Airplane! (DVD)

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The Movie According to John:
"Airplane!" is a seminal film, one that is certainly important in and of itself (I mean, it's darned funny), but one that is also important for what it engendered, what films it encouraged over the next two decades. "Airplane!" was the brainchild of writer and directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. Together, they made a spoof in 1980 of disaster movies, and in the process they wound up poking fun at just about every Hollywood movie cliché they could think of. The result is a nonstop flurry of sight gags, puns, innuendoes, exaggerations, caricatures, you name it. If one joke doesn't get you, expect another one a second later that probably will. If you've never seen it, you'll either find it hilarious or the silliest thing you've ever watched. I lean toward hilarious.

The movie takes aim primarily at Arthur Hailey's "Airport," but along the way it skewers as many disaster-movie stereotypes as time allows. The plot is simple (or simpleminded); the entire flight crew of a passenger plane bound from L.A. to Chicago is stricken with food poisoning, and only one other person on board can fly them to safety.

The hero is Ted Striker (Robert Hays), a former pilot who hasn't flown since a tragic accident during "the War" (presumably the Second World War, judging by the flashback war footage, which would make Striker a man in his sixties at least, yet he's played by a fellow clearly no more than thirty, one of the running jokes in the film). Striker's love interest is a stewardess and former girlfriend, Elaine (Julie Hagerty), who ably assists him in his attempts to fly the plane and overcome his drinking problem (he can't find his mouth with a glass of water). "I guess the foot's on the other hand now."

The biggest key to the movie's success is casting Hollywood tough guys, macho actors, in comic parts and then asking them to play it straight. So, deadpanning their way through the shenanigans are Peter Graves as Capt. Oveur, Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack, Robert Stack as Rex Kramer, Lloyd Bridges as McCroskey, and basketball star Kareem Abdul Jabaar as copilot Roger Murdock. It was this role-reversal gimmick more than anything else that inspired the later proliferation of movies like "The Naked Gun" and "Top Secret."

Among the better moments: A little girl who needs a heart transplant is serenaded by a well-meaning stewardess who separates her from her life support; the Mayo Clinic is filled with shelves of mayonnaise; a nun is reading "Boy's Life" and a little boy is reading "Nun's Life"; a barroom brawl breaks out between two Girl scouts; and not-quite-accurate subtitles are used for two Afro-Americans speaking jive. Besides "Airport," the film parodies things like "Saturday Night Fever," "From Here To Eternity," "Knute Rockne, All American" (although it would have been even funnier had the filmmakers been able to get Pat O'Brien to do the takeoff on his famous "Win one for the Gipper" speech), TV commercials, and Tupperware parties.

"Surely, you can't be serious?" asks Striker. "I am serious," responds the doctor, "and don´t call me Shirley."

It's all very reminiscent of "Mad" magazine, surely Abraham and the Zucker's inspiration, with every scene filled with background activity that's at least as funny as the foreground material. Perhaps, though, the only gag that may be lost on today's audiences is one involving Howard Jarvis, the tax-cutting California congressman, sitting in a parked taxi with the meter running throughout the film, his fare going higher and higher. It was topical back then. Look, too, for cameos by Ethel Merman, Jimmy Walker, Kenneth Tobey, Lee Terri (looking suspiciously like Terri Garr), and Stephen Stucker as Johnny, the wildly prissy wacko who practically steals the show.