Comics like Sid Caesar and Carol Burnett had been doing this sort of thing in TV skits for over 20 years, albeit in a less risque manner. But no one dared try it at movie length for fear of losing the audience after eight minutes. Happily, Airplane!'s creative team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker were hot at the time, and they hit their shots far more often than they tossed up air-balls. They also didn't mind if viewers occasionally winced at the movie's intentional idiocy, since another joke would be along in 6 or 7 seconds, and it stood a good chance of getting a laugh. Over-caffeinated pacing was everything.
It seems more than a little bit ridiculous to describe the "plot," but here goes nothing. Robert Hays plays Ted Striker, a former pilot whose wartime flying errors caused the deaths of seven men in his Air Force squadron. (Though the movie is set in the 80's, the flashbacks show him flying a World War II bomber!) This gives Ted a permanent case of the jitters. He can no longer fly a plane. Fittingly, his sweet, long-suffering girlfriend, Elaine (Julie Hagerty) is a stewardess, and she breaks up with him shortly before boarding a flight. So he buys a ticket and follows after her.
The plane is loaded to bursting with disaster movie cliches including a little girl who needs a heart transplant, a singing nun (Maureen McGovern), a square-jawed pilot (Peter Graves), a brilliant physician (Leslie Nielsen), and an athlete making a quickie appearance in a movie, even though he can't act (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.) Abrahams, Zucker, and Zucker mock the characters with an ongoing series of bad puns and ludicrous sight gags that quickly demolish your genre expectations.
Since Airplane! is a take-off (no pun intended) on such movies as Zero Hour! (1957), The Crowded Sky (1960), and the later Airport series, you know the entire crew will soon be struck down with a severe illness, leaving Hagerty and Hays to pilot the plane. This generates some of the better gags in the picture, as, back on the ground, hardened pros Kramer (Robert Stack) and McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) try to talk them through the process of landing the plane.
This was the one and only time America got to see Bridges sniff glue on camera, but both he and Stack were back on the show business map once Airplane! came out to rave reviews and big box office. Sometimes it pays to act the fool. (Airplane!, by the way, was the final film for stage and screen legend Ethel Merman, who, for a few scant seconds, plays a shell-shocked G.I. who thinks he's Ethel Merman. He was right.)
Leslie Nielsen's career, rather incredibly, was also revitalized by his role. It's shocking to note that, almost a quarter of a century later, there are viewers who see Nielsen only as that guy with the deadpan expression who'll do anything for a laugh. For many years leading up to this picture, he was a popular, deadly serious character actor; that was the whole point of casting him as an authority figure in Airplane!.
Watch closely the next time The Poseidon Adventure (1972) plays on TCM, and you'll notice Nielsen as the captain of the ill-fated ocean liner. He plays it completely straight, although maybe he shouldn't have. But at this point, everything he does (or did) seems thoroughly tongue-in-cheek. And at least we know his name now.
Written and directed by: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker
Editor: Patrick Kennedy
Music: Elmer Bernstein
Cinematographer: Joseph Biroc
Special Effects: Bruce Logan
Cast: Robert Hays (Ted Striker), Julie Hagerty (Elaine), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Murdock), Lloyd Bridges (McCroskey), Peter Graves (Capt. Oveur), Leslie Nielsen (Dr. Rumack), Lorna Patterson (Randy), Robert Stack (Kramer), Stephen Stucker (Johnny), Maureen McGovern (Nun), Ethel Merman (Lt. Hurwitz).
C-88m. Letterboxed.
by Paul Tatara
