Psycho's Movie Reviews #348: Airplane! (1980) + Airplane! 2 (1982)

-----------------------------------------------------------AIRPLANE--------------------------------------------------------------

Airplane! (alternatively titled Flying High!) is a 1980 American parody film written and directed by David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams in their directorial debuts, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Lorna Patterson. It is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows its plot and central characters, also drawing many elements from Airport 1975 and other films in the Airport series. It is known for its use of surreal humour and fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns, gags, running jokes, and obscure humour.

Released by Paramount Pictures, it was a critical and commercial success, grossing $171 million worldwide against a budget of $3.5 million. Its creators received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Comedy, and nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and for the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay.

Since its release, its reputation has grown substantially. It was ranked 6th on Bravo's '100 Funniest Movies'. In a 2007 survey by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, it was judged the second-greatest comedy of all time, behind Monty Python's Life of Brian. In 2008, it was selected by Empire magazine as one of 'The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time', and in 2012 was voted #1 on 'The 50 Funniest Comedies Ever' poll. In 2010, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Plot

Ex-fighter pilot Ted Striker is a traumatized war veteran turned taxi driver. Because of his pathological fear of flying and subsequent "drinking problem"—he splashes beverages anywhere but into his mouth—Ted has been unable to hold a responsible job. His wartime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson, now a flight attendant, breaks off her relation with him before boarding her rostered flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Ted abandons his taxi and buys a ticket on the same flight to try to win her back. Once on board, however, Elaine continues to reject him.

After the in-flight meal is served, the entire flight crew and several passengers fall ill. Passenger Dr. Rumack discovers that the fish served during meal service has caused food poisoning. With the flight crew incapacitated, Elaine contacts the Chicago control tower for help and is instructed by tower supervisor Steve McCroskey to activate the plane's autopilot, a large inflatable dummy pilot dubbed "Otto", which will get them to Chicago but not be able to land the plane. Elaine and Rumack convince Ted to take the controls. When Steve learns Striker is piloting, he contacts Striker's former commanding officer, Rex Kramer—now serving as a commercial pilot—to help talk Striker through the landing procedure. Ted becomes uneasy when Kramer starts giving orders and he briefly breaks down amid more wartime flashbacks. Elaine and Rumack both bolster Striker's confidence and he manages to once again take the controls.

As the plane nears Chicago, the weather worsens, complicating the landing. With Elaine's help as co-pilot and Rex's guidance from the tower, Ted is able to land the plane safely, despite the landing gear shearing off, and the passengers suffer only minor injuries. Rescue vehicles arrive to help unload the plane. Impressed by Ted's display of courage, Elaine embraces and kisses him, rekindling their relationship. The two watch as "Otto" takes control of the plane, inflates a female companion, and takes off.

Production

Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (collectively known as Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, or ZAZ) wrote Airplane! while they were performing with the Kentucky Fried Theatre, a theatre group they founded in 1971. To obtain material for comedy routines, they routinely recorded late night television and reviewed the tapes later primarily to pull the commercials, a process Abrahams compared to "seining for fish". During one such taping process, they unintentionally recorded the 1957 film Zero Hour!, and while scanning the commercials, found it to be a "perfectly classically structured film" according to Jerry Zucker. Abrahams later described Zero Hour! as "the serious version of Airplane!". It was the first film script they wrote, completed around 1975, and was originally called The Late Show. The script originally stayed close to the dialog and plot of Zero Hour!, as ZAZ thought they did not have a sufficient understanding of film at the time to structure a proper script. ZAZ's script borrowed so much from Zero Hour! that they believed they needed to negotiate the rights to create the remake of the film and ensure they remain within the allowance for parody within copyright law. They were able to obtain the rights from Warner Bros. and Paramount for about $2,500 at the time. The original script contained spoofs of television commercials but people who proofread it advised them to shorten the commercials, and they eventually removed them. When their script was finished, they were unable to sell it.

While failing to sell their script, the trio met director John Landis, who encouraged them to write a film based on their theatre sketches. They managed to put The Kentucky Fried Movie into production in the late 1970s, their first experience being on movie set. David Zucker said "it was the first time we had ever been on a movie set. We learned a lot. We learned that if you really wanted a movie to come out the way you wanted it to, you had to direct. So on the next movie, Airplane!, we insisted on directing".

Eventually the Airplane! script found its way to Paramount through Michael Eisner. Eisner learned of the script via Susan Baerwald, another scriptwriter with United Artists, and had Jeffrey Katzenberg track down and meet with ZAZ to discuss details. Avco Embassy Pictures also expressed interest in producing the film, but ZAZ decided to go with Paramount.

Paramount insisted the film be shot in colour rather than black-and-white as ZAZ wanted, and to be set aboard a jet airliner rather than propeller plane to better identify with modern filmgoers. In exchange, Paramount acquiesced to ZAZ's desire to cast serious actors for the film rather than comedy performers. Principal photography began on June 20, 1979, and wrapped on August 31, with the bulk of filming having been done in August. Jerry Zucker stood beside the camera during shooting, while David Zucker and Jim Abrahams watched the video feed to see how the film would look; they conferred after each take.

Casting

David Zucker explained that "the trick was to cast actors like Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges. These were people who, up to that time, had never done comedy. We thought they were much funnier than the comedians of that time were".

David Zucker felt Stack was the most important actor to be cast, since he was the "linchpin" of the film's plot. Stack initially played his role in a way that was different from what the directors had in mind. They showed him a tape of impressionist John Byner impersonating Robert Stack. According to the producers, Stack was "doing an impression of John Byner doing an impression of Stack". Stack was not initially interested in the part, but ZAZ persuaded him. Bridges' children advised him to take the part. Graves rejected the script at first, considering it tasteless. During filming, ZAZ had explained to Graves that his lines spoken to a young boy, like "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?", would "be explained later in a part that you aren't in". On the DVD commentary, Abrahams said: "I don't understand. What did he think was tasteless about paedophilia?".

For the role of Dr. Rumack, ZAZ initially suggested Dom DeLuise, Christopher Lee, and Jack Webb, all of whom turned it down, before they considered Nielsen, who was "just a fish in water" in his role, according to Jerry Zucker. Nielsen's career to this point had consisted mostly of serious leading roles but he wanted to work in comedy and was looking for a film to help in the transition. He was considered a "closet comedian" on set, pranking his fellow actors between shots, but immediately adopted his sombre, serious persona when performing as Rumack. During filming, Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro". Christopher Lee would later acknowledge that turning down the role (to star in the film 1941) was a huge mistake.

The role of Ted Striker was written for David Letterman, who had auditioned for a news anchor-man role in Kentucky Fried Movie. Letterman screen tested in 1979, but ultimately was not selected. Bill Murray and Fred Willard were also considered for the role. Caitlyn Jenner also read for the part. Instead, ZAZ opted for Robert Hays, co-star of ABC situation comedy Angie. Elaine's part was auditioned for by Sigourney Weaver and Shelley Long but eventually went to Julie Hagerty. The directors advised the pair to play their roles straight. Hays and Hagerty developed an on-screen chemistry that worked in the film's favour; they spent time to perfect the bar dance routine set to "Stayin' Alive", among other scenes.

For the "red zone/white zone" send-up of curb side terminal announcements in which public address announcers "Betty" and "Vernon" argue over the red and white zones, ZAZ went through the usual process of auditioning professional voice actors but failed to find ones who could provide the desired verisimilitude. Instead, the filmmakers ultimately sought out and hired the real-life married couple who had recorded the announcement tapes which were then being used at Los Angeles International Airport. ZAZ lifted some of their dialog directly from the 1968 novel Airport, written by Arthur Hailey who had also written Zero Hour!'s script. The lifted lines included ones about an unwanted pregnancy; David Zucker said the couple "got a kick out of it".

Music

The film's score was composed by Elmer Bernstein, who had previously provided soundtracks for classic films like The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Great Escape. ZAZ told Bernstein they did not want an epic score like his past works but "a B-Movie level score, overdone and corny". According to ZAZ, Bernstein completely understood what they were trying to do, had laughed throughout a previous cut of the film, and wrote a "fantastic score".

In 1980, an LP soundtrack for the film was released by Regency Records which included dialog and songs from the film. Narrated by Shadoe Stevens, it only featured one score track, the "Love Theme from Airplane!" composed by Bernstein. The soundtrack was altered for the European 'Flying High' release, with several featured tracks swapped for pieces original to the LP.

In April 2009, La-La Land Records announced it would release the first official soundtrack album for Airplane!, containing Bernstein's complete score. The soundtrack was released digitally on February 19, 2013, by Paramount Music.

Release/Reception/Box Office

Prior to the film's release, the directors were apprehensive following a mediocre audience response at a pre-screening, but the film earned its entire budget of about $3.5 million in its first five days of wide release.

Airplane! opened on June 27, 1980, in seven theatres in Toronto, grossing $83,058 in its opening weekend. It also opened in two theatres in Buffalo, grossing $14,000 in its first week. The film then expanded on Wednesday, July 2 to 705 theatres in the United States and Canada, grossing $6,052,514 in its first five days of wide release, finishing second for the weekend with a gross of $4,540,000. Overall, it grossed $83 million at the US and Canadian box office and returned $40 million in rentals, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1980. Worldwide, the film earned $130 million in its initial release, and by 2002 it had made $171 million.

Airplane! received universal acclaim from critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1980. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 97% based on 69 reviews, compiled retrospectively, with an average rating of 8.45/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Though unabashedly juvenile and silly, Airplane! is nevertheless an uproarious spoof comedy full of quotable lines and slapstick gags that endure to this day". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote "Airplane! is sophomoric, obvious, predictable, corny, and quite often very funny. And the reason it's funny is frequently because it's sophomoric, predictable, corny, etc." Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Airplane! is more than a pleasant surprise... As a remedy for the bloated self-importance of too many other current efforts, it's just what the doctor ordered".

In 2008, Airplane! was selected by Empire magazine as one of 'The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time'. It was also placed on a similar list—'The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made'—by The New York Times. In November 2015, the film was ranked fourth in the Writers Guild of America's list of '101 Funniest Screenplays'.

MaximOnline.com named the airplane crash in Airplane! as number four on its list of "Most Horrific Movie Plane Crashes". Leslie Nielsen's response to Hays' "Surely you can't be serious" line—"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley"—was 79th on AFI's list of the best 100 movie quotes. In 2000, the American Film Institute listed Airplane! as number ten on its list of the 100 funniest American films. In the same year, Total Film readers voted it the second-greatest comedy film of all time. It was also second in the British 50 Greatest Comedy Films poll on Channel 4, beaten by Monty Python's Life of Brian. Entertainment Weekly voted the film the "funniest movie on video" in their list of the 100 funniest movies on video.

A number of actors were cast to spoof their established images: prior to their roles in Airplane!, Nielsen, Stack, and Bridges were known for portraying adventurous, no-nonsense tough-guy characters. Stack's role as the captain who loses his nerve in one of the earliest airline "disaster" films, The High and the Mighty (1954), is spoofed in Airplane!, as is Lloyd Bridges' 1970–1971 television role as airport manager Jim Conrad in San Francisco International Airport. Peter Graves was in the made-for-television film SST: Death Flight, in which an SST was unable to land owing to an emergency.

Nielsen enjoyed a major career boost subsequent to Airplane!'s release. The film marked a significant change in his film persona towards deadpan comedy, notably in the three Naked Gun films: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988); The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991); and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994). The films were based on the six-episode television series Police Squad! which starred Nielsen and was created and produced by Zucker–Abrahams–Zucker. This also led to his casting, many years later, in Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Brooks had wanted to make the film for a long time, but put it off because, as he said: "I just could not find the right Dracula". According to Brooks, he didn't see Airplane! until years after its release. When he did, he knew Nielsen would be right for the part. When it was suggested that his role in Airplane! was against type, Nielsen protested that he had "always been cast against type before", and that comedy was what he always really wanted to do.

Budget $3.5 million

Box office $171 million

{The fact that this is a conversation coming from children makes it all the more funnier}

My Review

As echoes of "The white zone is for the loading and unloading of passengers only" echo in your head (especially when you hear this outside any airport when you arrive or leave), laughter automatically explodes. The script of this visual and verbal comedy is so overloaded with gags that you would think that a special Oscar would have been created to honour the geniuses who wrote this, the poster child for all spoofs of all genres, and this includes those by Mel Brooks, John Waters, Tim Burton, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner and Norman Lear.

A cast of very serious actors crack you up just by being serious and not cracking a smile as they say their lines. There's handsome Robert Hays as a very nervous fighting pilot, back from the war, dapper Peter Graves as the airplane's pilot who befriends a young visitor to the cockpit in a rather sick way that still creates howls, deep-voiced Leslie Nielsen as a monotoned doctor who doesn't want anybody calling him Shirley, Julie Haggerty as Hays' pretty but dim-witted stewardess girlfriend, Lloyd Bridges as a substance abuser air traffic controller, Robert Stack as Hays' former commander who has a surprise under his sunglasses, Lorna Patterson as Haggerty's co-worker who has a secret, and of course, Stephen Stucker as Bridges' very flamboyant secretary. There's a passenger who lay eggs through their mouths after eating tainted fish, a frantic passenger who is violently forced to calm down, a sweet old lady who speaks jive, an ailing little girl serenaded with hysterical results by the well-meaning Patterson, and of course, all sorts of religious fanatics at the airport who get a taste of their own medicine from the disgusted Hays.

Then, there are some surprise cameos, famous today, but unexpected in 1980. Ethel Merman's outrageous appearance must have delighted her upon learning what her part would be, and she tears it up as if she was still on Broadway belting an 11 O'Clock number. Fans of "Leave It to Beaver" will be thrilled to see Barbara Billingsley getting down and dirty as she goes totally urban, and T.V. favourite Ann Nelson (another cute little old lady) gets to show her feisty side as she deals with Hays' sob story.

Jokes range from corny to disgusting, but none of them are offensive. The "character" of "Otto" is a bit too much, however, and the gag is a bit overdone. But one small flaw out of thousands of little gems is nothing to gripe about. Bits and pieces of classic airplane movies dating back to "The High and the Mighty" (but mainly 1957's obscure "Zero Hour!") make this a must for fans of Hollywood history, and honestly, is really a must for anybody who likes a good laugh and a love of silliness.

I do like comedy and spoof movies, and Airplane! is one of the best examples of the genre. The film still holds up well after all these years, with skilful enough camera work, and the direction is smart. The story is simple but well-paced and fun, while the film's cast is a distinguished one. Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty are great leads, and Peter Graves, Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges look as though they are also having a whale of a time. But I will always remember this film for the late Leslie Nielson, whose comic timing is just genius, and the "don't call me Shirley" is one of comedy's most memorable and quotable moments. Where Airplane! succeeds most is in its humour. The script is brilliant and wickedly funny with very accurate spoofs and purposefully cringe-inducing puns that make me laugh anyway, and there are some inspired sight gags as well. All in all, a classic and how to do a spoof. 10/10

--------------------------------------------------------AIRPLANE! 2--------------------------------------------------------------

Airplane II: The Sequel (titled Flying High II: The Sequel in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and the Philippines) is a 1982 American parody film written and directed by Ken Finkleman in his directorial debut and starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, Chad Everett, William Shatner, Rip Torn, and Sonny Bono. A sequel to the 1980 film Airplane!, it was released on December 10, 1982.

The team who wrote and directed the original Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker) had no involvement with this sequel. Paramount, having faced a similar situation with Grease 2 earlier in that year, hired Finkleman, who wrote Grease 2, to write and direct Airplane II as well.

Plot

In the near future, the Moon has been colonized and supports a station on its surface. A lunar shuttle known as Mayflower One is being rushed to launch from Houston. The head of the ground crew, The Sarge, does not like what is occurring, but he defers to airline management.

On the flight crew are Captain Clarence Oveur, navigator/co-pilot Unger, and first officer/flight engineer Dunn. Also on board is computer officer Elaine Dickinson. Having dumped Ted Striker, Elaine is now engaged to Simon Kurtz, a member of the flight crew, and Ted has been committed to an insane asylum. He was declared mentally incompetent in a lawsuit following a test flight that Ted piloted and in which the lunar shuttle crashed. Ted believes the lawsuit was meant to silence him regarding dangerous safety issues related to the lunar shuttle. He is again haunted by his actions in "The War" – specifically the loss of his entire squadron above "Macho Grande" – resulting in a relapse of his "drinking problem". When Ted learns of the lunar shuttle's upcoming launch, he escapes the asylum and buys a ticket for the flight.

During the flight, Mayflower One suffers a short circuit, causing the artificially intelligent computer, ROK, to go insane and send the ship toward the Sun. Unger and Dunn try to deactivate the computer, but are blown out of an airlock. Oveur tries to stop ROK, but the computer gasses him. Simon abandons Elaine and leaves in the sole escape pod. Once again, Ted is called upon to save the day, but he must first figure out how to wrest control of the shuttle from the computer. Air traffic controller Steve McCroskey reveals that passenger Joe Seluchi had boarded with a bomb in a briefcase, intent on committing suicide to provide an insurance payout for his wife. Ted manages to wrestle the bomb from Joe, uses it to blow up ROK, and sets course for the Moon as originally intended.

The computer's destruction results in collateral damage to the shuttle; the flight is not yet out of danger. En route to the Moon, flight control shifts to a lunar base under the command of Commander Buck Murdock. Contemptuous of Ted because of Macho Grande, he nonetheless agrees to help and they manage to land the craft safely on the Moon. Ted and Elaine fall back in love and are married at the end. After the wedding, Joe looks into the cockpit and asks for his briefcase back.

A post credit message – "Coming From Paramount Pictures: Airplane III" – inspires Murdock to remark, "That's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!"

Release/Reception/Box Office

Variety remarked, "It can't be said that Airplane II is no better or worse than its predecessor. It is far worse, but might seem funnier had there been no original". Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, saying it "never really seems to know whether it's about a spaceship. It's all sight gags, one-liners, puns, funny signs and scatological cross-references".

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 42% based on 19 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Airplane II opened in the United States the same weekend as The Toy and 48 Hrs. and finished second for the weekend behind The Toy with a gross of $5,329,208 from 1,150 screens. Grosses dropped 45% the following week and the film went on to earn only $27.2 million in the United States and Canada, compared to the original's $83 million box office total.

Budget $15 million

Box office $27.2 million

My Review

So, I had never seen this movie uncut before, and it had never been my favourite of the two (it's still not). However, I still find the movie quite funny and underappreciated.

The problem, I think, that people have with it is that, yes, it does repeat a lot. But, I feel like what it's repeating is set ups while changing the actual punchlines to the jokes. That keeps the movie pretty fresh to me. It's still built around the same premise (in SPACE!!!!), but there's enough freshness to keep the experience afloat for me.

One of the centres of enjoyment is William Shatner coming in at the end to play Buck Murdock, the commander of the Lunar Base. He plays the same part as Captain Rex Cramer, talking Striker down on how to land, but Shatner plays the role fairly differently than Robert Stack did in the original. Stack is cool and collected, barely hiding is contempt for Striker. Shatner is nearly insane while playing up the Captain Kirk persona to create a heightened version of an already heightened character. There's one point, in particular, where the two do the same thing. At the end of both movies, Kramer and Murdock keep talking to Striker after he's left the cockpit. In the first, Kramer gets incredibly personal, talking about how his father beat him as a child, while Murdock goes on explaining out to land the shuttle on the Moon long after the thing has stopped moving.

The set ups are the same, but the actual content of the jokes are different, and I think it helps make it still work. It's not the most original way to approach a sequel, but I think it's still funny enough to enjoy.

How The Sequel Should Have Gone

The original creative team behind the first movie (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker) had no involvement in the sequel. Apparently the studio wanted the movie so soon after the success of the original that the trio (ZAZ) just simply refused to do it, knowing that it would be a disaster. It certainly was that, from a financial perspective. There's a reason there was never an Airplane 3.

However, while I do enjoy what the world got with The Sequel, I do think that those who made it went in the wrong direction.

I think the core of what makes the first movie work was the straight acting mixed with the super serious tone around the actual plot and then surrounded by silliness. It was the conflict between the seriousness of the actors with the ridiculousness of the events. That core could be applied to a lot of stuff, not just movies set on aircraft. In fact, if you step back and view that very specific sub-genre as just part of the disaster genre, it opens up a world of possibilities.

So, here's my idea for the real sequel: Airplane II: Towering Inferno!. Ted Striker has taken a job at an airline, been promoted so fast that now he's a VP and sits in an office of a tall skyscraper all day. There's a fire, and he has to work with Elaine Dickenson to get out. You can keep a lot of the same cast (it really shouldn't be hard to find an excuse to bring Lloyd Bridges back) as they perform similar roles in a new environment with completely new circumstances.

If that's successful, you follow it up with Airplane III: At Sea! where Striker, tired of all of the disasters he's experienced, goes on a cruise with Elaine and the ship rolls over and they spoof The Poseidon Adventure. That gets followed up by Airplane IV: Earthquake! where Ted moves to LA to try to work for the airline in a new job that keeps him low to the ground, but the city is hit by a massive quake. That then gets followed up by Airplane V: It's a Twister! where Ted moves to the middle of nowhere to escape the disasters that keep following him, but he's hit by a series of tornadoes that chase him around.

Hell, I think people would have been more excited about that list of sequels than the rethread they got (which, again, I do like). 7.6/10

{Idk why but my favourite joke in the two films is when Striker is telling his tragic backstory and whoever listens is so bored/depressed about him going on and on that they kill themselves. It's dark humour, which I like, but also the fact Striker himself doesn't acknowledge that they are dead, he just continues with his story}.

{Anyway here's a bunch of iconic moments from the two films}