They called them ZAZ team, the Zucker brother and Jim Abrahams, who brought us Kentucky Fried Movie in the early 70s are back to direct what is arguably the funniest spoof movie of all time. The script is primarily a word for word retelling of the 1950s film “Zero Hour” but with comedy infused into the story. It also spoofs many of the cheesy Airport movies, taking a scenario of disaster and coming out of it clean and heroic. Here is my take on Airplane:

The Players:

Robert Hays - Ted Striker
Julie Hagerty - Elaine Dickinson
Lloyd Bridges - Steven McCrosky
Leslie Nielsen - Dr. Rumack
Robert Stack - Capt. Rex Kramer
Peter Graves - Capt. Clarence Oveur
Lorna Patterson - Randy
Stephen Stucker - Johnny Hinshaw
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Roger Murdock
Barbara Billingsley - Jive Talking Lady

The Play:

Ted Stryker is an ex fighter pilot with ongoing shell shock from a doomed mission, he has vowed to never fly again. His ex love Elaine is a flight attendant on a jet plane on its way to Chicago. Ted desperately wants to win Elaine back and he buys a plane ticket on her flight.

As it happens, many of the passengers on the plane, including the flight crew, choose to eat fish for dinner and it turns out the fish causes food poisoning. Desperate to find someone to fly the plane, they recruit Ted to try and fly again.

Ted reluctantly agrees, but the demons of past failed fighter pilot missions continue to haunt him. With the help of Elaine by his side and the Chicago Air Traffic Control crew he perseveres and manages to get the passengers to their destination safely.

The Good:

This movie is funny with a capital F. It has so many gags and goofs along the way that it makes it seem like a 3 hour movie, the laughs are non stop and we can attribute that to the script and the great casting of big time actors into their most fitting roles.

Peter Graves of the old TV Mission Impossible as the always serious captain of the plane has a very monotonic role and that makes it amusing, the infamous meeting with him and a boy in the cockpit followed by serious and inappropriate question such as “ever seen a grown man naked?” and “ever been to a Turkish Prison” are just great gags. LA Laker great Kareem has a minor role but he has a couple of timely humorous moments. Leslie Nielsen, the spoof king, is a doctor on board, also very serious and one dimensional role, again very fitting the role as the film stays true to the dramatic aspects of the movie it spoofs. Robert Hays is hilarious and nutty, and Julie hagerty is sweet, innocent and clueless, Robert Stack of Unsolved Mysteries is a rough and rugged control tower chief and the great Lloyd Bridges is lost and discombobulated throughout the film in a great performance. Anywhere from the great actors to the child actors, the acting works well on any level, even Mrs. Cleaver of Leave it to Beaver talking jive to 2 brothers is priceless.

Acting aside, the movie’s claim to fame is humor and timing and the overabundance of great dialogue and one liners, here is a compilation of some of these scenes:

Ted Striker: My orders came through. My squadron ships out tomorrow. We're bombing the storage depots at Daiquiri at 1800 hours. We're coming in from the north, below their radar.
Elaine Dickinson: When will you be back?
Ted Striker: I can't tell you that. It's classified.

Captain Oveur:Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

Roger Murdock: We have clearance Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector Victor?
Tower voice: Tower's radio clearance, over!
Captain Oveur: That's Clarence Oveur! Oveur.
Tower voice: Roger.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Tower voice: Roger, over.
Roger Murdock: Huh?
Captain Oveur: Huh?

Rumack: Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oveur: I can't tell.
Rumack: You can tell me. I'm a doctor.
Captain Oveur: No. I mean I'm just not sure.
Rumack: Well, can't you take a guess?
Captain Oveur: Well, not for another two hours.
Rumack: You can't take a guess for another two hours?

Captain Oveur: You ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: No sir, I've never been up in a plane before.
Captain Oveur: You ever seen a grown man naked?

My favorite scene involves Elaine, the flight attendant is noticing the inflatable auto pilot is deflating, she needs to inflate him through a hose in his crotch, Dr Rumack walks in on this, sees her perform the inflation, mistakes it for oral sex and walks out.

The music is great because it is overly dramatic to accentuate the urgency of the situation of impending doom, the old disaster movies did it, this one did too.

The Bad:

This is not a movie for everyone, those with a different sense of humor and not into silly and wacky type of spoof humor might not enjoy it as much. This movie is relatively short and it would have been great if it extended a bit more to continue the laughs going. The movie is slightly offensive and violent in a humorous way, such as the lady freaking out about crashing and having a line of people waiting to smack her and beat her up to calm her down.

There is not much to say about cinematography as most of the film was shot in the interior of the plane and the air traffic tower, but the shots of the plane flying clearly showed the plane was a toy plane hovering around on a string because of the hobbling in the shot.

Overall grade:

4.7 of 5

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older