Review of Airport 1975 (1974) by Charlie P — 16 Feb 2017

A disaster movie about a Boeing 747 that collides with a smaller plane and is left without a pilot. This film now being viewed 40 yrs after it was made is quite memorable for all the right and wrong reasons. On board we have an array of old time movie stars that if you are under a certain age wont know anything about, Gloria Swanson, Myrna Loy mean anything to you? We have pilots that put women's lib back about 20 yrs with talk that these days would result in a possible sexual harassment suit and we have Linda Exorcist Blair as a girl needing a kidney transplant, being possessed the year before must of played havoc with her organs. Add a singing nun and a passenger list of virtually every cliché you can think of and we are ready for take off!

About 40 mins into our perilous flight, disaster strikes and we are left without any pilots, What are we going to do? The first thing I would of done is ask if anyone on board has the required skills but no, head stewardess Karen Black finds her inner action heroine and takes control. The remainder of this daft, corny but at times irresistible and unintentionally funny film is taken up by the attempts to land the plane before Mrs Black smashes it into an on coming mountain. Thankfully for the little lady, Charlton Heston and George Kennedy are on hand to save us and land the plane and send it on it's way into 70's campy greatness.

Modern, big budget, special effect blockbusters were just finding their feet when this 'action movie' came out and the film does have some good points Karen Black is good in her role and shows that women on planes can do more than just hand out tea, some of the action scenes although very dated are well handled and the impending doom does keep things fairly interesting. So if you don't expect to much from this old disaster movie you are probably in for a fairly pleasant but windy flight.