so far. Not so fast, because in come the supporting cast: Mercedes McCaimbridge (as a Russian gym instructor), Martha Raye, Jimmie Walker (!), Sylvia Krystel ( as a stewardess ), Avery Schreiber, and Bibi Andersson (as a prostitute). The plot has pot holes that would do Ed Wood proud. It is so bad dramatically that it plays like a comedy. And funny it it...very very funny. Watch this on a double bill with Airplane!

Some slack might be cut this movie due to the fact that it was made in 1979. That much said, it really is pretty dire.

Never mind the laughable back-projection or the awful, awful camera-tracking of supposed "in-flight" objects, it's the stunts that the Concorde pulls off that will have you blinking in disbelief at the absurdity. Barrel-rolls, loop-the-loops and violent "evasive" maneuvers left me wondering why the Air-Forces of the world didn't just fly Concordes as their main fighters.

So, here are the important lessons I learned from this celluloid cheese-fest:

1. The Concorde is at least as agile as a Phantom 4 jet-fighter.

2. You can fire a flare gun at Mach 2 simply by opening the cockpit window and sticking your arm out.

3. If the flare gun fails to discharge, do not drop it, as it may then go off.

4. The Concorde can dodge up to two Sidewinder missiles fired at it at once.

5. A flare will distract a heat-seeking missile every time.

6. Switching off your jet-engines is a sure-fire way of throwing heat-seeking missiles off track if 5 (above) fails.

7. When performing a crash-landing in the Concorde, it is apparently impossible to jettison your fuel beforehand.

8. Concorde pilots are all combat-trained veterans.

As you might imagine, this film is not very realistic. The effects are primitive by today's standards and that, coupled with the nonsense acrobatics the Concorde performs, makes this a movie deserving of little but scorn.

Not recommended. Not recommended at all!

It's stupid fun idk why this got all of the hate. Sure it's flawed in many aspects but I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe the flaws made it feel very fresh for me. I think this a hidden gem and I won't care the mid 00s elitist ratings and spread the love for it.