Airplane! [M]

Former fighter pilot and war veteran, Ted Striker, is haunted by fatal mistakes in his past that now prevent him from ever going near another plane. But that changes when he learns that his stewardess girlfriend, Elaine, is leaving him. In a last desperate attempt to get her back Ted boards a plane to Chicago, but the flight takes a turn when a number of the passengers, plus both pilots and navigator are hit with acute food poisoning. With time and fuel running out fast, it’s up to Ted to face the traumas of his past, land the plane, save lives, and win back the love of his life, all amidst the pressures of a deadly serious doctor, a nun, a little girl waiting for a new heart, and a pair of jive-talkin’ dudes. 

A parody of a string of disaster movies including Airport, Earthquake!, and Zero Hour, Airplane! (also known as Flying High) was acclaimed by the American Film Institute as “one of the top ten funniest films ever made” and years later, that statement still rings true. A film rich in sight gags, many a pun, loads of randomness, and homage to many disaster flicks, this movie rocks like a hurricane and stands as proof that some types of humour never go stale! 

Former fighter pilot and war veteran, Ted Striker, is haunted by fatal mistakes in his past that now prevent him from ever going near another plane. But that changes when he learns that his stewardess girlfriend, Elaine, is leaving him. In a last desperate attempt to get her back Ted boards a plane to Chicago, but the flight takes a turn when a number of the passengers, plus both pilots and navigator are hit with acute food poisoning. With time and fuel running out fast, it’s up to Ted to face the traumas of his past, land the plane, save lives, and win back the love of his life, all amidst the pressures of a deadly serious doctor, a nun, a little girl waiting for a new heart, and a pair of jive-talkin’ dudes. 

Right from the first shot of a cloudy night sky with the Jaws theme playing whilst the fin of an airplane skims sombrely through the cloud cover, you know you’re in for a fun ride. The gags only escalate from there with two jive-talkin’ black guys having subtitles onscreen whenever they speak, a stewardess singing merrily to a sick girl unaware that she’s accidently unhooked her drip, a sexually inflated and elated automatic pilot, and two girl scouts brawling in a seedy bar. Whilst half of the film’s humour is fairly obvious with the other half being downright weird, it nonetheless is pulled off with this innate balance and even sophistication, allowing some of the more close-to-the-bone and taboo moments to slide across the screen relatively seamlessly: the most prominent of these being the paedophilic remarks of the pilot to a little boy who wanted to see the cockpit. 

The performances are all great because they all work with a certain sincerity that makes the humour all the more hilarious. Whilst the two romantic leads, Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty, are quite generic in their roles to enjoyable effect, it’s people like Lesley Neilsen who play their roles with such flat frankness and subdued drama that makes this movie so funny. One of the most iconic lines comes from Nielsen: 

“Can you fly this plane and land it?” 

Ted Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious.” 

“I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley”. 

All said without the slightest hint of emotion, just dead calm and brutally frank. It’s brilliant! Everything that you could want in a dramatic disaster movie is here: a relationship on the rocks, post traumatic stress, dangerously sick kids, cowards who have to face their fears and become unlikely heroes, and all in a pressurised cabin cruising at 25000 feet! And amidst the many allusions to iconic films of the day (I’ve already mentioned Jaws), keep an eye out for the weird, but somehow unsurprising nod to The Godfather. 

Starring Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Lorna Patterson, Stephen Stucker, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jim Abrahams, Frank Ashmore, Jonathan Banks, Craig Berenson, and Barbara Billingsley, Airplane! is a brilliant funny movie filled with drama, action, disco, romance, a nun with a guitar, lessons in jive talk, and a choice of steak or fish. It's a movie that stands the test of time and doesn’t decay like so many other films of its type. This could be because the comedy is delivered with a certain restraint and steadfastness that keeps it within the company of more risqué films such as Scary Movie that uses the same conventions, but doesn’t let it get dragged down by crudity. The sight gags are up there with the likes of Mel Brooks, the puns are highly entertaining, and the dialogue is delivered with a great sincerity that just keeps the entire thing in the air. I thought this movie was brilliant!