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.

ABANDON SHIP (1957)

[Update 02/27/2022: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

A cruise ship is blasted and 26 survivors gather on and around a large lifeboat.  Ship officer Tyrone Power has to take charge of these weak-minded losers and if that means tossing some of the old and injured overboard then so be it.  Or something like that.

I was hoping ABANDON SHIP would be better than Hitchcock’s weak LIFEBOAT...and it is better, but not by much.  There's a bunch of people on a boat, there's a lot of talking and people get upset, somebody threatens to eat a dog, another guy is stabbed and another shot with a flare gun, people drown, somebody spots a shark fin.  Sounds exciting, but it's really not.  I doubt I’ll ever watch it ever again.  Skip it.