Review of Airport '77 (1977) by Lowell62 — 12 Jul 2021

A luxury 747, filled with priceless art and four of the five Oscar winners featured in this film (Jack Lemmon, who plays the pilot, Lee Grant, Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotton), is hijacked by thieves who use gas to put the passengers to sleep, while the passengers use the movie’s dialogue to put the audience to sleep.

But, thanks to the Co-Pilot, played by Robert Foxworth, still in the bad-guy phase of his career before switching gears playing good guy Chase on TV’s Falcon Crest four years later, the plane crashes in the Bermuda Triangle.

Lemmon, who’s aided by the films fifth Oscar winner, George Kennedy, who is utterly wasted in his third appearance as Joe Patroni. Apart from the crash and the subsequent rescue, the rest is quite boring thanks to an anemic script, and some hammy acting by the rest of the cast, although the highlight in between is watching Brenda Vaccaro, punching a hysterical Grant.

When viewing this scene at the movies during its theatrical run, everyone in the audience, applauded, as did this reviewer. And even though this is directed by Jerry Jameson, Who directed many episodes of the old Andy Griffith Show (Jamison also had Griffith’s old girlfriend from the TV show, Arlene Golonka cast in this film), this third entry in the airport film series, unlike the previous film, feels less like a TV movie.

At least the rescue scenes during the latter half of the film are 10 times more credible than anything featured in the film that followed two years later, The Concorde: Airport ‘79. We just have to get through the boring stuff first.