Airport 1975
Tags: suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
Columbia Airlines' Flight 409 is a red-eye Boeing 747-100 en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport. One of the passengers on board is a teenage girl named Janice Abbott (Linda Blair) who is sceduled to have a kidney transplant in L.A. and she is being wheeled onto the plane on a stretcher. Another passenger is the actress Gloria Swanson (herself) going to L.A. for another movie deal. Barney (Sid Ceasar) and Bill (Norman Fell) are two gambling friends whom are planning just another good time in California. Also on board are two nuns named Sister Beatrice (Martha Scott) and Sister Ruth (Helen Reddy) whom take pitty on the ailing Janice and Sister Ruth borrows a guitar and sings a song for Janice and the rest of the passengers.Meanwhile, Scott Freeman (Dana Andrews) is a businessman living in Santa Fe, New Mexico with an urgent sales meeting in Boise, Idaho. Failure to make this meeting threatens half his sales commissions for the coming year. He is en route in his private Beechcraft Baron.However, an occluded storm front has the entire West Coast socked in, with Los Angeles reporting zero visibility. That not only affects the Columbia flight but also precludes Freeman making his meeting in Boise. Both flights are diverted to Salt Lake City International Airport.Freeman's small plane and the giant Boeing 747 enter Salt Lake's entry pattern. Air traffic control assigns the jumbo to enter the pattern first at a low altitude of 10,000 feet, followed by the Beechcraft. As Columbia 409 is making its final approach, the co-pilot and First Officer Urias (Roy Thinnes) feels a vibration on one of the adjacent panels and rises to check it out. Freeman, anxious about his missed meeting, makes a call to the Salt Lake Tower asking about the delay. The tower confirms that he is second to land after the big jet. Freeman suddenly suffers a massive heart attack. As he grabs his chest, the Baron falls out of the pattern and descends into the approach of Columbia 409.The Beechcraft impacts the flight deck just above the co-pilot seat. Freeman is instantly killed by the impact as his small plane explodes. First Officer Urias, still standing, is instantly blown from the cockpit. Navigator and Flight Engineer Julio (Erik Estrada) is struck on the head by debris and killed. Captain Stacey (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) is struck in the face by debris and is blinded.The impact knocks a male flight attendant from the upper lounge down to the cabin below. Nancy Pryor (Karen Black), the head flight attendant, rushes up to the flight deck to find Urias gone, Julio dead, and Stacey badly maimed. Fortunately, the captain is able to engage the autopilot and the altitude hold switch to keep the aircraft in the air before losing consciousness.Nancy informs the Salt Lake control tower that the crew is dead or badly injured and that there is no one to fly the plane. She is told to stay on the same radio frequency. Nancy gives the assessment of the damage as a large hole on the starboard side of the flight deck that wiped out most of the instrument gauges over the engineer station.Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), Columbia's Vice President of Operations, is apprised of Flight 409's situation. He seeks the advice of Captain Al Murdoch (Charlton Heston), Columbia's chief flight instructor, who also happens to be Nancy Pryor's former lover. Patroni takes a personal intrest in Flight 409 because his wife (Susan Clark) is on board the plane with their eldest son.Patroni and Murdoch take the airline's executive jet to Salt Lake City. En route, they communicate with Nancy, who is still in the cockpit in the pilot's seat. While the autopilot is keeping the aircraft in level flight, it is inoperable for turns. Something has to be done, as the jet is heading into the Wasatch Mountains. After successfully guiding Nancy by radio on how to perform the turn, radio communications are interrupted and the Salt Lake tower is unable to restore contact.With the low-flying plane unable to turn, leaking fuel, and dodging the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains, an air-to-air rescue attempt is undertaken from a jet-powered HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant helicopter flown by the USAF Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service. While the pilot is preparing to be released on a tether, it becomes apparent that Flight 409 is heading straight into the side of a mountain. With radio communications still out, Nancy flies the plane unaided.The badly wounded Captain Stacey is able to give a cryptic clue regarding the decrease in airspeed during a climb in altitude. Nancy realizes that she must accelerate the engines to be able to climb over the mountain and successfully does so. After Flight 409 has leveled off, the pilot is released on a tow line from the helicopter towards the stricken airliner. Just as Nancy is helping him in, the release cord from his harness becomes caught in the jagged metal surrounding the hole in the cockpit. As he climbs in, his harness is released from the tether and he falls to his death.The only other person on the helicopter who can land a 747 is Captain Murdock. He is tethered to the rear of the helicopter, lowered to the jet and successfully enters it through the hole in the cockpit. Despite the controls being smashed and with serious damage to the landing breaks, he then lands the plane safely at Salt Lake City Airport, where the flight attendants successfully conduct an emergency evacuation of the passengers via the inflatable slides on the left side of the 747. Patroni is reunited with his wife and son, and Nancy and Captain Murdock walk away from the damaged plane.

Review: 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!
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.
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.
'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,.
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..
Even if we were to suspend rational thought long enough to accept the idea that a collision that sucks out the first officer wouldn't be accompanied by enough pressure to suck out the entire flight crew and maybe the back wall of the flight deck, the fact that everyone just sat there, bundled up in their coats and cheesy purple airline blankets, while "THE STEWARDESS IS FLYING THE PLANE?" (thank you, Sid Caesar) is still hilarious to comprehend.Now, lest I give away the Cheez Whiz ending too much, let me just say that I don't understand why, if everyone else got shoved out the inflatable ramps, Karen Black and Charlton Heston were allowed to promenade dramatically down the regular steps to the tarmac (ah, those days before jetways).Anyhoo, this one is better experienced than described.
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) .
Filmed at the height of the disaster genre from the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series profits of 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 .
AIRPORT 1975 Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)Sound format: MonoA 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!
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.
Chuck full of stars...cross eyed beauty Karen Black, Moses himself Charlston Heston, demon possessed Linda Blair, lesbian singer Helen Reddy, CHIP'S Erik Estrada, 3's company Normal Fell a.k.a Mister Roper, screen legend Gloria Swanson in her last role, etc.
Among the other cast members are Myrna Loy, Linda Blair, Erik Estrada, Gloria Swanson, Sid Caesar, Norman Fell, Helen Reddy (as a singing nun), and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. This was Swanson's last movie.
Although Karen Black played several characters with angst or anxiety and innocent charm during that the 70s there's no reason to think she couldn't land the damn plane herself like the flight attendant does in the 1997 film, Turbulence..
This is instigated by Charlton Heston, who also happens to be the man Black has been estranged from for some time), and professional troubleshooter Joe Patroni (George Kennedy, reprising his role from the original film, with help from Utah's Hill Air Force Base.
With Black's help, he manages to get the plane in line for a landing in Salt Lake City, going through steep mountainous terrain at 400 miles per hour, while the usual gaggle of all-star passengers (including Sid Caesar, Linda Blair, Jerry Stiller, Normal Fell, Myrna Loy, Helen Reddy, Gloria Swanson, and others) watches and waits.As with its predecessor and the two Airport films still to come, AIRPORT '75 has a lot of clichés that would nauseate a whole lot of critics.
Kennedy, as always, does his usual tough thing well in reprising his role as Patroni; and Susan Clark is good in a significant supporting role as his wife, who just happens to be on the plane in peril.Given that any kind of mid-air collision, even with just a small plane, would be enough to bring any other jet down to the ground, both Jack Smight (who directed the 1966 crime classic HARPER) and screenwriter Don Ingalls have to somehow cause the old suspension of disbelief stimuli to kick in with respect to this film's plot line.
(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.
For anyone who's seen that episode of 'Family Guy' where Peter is sent by Death to kill the cast members of 'Dawson's Creek' on an airliner and Karen Black lands the plane, this is the source of that reference!Now, on to the film!As a disaster movie, 'Airport 1975' is not that bad.
(long before lending his voice to Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred), Helen Reddy as a singing nun (it's not as bad as it sounds), Linda Blair (post-'Exorcist') and even screen icon Gloria Swanson in her final film role.Certainly not the most complex of the 'Airport' films and certainly not the worst - if you're looking for something to thrill you and you're not taking a flight the next morning, then watch this!!.
It almost reminded of a Love Boat episode with all the recognizable faces and the like, but it was campy fun anyway, especially the scenes with the entertaining George Kennedy, Jerry Stiller(Frank Costanza), Myrna Loy, Norman Fell, Erik Estrada, Conrad Janis, Gloria Swanson, Sid Caesar, Karen Black, and Charleton Heston to name quite a few.
Title: Airport 75 was release in theaters on October 18, 1974 starring Charlton Heston, Karen Black, and George Kennedy, was a 1974 disaster film and the first sequel to the successful 1970 hit Airport.
Its plot devices and characterizations, including a singing nun (Helen Reddy), a former glamorous star (Gloria Swanson as herself), an alcoholic (Myrna Loy), a child in need of an organ transplant (Linda Blair) and a chatterbox (Sid Caesar) were parodied in 1980's Airplane!.
Charlton Heston as the 747-trainer, Karen Black as the heroic stewardess, George Kennedy as the gutsy airline chief, Gloria Swanson as well herself!, Susan Clark as the lady with the wig, Linda Blair as the annoying poor sick kid, Helen Reddy as the singing nun and the 'who's who' cast Myrna Loy, Sid Caesar, Martha Scott, Ed Nelson, Jerry Stiller, Nancy Olson, Augusta Summarland, Roy Thinnes, Efrem Zimbalist JR, and Erik Estrada.I rate it 4/5.
Airport 1975 gets as many as four stars for the nice special effects and for the efforts of a whole lot of high priced talent headed by Charlton Heston to keep a straight face while getting through this improbable story.Karen Black who's Heston's gal pal is the chief stewardess on a transcontinental flight when Dana Andrews's private plane hits it midair as Andrews suffers a heart attack.
But this is the movies folks.The usual collection of high priced talent is on the passenger list and several generations of Hollywood are represented by people from Gloria Swanson playing herself to young Linda Blair as a kid who is flying to Los Angeles for a kidney transplant and is critically off her dialysis machine for the duration of the flight.
Some audiences start laughing the minute the two planes collide, while episodes involving a singing nun (Helen Reddy), a kidney patient en route to a transplant (Linda Blair), a movie star (Gloria Swanson, playing herself) and two bantering oldsters (Myrna Loy and Sid Caesar--she drinks, he flirts) are the perfect fodder for parody.
The captain is injured and the rest of the crew is dead, leaving only cross-eyed stewardess Karen Black to fly the plane while VP of Operations (and AIRPORT returnee) George Kennedy tries to find a way to transfer 747 pilot Charlton Heston to the crippled jumbo jet mid-air.
The many subplots and "who's who" guest star appearances like Gloria Swanson playing herself, an alcoholic Myrna Loy, Sid Caeser as a talkative passenger who only boards the plane to see an in-flight movie, and Helen Reddy as a guitar-playing nun who serenades sick girl Linda Blair (in a scene much parodied in the film AIRPLANE!) are rather cheesy now, often laughable to some.
This is the first sequel in the Airport franchise.A small airplane collides with Boeing 747 in the air killing the co-pilot and the flight engineer and injuring the captain.Now the first stewardness, Nancy Pryor has to fly the plane.Jack Smight's Airport 1975 (1974) is an entertaining flick with many stars.Karen Black plays Nancy Pryor.Charlton Heston is Alan Murdock, her sweetheart on the ground (and later in the air).George Kennedy was seen in all these four movies as Joe Patroni.Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is Captain Stacy.Erik Estrada is Julio.
the flight engineer.Roy Thinnes is the co-pilot Urias.The silent movie legend Gloria Swanson plays herself.Another dame remembered from the silent movies, Myrna Loy plays an alcoholic named Mrs. Devaney.Linda Blair is a child in need of an organ transplant, Janice Abbott.Helen Reddy is a singing nun called Sister Ruth.Also George Wyner is seen as a passenger named Harry.It's pretty exciting to watch the attempt to get a man inside the plane.This is a disaster movie you don't want to miss out..
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.
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.
Just check out the hilarious cast:  Karen Black, Charlton Heston, Linda Blair, Erik Estrada (very young), Gloria Stewart (very old), George Kennedy, and, yes, that's Helen Reddy in the nun's habit.
The main stewardess (Karen Black) must take control of the plane while her boyfriend (Charlton Heston) tries to tell her how to get the plane down.AIRPORT somehow got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture but in my opinion it was a deadly boring movie with very little going for it outside of its wonderful cast.
Unintentionally funny sequel to "Airport" is set(as the helpful subtitle tells us!) in 1975, where a Boeing 747 is disabled when a private airplane crashes into the cockpit(the pilot had a stroke), killing the flight crew and blinding one pilot, forcing a stewardess(Karen Black) to fly the plane, though her boyfriend(also a pilot, played by Charlton Heston) who is helicoptered into the cockpit, and tries desperately to resume control of the plane, before it crashes.Cast also includes returning character Joe Patroni(George Kennedy) along with Susan Clark, Gloria Swanson, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Linda Blair, and Helen Reddy as a singing nun.
Compared to the original version of Airport and later aviation films (The Crash Landing of Flight 243, Flight 93) the sequels to Airport all ranged from silly to terrible - for all their faults perhaps one good thing of films today is that, like Flight 93, they are much more realistic...The acting in this sequel to the 1970 version of Airport was poor to fair - even the acting of George Kennedy, as dependable an actor as he's been, seemed to be automatic, in a sense - his 1970 role of Joe Patroni being the best...Swearing was absent in the 1970 film but not in the sequels - why screenwriters always believe that swearing is essential escapes me - the best television programs and films often "managed" to write award-winning scripts without the need for breaking one of the 10 Commandments - apparently Charlton Heston forgot what was told to him in his role as Moses...Helen Reddy's role as a singing nun (Julie Andrews had nothing to worry about) was ironic, considering she was the author and singer of the highly controversial "I am woman" just one year earlier...The only bright spot was perhaps the comedic acting of Sid Cesar and other comedians of their time, in their role as nervous passengers...Over all, a film not worth the Oscar that the 1970 film earned....
But I know, this is not a movie to ask questions of that kind, and Karen Black, the lady in the cockpit, really cannot do anything wrong for me.The passengers are very entertaining, especially Sid Caesar and veteran actress Myrna Loy. Gloria Swanson and Jerry Stiller are also memorable, and they all seem to have a really good time, disaster non withstanding.
From perhaps the most ungainly 'credit' line I've seen ("Inspired by the movie AIRPORT, based on the novel...") to poor comic relief from Sid Caesar (who deserved better)and Jerry Stiller (who, like much of the audience, sleeps through the entire picture...you think I'm kidding?)to Karen Black, who seems to be trying to make overacting an art form, and Charlton Heston, who has made overacting an art form, I pity poor George Kennedy for wasting his time even trying.
Karen Black steals the film (she can have it) as the panic-stricken stewardess who attempts to land the plane when "disaster" strikes.Save your time and just watch Airplane!
From terribly miscast Karen Black, to Linda Blair (fresh off her stint as Regan in "The Exorcist") to Gloria Swanson (not so fresh off of the great "Sunset Boulevard") to Charlton Heston and George Kennedy (alternating their time between this film, and the disaster classic "Earthquake," which the two were shooting simultaneously), this is an "all-star" film in every sense of the word!The premise of the film is actually an engaging one:  a stewardess trying to land a crippled 747 after a midair collision with a small plane, but the execution is where this film falters.
Charlton Heston turns in a good performance as well as Karen Black, playing Nancy Pryor, the stewardess that must get the plane down for a safe landing via help from the radios.