Airplane!

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Airplane!
theatrical poster
Directed by	Jim Abrahams David Zucker Jerry Zucker
Produced by	Jon Davison Howard W. Koch
Written by	Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker
Starring	Robert Hays Julie Hagerty
Music by	Elmer Bernstein
Cinematography	Joseph F. Biroc
Editing by	Patrick Kennedy
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	June 27, 1980
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3,500,000 (est.)
Gross revenue	$83,453,539[1]
Followed by	Airplane II: The Sequel

Airplane! is a 1980 American satirical comedy film directed and written by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Lorna Patterson.

The film is a spoof of the disaster film genre, and is essentially a remake of the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!.^[2] In Australia and New Zealand it is known as Flying High.

Airplane! was a huge financial success, grossing over USD $83 million in North America alone, against a budget of just $3.5 million.^[1] The film's creators received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Comedy, and nominations for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Musical/Comedy) and a BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay.^[3]

In the years since its release, Airplane!'s reputation has grown substantially beyond its modest comic intentions. The film was voted the 10th-funniest American comedy in AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list, and ranked 6th on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".

Airplane! has a 98% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. In a major 2007 survey by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, it was judged the second greatest comedy film of all time.^[4]

[edit] Plot

Ex-fighter pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) became traumatized after an incident during the war, leading to his fear of flying. Recovering his courage, Striker attempts to regain the love of his life from the war, Elaine (Julie Hagerty), now a stewardess. In order to win her love, Striker overcomes his fear and buys a ticket on a flight she is serving on, from Los Angeles to Chicago. However, during the flight, Elaine rebuffs his attempts.

After dinner is served, many of the passengers fall ill, and Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) quickly realizes that one of the meal options gave the passengers food poisoning. The stewards discover that the pilot crew, including Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) and Roger Murdock (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), have all come down with food poisoning, leaving no one aboard to fly the plane. Elaine is instructed by the Chicago control tower supervisor Steve McCroskey (Lloyd Bridges) to activate the plane's autopilot – a large blow-up doll named "Otto" – which will get them to Chicago but will not be able to land the plane. Elaine realizes that Striker is their only chance, and he is convinced to fly the plane, though he still feels his trauma will prevent him from safely landing the plane.

McCroskey, after hearing Striker's name on the radio, sends for Striker's former commander, Rex Kramer (Robert Stack) to help talk him down. As the plane nears Chicago, Striker neglects to check the oil temperature which damages one of the engines while a bad thunderstorm reduces visibility, making the landing even more difficult. Thanks to Kramer's endless stream of advice, Striker is able to overcome his fears and safely land the plane with only minor injuries to some passengers. Striker's courage rekindles Elaine's love for him, and the two share a kiss while Otto takes off in the evacuated plane after inflating a female autopilot doll.

[edit] Cast

Robert Stack (right) talks the plane down, while Lloyd Bridges decides he picked the wrong week to give up smoking.

• Robert Hays as Ted Striker
• Julie Hagerty as Elaine Robinson
• Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Alan Rumack
• Peter Graves as Captain Clarence Oveur
• Lloyd Bridges as Steve McCroskey
• Robert Stack as Captain Rex Kramer
• Lorna Patterson as Randy
• Stephen Stucker as Johnny Henshaw
• Frank Ashmore as Victor Basta
• Jonathan Banks as Gunderson
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as Himself
• Craig Berenson as Paul Carey
• Barbara Billingsley as Jive Lady
• Lee Bryant as Mrs. Hammen
• Joyce Bulifant as Mrs. Davis
• Marcy Goldman as Mrs. Geline
• Barbara Stuart as Mrs. Kramer
• Ross Harris as Joey Staines
• James Hong as a Japanese General
• Al White as Second Jive Dude
• Otto as himself

[edit] Cameos

The film's writers and directors, as well as members of their family, showed up in cameo appearances. David and Jerry Zucker appear as two ground crew members who accidentally direct a 747 to taxi through a terminal window. Jim Abrahams is one of many religious zealots scattered throughout the film. Charlotte Zucker (David and Jerry's mother) is the woman attempting to apply makeup in the plane as it violently shifts. Their sister Susan Breslau is the second ticket agent at the airport. Jim Abraham's mother is the woman initially sitting next to Dr. Rumack.

Several other cameos add to the humor by casting actors against type. Ethel Merman, in her last film appearance, plays a male soldier who is convinced he is Ethel Merman. Barbara Billingsley, best known as June Cleaver from Leave It to Beaver, makes an appearance as a woman who announces she "speaks jive" can translate for two African-American passengers. Maureen McGovern appears as Sister Angelina, a spoof of the nun in Airport 1975, and a poke at her involvement as the singer of the Oscar-winning songs for the disaster films The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). Jimmie Walker cameos as the man opening the hood of the plane and checking the oil before takeoff; Walker also had a minor role in the air disaster film, The Concorde: Airport '79.

Howard Jarvis, the property tax reformer and author of California Proposition 13, plays the taxi passenger who's left at the curb with the meter running in the film's opening and closing scene. Finally, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar has a significant role as himself apparently living an incognito double life as one of the co-pilots.

[edit] Production

Airplane! was the first film both written and directed by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. They had previously written The Kentucky Fried Movie, which was directed by John Landis. Filming took 34 days,^{[citation needed]} mostly during August 1979.

Robert Stack initially played his role differently from what the directors had in mind. They played him a tape of impressionist John Byner "doing" Robert Stack. According to the producers, Stack was "doing an impression of John Byner doing an impression of Stack."^[5]

The plane used throughout the movie was a TWA Boeing 707 model; the plane taking off with "The End" credit is not a 707 (which has four engines), but a Boeing 727 tri-jet. The ambient noise of the plane is not that of a jet but a propeller driven plane (possibly piston engines); it was taken from the soundtrack of Zero Hour!, making it the longest running gag in the movie.

[edit] Humor

Airplane! used several comedic approaches that would be part of future works by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker.

The screenplay makes heavy use of pun and other wordplay. One of the film's most famous lines, immortalised as one of the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, is:

Striker: "Surely you can't be serious!"
Rumack: "I am serious... and don't call me Shirley."

Another recurring piece of wordplay involves a character, having being told that a certain problem has arisen in a given location (such as a hospital or the cockpit), and then inquiring: "What is it?". Instead of being offered a diagnosis of the situation, the character instead receives an explanation of the location in question (e.g., "it's a large building with patients, but that's not important right now.")

The names of the pilots - Clarance Oveur, Roger Murdock, and tower operator Victor Basta - are intended during dialogue to be readily confused with standard airport radio terms "Clearance", "Over", "Roger", and "Vector". Such wordplay is frequently extended to visual puns, usually tied to a jump cut from one scene to the next. When the plane loses an engine, Striker comments that "the shit's going to hit the fan", followed immediately by a shot of the control tower, where a literal enactment of the phrase is shown.

Sight gags are also a common theme. During the period when the inflatable Otto is controlling the plane, it starts to deflate, forcing Elaine to manually reinflate it through a blow tube located near its waist. When Rumack checks on the cockpit, it appears as if she is performing fellatio on the doll, and he quickly steps out. Shortly thereafter, both Elaine and Otto are shown enjoying a cigarette once it is reinflated. The movie also employed sight gags in the background that would occur while characters talked in the foreground; in a scene which employs a green screen to show Kramer driving to the airport with a passenger while discussing the seriousness of the situation, the events used on the chroma key depict several inconsistencies, such as very erratic driving, running over a bicyclist, and being chased by American Indians.^[6]

Running gags are present throughout. Lloyd Bridge's character of Steve McCroskey, as the situation becomes more tense, comments: "Guess this was the wrong week to quit" some addictive substance, including smoking and sniffing glue, before partaking of the substance and subsequently becoming more flustered. As the plane nears Chicago, and even after they have safely landed, Rumack continually enters the cockpit to tell Striker that everyone is counting on him to succeed. Throughout the film, a passenger in the cab that Striker drove to the airport is shown waiting for Striker to return.

Another running gag is the insane behavior of the control room worker Johnny Henshaw (Stephen Stucker). Throughout the film Johnny is shown acting in an unusual almost childlike manner.

Example:

(as they are passing a newspaper down)

Kramer(reading):"Passengers certain to die"

McCroskey (reading):"Airline negligence"

Henshaw(reading wrong side):"There's a sale at Penney's!"

Robert Hays in the Saturday Night Fever parody sequence. Although primarily spoofing disaster films, the film takes wide aim at cultural icons.

Airplane! features numerous parodies of other films and icons of the time. The movie itself is a direct parody of Zero Hour!, but includes numerous references to other films, particularly those in the Airport series (the final installment of which, The Concorde: Airport '79, was released the previous year). The opening sequence is a parody of the shark appearance from Jaws, with the music a loose imitation of John Williams' music from that film. The story of an in-flight medical emergency caused by food poisoning and the rescue of the passengers by a former military pilot is similar to the plot of the 1956 CBC TV movie Flight into Danger.

As the film's creators explain in the DVD commentary for Airplane!, they discovered Zero Hour! when they were taping late-night commercials to spoof.^[2] They then bought the rights to it. Airplane! lifts its major characters and most of its story line from Zero Hour!. Many of the best known straight lines of Airplane! are repeated verbatim, for example, "Can you face some unpleasant facts?," and, "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking." The "wrong week" line becomes a running gag: as the danger escalates, so does the potency of the substance (smoking, drinking, amphetamines, inhalants) that the character claims he was trying to quit.

The scene in which emergency vehicles scramble onto the tarmac is very similar to a sequence in the John Wayne film The High and the Mighty, though the Airplane! version quickly turns absurd as more and more bizarre vehicles join the parade of vehicles.

Airplane! uses elements from the films and novels Airport and Airport 1975, which are based on work written by Arthur Hailey:

• The argument that breaks out between the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) announcers over the public address system ("Oh really, Vernon. You just want me to have an abortion....") is taken from the novel Airport, and is voiced by individuals who were actual LAX announcers at that time.
• A scene in which a flight attendant sings to a sick little girl parodies a similar scene in Airport 1975, though in Airplane! the well-meaning singer inadvertently swings her guitar into the little girl's critical intravenous drip, disconnecting it, and also hits several seated passengers in the head with it while walking along the passenger cabin's aisle.

Other targets include:

• A plane is accidentally directed to crash into the terminal, an homage to similar scenes in the films Silver Streak and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
• The subplot of the ill-fated George Zip becomes a running gag whose punchline is a parody of the famous "Win one for the Gipper" speech from the 1940 film, Knute Rockne, All-American. A version of the Notre Dame Victory March can be heard over the scene (reprised during the closing credits).
• Ted Striker's wartime flashbacks include parodies of Casablanca, Saturday Night Fever, and the famous beach scene in From Here to Eternity. In the DVD commentary, the filmmakers deny having ever seen this film.
• "Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees is featured during the Saturday Night Fever parody. The song is sped up by 10% for added humor. According to the DVD commentary, the producers needed permission from the group to speed up the song for the scene.

[edit] Response

Prior to its release, the directors had been apprehensive due to a mediocre response at one of the pre-screenings. However, the film made back its entire budget of about USD$3.5 million in its first weekend of release. Overall, it earned more than $80 million at the box office and another $40 million in rentals, making it a tremendous financial success.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Legacy

Julie Haggerty and Leslie Nielsen in the cockpit. The autopilot "Otto" on the left is typical of the film's sense of humor, as is Nielsen repeatedly popping in to the cockpit at inopportune moments with good luck wishes.

MaximOnline.com named the airplane crash in Airplane! #4 on its list of "Most Horrific Movie Plane Crashes."^[7] Leslie Nielsen's line, "I am serious...and don't call me Shirley," was 79th on AFI's list of the best 100 movie quotes. In 2000, the American Film Institute listed Airplane! as #10 on its list of the 100 funniest American films. In the same year, readers of Total Film voted it the second greatest comedy film of all time. It also came second in the British 50 Greatest Comedy Films poll on Channel 4, beaten by Monty Python's The Life of Brian. Some critics claim the movie's most important achievement was ending the Airport series of movies, which could no longer be taken seriously.^{[citation needed]}

Several actors were cast to spoof their established images: Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges were known for adventurous, no-nonsense tough-guy characters. Stack's role as the captain who loses his nerve in one of the earliest airline "disaster" films, The High and the Mighty (1954), is spoofed in Airplane!, as is Lloyd Bridges's 1970-1971 television role as airport manager Jim Conrad in San Francisco International Airport. Peter Graves was in the made-for-TV-movie SST: Death Flight, in which an SST was unable to land due to an emergency.

Leslie Nielsen saw a major boost to his career after the release of Airplane!, and the film marked a significant change in his film persona: since then he has specialized in playing clueless deadpan bumblers, notably in the six-episode TV series Police Squad! and its film follow-ups, the three Naked Gun movies. This also led to his casting, many years later, in Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Brooks had wanted to make that film for a long time, but put it off because, as he said, "I just could not find the right Dracula." Brooks claimed to have never seen Airplane! until years after its release. When he did, he knew Nielsen would be right for the part.

Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack saw similar shifts in their public image, though to lesser extents.

Several members of the cast in minor roles went on to better known parts. Gregory Itzin, who appears as one of the religious zealots, played President Charles Logan in the Fox series 24. David Leisure, who played one of the Hare Krishna, went on to fame as Joe Isuzu before appearing as Charlie Dietz in the sitcom Empty Nest.

[edit] Sequel

Airplane II: The Sequel, first released on December 10, 1982, attempted to tackle the science fiction film genre, though there was still emphasis on the general theme of disaster films. Although most of the cast reunited for the sequel, the writers and directors of Airplane! chose not to be involved.

[edit] Soundtracks

In 1980, an LP soundtrack for the film was released by Regency Records, and included dialog and songs from the film. It was also narrated by Shadoe Stevens, and only featured one score track, the "Love Theme from Airplane" composed by Elmer Bernstein.

On April 28, 2009, La-La Land Records announced that they will release the first official score album for Airplane!, containing Bernstein's complete score.^[8]

[edit] Network TV version

The network TV version of Airplane!, which first aired on NBC in 1983, contains many additional scenes not in the theatrical release.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] In popular culture

• The animated TV series, Family Guy, regularly features homages to Airplane!. The episode "Airport '07" loosely parodies the film, including music, sound effects, visual gags, the Knute Rockne pep talk speech, and several lines of dialogue. The special episode, "Blue Harvest", includes many throwaway gags from the film and features an animated Leslie Neilsen as Dr. Rumack appearing on the bridge of the Millenium Falcon (with his dialog lifted directly from the film's audio track).
• In the video game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare there is a bonus mission on an airplane after the game has been beaten. During the mission, the "...don't call me Shirley" exchange between Stryker and Rumack is re-enacted by two of the characters.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Airplane!

• Airplane! at the Internet Movie Database
• Airplane! at the TCM Movie Database
• Airplane! at Allmovie
• Airplane! Script at Simply Scripts