Sort of, but not really a disaster movie - Airport

7/27/13 Airport, Best Supporting Actress, 1970

This was not the Airport I thought it was going to be; I thought it was the one with Charlton Heston and Karen Black, but it turned out to be the original and first one in what turned out to be a franchise with three other movies, and starred Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and Helen Hayes among others. It tells the story of the fictional Lincoln Field airport and Trans Global Airlines (TGA) during a blizzard. There's nothing overly complicated about the plot or the subplots, but not everything has to be Bergman or Fellini and make your head hurt.  There are a few different relationships that fall into subplots: Dean Martin and Jacqueline Bisset (most people are probably used to Dean Martin playing the straight man to Jerry Lewis, but he was pretty good as the self-assured, serious pilot); Burt Lancaster and Jean Seberg, Lancaster plays Mel Westerfeld, the airport manager, and Jean Seberg is Tanya Livingstone, customer relations for TGA; Maureen Stapleton and Van Heflin, the ill-fated Guerreros. George Kennedy is the cigar-chomping chief mechanic, Joe Patroni (he is in all four Airport movies - you'd think after 2 disasters, the airlines would have picked up on these coincidences and cut him loose). Helen Hayes played Ada Quonsett, and won an Academy Award for her role. When last we saw Helen Hayes, she and Gary Cooper were ruining my Saturday night, but she more than made up for that with this movie. The movie is mostly serious and many dramatic moments, but when Helen Hayes is on the screen, you are in for a treat; her timing, her inflections, her looks are priceless. I think she was much more effective using her comedic skills than in the heavy drama of Farewell to Arms, but that may just be my perception. Maureen Stapleton was also nominated for her role as Inez Guerrero, on the totally other end of the spectrum, and she was marvelous as well, but I didn't smile a whole lot when she was on screen. This is classified on Wikipedia as the first of the disaster movie genre, and but it is strange after watching The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, I watched this, and thought, eh, the disaster wasn't so bad (which is terrible, I know, but hear me out). In Inferno and Poseidon, the 'disaster' happens much earlier in the movie and the action is non-stop, and most of the movie is spent fixing or getting out of the disaster, and I recall that is the same for Airport 1975. In Airport, the narrative and relationships get to develop onscreen. The disaster doesn't happen until at least an hour into the movie (maybe even later) and compared to the three previously mentioned movies, the danger really wasn't as huge or serious. The lack of explosions and the low body count don't take away from the movie, I enjoyed it. The airport and its operations are a major character in the movie, which just so happened to be the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport; I don't know how much of the portrayal is true and accurate, but it seemed pretty realistic to me. The movie was made in 1970 and just as a time capsule, I thought it was fun to watch see all the old airlines that have long since disappeared; to see how airports themselves have changed, especially since 9/11, remember when your family could go to the gate with you? How about smoking on the plane? So foreign today, but common forty years ago. There is virtually no swearing in the movie, no gore, no sex scenes, some sexism that could be described as apropos to the era, so if you are looking for a family-friendly disaster movie (is that an oxymoron?), you can start with Airport.