AIRPORT (1970)

 

Just an extraordinary day in the life airport general manager Burt Lancaster.  If things weren't already bad enough with his socialite wife pestering the fark out of him nonstop and one of his senior pilot's (Dean Martin) giving him grief over a runway, he now has to deal with "the worst storm in 6 years", a moron pilot who shuts down a runway by getting his plane stuck in the snow, an elderly stowaway passenger, a horny co-worker, his boss threatening to fire him and a madman with a bomb!

I've never read the original Arthur Hailey novel, but I might now, because this movie held up very well for being nearly 50 years old.  Even without the mad bomber story I was totally into all the comings and goings of the people and their personal problems (cheating husband, pregnant mistress, no money, traffic jam, protesters, low I.Q. and so on). 

Excellent pace, awesome all-star cast lead by Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin (who I don't ever got enough credit for his acting abilities), funky 70's split screen overdose, impressive musical score, dated as hell technology, uneven special effects, mind-bending colour schemes...I enjoyed AIRPORT so much I actually watched it twice!  Although I am a little dumbfounded as to how Helen Hayes actually won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.  I thought she was the weakest point of the movie and her selfish, fuck everybody character was annoying.  Oh well, it's still worth watching.

Part 2 - Airport 1975 (1974)
Part 3 - Airport '77 (1977)
Part 4 - Concorde...Airport '79 (1979)

Poor Burt Lancaster having to listen to George Kennedy make out on the phone.

LE MAGNIFIQUE (1973)

"He was devoured by a shark in a phone booth."

Super-spy Bob St. Clair makes James Bond look like a pussy! He can shoot a single bullet into a tree and kill 5 soldiers, he can fight his way out of evil villains lair without even breaking a sweat and, of course, he always gets the girl. Unfortunately, Bob St. Clair is just a figment of novelist Francois Merlin's imagination. Merlin's real life is nowhere near as perfect. He has no money, his apartment is a dump and he's divorced. He has very little control over the things that happen in his real life, so when somebody pisses him off...he throws that person into his story and lets St. Clair shoot him to pieces! The same goes for the good things in his life like his sexy upstairs neighbor, who just happens to be St. Clair's current love interest.

But things turn out to not always be perfect in St. Clair's world either, especially when Merlin gets mad at him and turns him into a bumbling idiot and then finally a limp-wristed homosexual who runs off with the villain on a two-seater bicycle!

Everybody in this movie does a great job, especially the three main actors who all play duel roles, but I think the main praise should go to director/co-writer Philippe de Broca who does an excellent job of blending the two worlds so seamlessly that the story never lets up for even a moment. I was happy and smiling from beginning to end. Not many films can do that.

Favorite moments: when St. Clair's cyanide tablet falls out of his hollow tooth and kills all the tourist in the swimming pool; when a clumsy St. Clair gets mad at his robe; when St. Clair pours the hot water on his infected finger and all of the moments with Jacqueline Bisset.  She is absolutely radiant in this movie.

Highly recommended.