In the closing days of World War II, Canadian fighter pilot Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews) makes a decision that causes the deaths of six men in his squadron. Ten years later, he has a hard time holding down a job and his marriage is on the rocks. When his wife leaves him, he chases her into the airport and boards the same plane she's on. In the air, several passengers and both pilots suffer severe food poisoning, leaving Stryker the only one on board with any flight experience, so he must get over his fear of flying and land the plane.
If that sounded at all familiar, it might be because Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker based the script for Airplane! on this movie. And not just the basic plot, probably half of all dialogue in Zero Hour! is either copied word-for-word or only slightly altered for Airplane!. As a big fan of the latter movie, it's quite a bizarre experience to not only watch this and hear so many of the classic joke setups without the punchline, but also realize several things I would've thought were ZAZ jokes were actually from the original.
It's a totally solid, entirely unremarkable 50's disaster movie with a pretty good supporting performance from Sterling Hayden.
It is striking how much of the overwrought comedy of Airplane! is already present in Zero Hour! (exclamation point there, too). I laughed a few times when I saw this a few years ago.
'LOOK, UP IN THE SKY! IT'S A BIRD... IT'S A PLANE... NO! IT'S... 70's GEORGE KENNEDY??!!' QUADRILOGY! 057.- AIRPORT (1970, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY). Streaming on NETFLIX.
Ever wonder why ALL the 70's disaster movies start and prominently feature melodramatic plot lines and characters in emotional/marital turmoil that need to be sorted out as the titular disaster unfolds? Look no further than "Airport," both the Alex Haley 1968 novel (which I read a few times as a child) and this faithful 1970 movie adaptation, both monster hits in their respective time/media. They set a template that every disaster flick that decade followed slavishly. In the case of OG "Airport" there is one (the fictitious Lincoln Airport) whose functions and personnel are pushed to the limit during a severe snowstorm. The su!cide b0mber subplot doesn't appear until the end of the first act (it wasn't needed to engage me), and the third act balances the airborne danger with the emotional conflicts and duels of testy personalities clashing on how to do the right thing... for the safety of passengers and their crumbling marriages. This is the earliest 'G' rated movie I've seen in which pregnancy termination is openly discussed as a valid lifestyle choice.
Having so many characters and intersecting plot lines pushes "Airport's" running time to 137 min. Bloated, yes, but at least it features the titular location and characters working there that are absent from every other sequel that followed. 🙄In an all-star cast my favorites were Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin (alpha males constantly pushing each other's buttons), George Kennedy as ace engineer Joe Patroni (the only character to recur in the entire series), Jean Seberg as an airline executive that has an unrequited thing with Lancaster, Helen Hayes as the stowaway granny (complete with 60's sitcom music) and Van Heflin as would-be bomber D.O. Guerrero. The music is dated, the special effects mixed (real airplane footage looks great, but the flying miniatures are lame) and the direction flat, but I'd be lying if I said "Airport" didn't entertain me for most of its running time. Patience with slow, methodical pacing required. 3.5 CATHOLIC PRIESTS BITCH-SLAPPING PANICKY PASSENGERS (out of five).</b
[Here's where the review of "Airport 1975" would have gone... if I hadn't already used it for 'Linda Blair!' Day. Oops.🤨 So, to pinch-hit on behalf of "Airport '75," here comes a review for the OTHER Charlton Heston/George Kennedy blockbuster disaster movie released in 1974.]
058.- EARTHQUAKE ('74, SHOUT! FACTORY BLU-RAY)
The epic that introduced 'Sensurround' to our kitschy movie vocabulary, "Earthquake" takes its sweet time (about 51 min.) setting up both 'the big one' and the army of stars/guest actors (Richard Roundtree, Barry Sullivan, Victoria Principal, Donald Moffat with normal eyebrows, etc.) in too many roles to list as regular Los Angeles residents going about their lives. Since Alex Haley was busy writing "Roots" it's Mario Puzo's turn to co-write the melodramatic plight of engineer Charlton Heston dealing with a nagging wife from hell (Ava Gardner), a domineering boss/father-in-law (Lorne Green with a mustache), and a widow with a kid (Geneviève Bujold and Tiger Williams, respectively) that go from friendly to new-family-in-the-making love affair in one morning. Then an orgy of model/miniature destruction and stunt work crashes in, with some special effects (Albert Whitlock's matte paintings) better than others (mirror reflections of glass building shaking), combined with "Star Trek" ship-under-fire acting.
George Kennedy stands out from the pack as an L.A.P.D. cop taking command when things turn sour and people act like cowards, especially looters and panicky demolition experts he has to push around to do the right thing. If you can tolerate stupid Hollywood storytelling tropes (why would a hospital designate emergency clinics in the basements of a badly damaged building? 🤨🫣) "Earthquake" is dumb, 70's disaster fun. 3.40 'WALTER MATUSCHANSKAYASKY' SPILLED DRINKS (out of five).
BONUS: 059.- EARTHQUAKE: TV CUT (1974/76, SHOUT! FACTORY BLU-RAY)
Included with the Blu-ray version of Shout! Factory's 2-disc set of "Earthquake" is an alternate TV cut of the movie that ran over two nights on NBC in 1976. Unlike Shout!'s TV version of the '76 remake of "King Kong" on Blu-ray that used the widescreen transfer of the theatrical cut, "Earthquake's" TV cut is the original 4x3 version with cuts and pans not in the theatrical. The extra 20+ minutes of added material mostly revolve around a newlywed married couple (Debra Lee Scott and her architect hubby) on a plane bound for LAX barely escaping fissures on the runway and then, while flying to Honolulu, debating whether to volunteer to help rebuild Los Angeles. We also get a few more scenes of creepy Jody (Marjoe Gortner) spying on Rosa (Victoria Principal) and, at the halfway mark, a recap of the first half of the movie for the start of night two on NBC. Most of the main plot and disaster sequences are intact, except for TV censorship cuts (Jody's bullies calling him a 'f@g,' glass on the face of a woman on the sidewalk, elevator blood splatter, etc.). A curio for hardcore "Earthquake" fans, but nothing that'd make any disaster fan pick the TV cut over the theatrical. 2.95 CLOSETS FULL OF YELLOW T-SHIRTS (out of five).
060.- AIRPORT '77 (1977, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY). Streaming on Netflix.
Or the one where a technologically advanced, luxurious new private airplane (that still looks like "Airport 1975's" 747 with a rushed paint job) carrying valuable artwork and VIP passengers, is lost in the Bermuda Triangle due to thieves trying to steal the expensive stuff. Jimmy Stewart (rich owner of the plane and its valuables), Jack Lemmon (pilot shouting loudly at everybody) and Christopher Lee (why was he on board? 🤔) are the biggest names that debase themselves for a studio paycheck. Lee Grant is insufferable as Karen (Christopher Lee's wife), a woman who doesn't give a s*** about anybody but herself. The last 30 minutes of "Airplane '77" are slow and insufferable as we watch (almost in real time) Coast Guard procedures on how to lift a sunken airliner to the surface with inflatable air balloons. It's like "Raise The Titanic," except with average miniature effects mixed with U.S. military people doing Universal a solid. George Kennedy's Patroni, unlike the previous two "Airport" films' deep involvement in the plot, is basically a glorified three-scene cameo. The poster for this movie is so much cooler than anything in it. 🙁 2.40 DARRIN MCGAVINS LIMPING INTO/OUT OF A FLOODED FREEZER (out of five).
061.- THE CONCORDE... AIRPORT '79 (1979, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY)
The "Jaws The Revenge" of the "Airport" franchise, and the only entry in the series that (a) lost money at the box office and (b) Netflix didn't even bother to ask for its streaming rights. Like Patrick with the FTM social media movie festivals, Netflix knows what it's doing. 😁We're down to French movie stars (Alain Delon and Sylvia Kristel) and TV-level talent (Robert Wagner, Charo, John Davidson, Jimmy J.J. Walker, etc.) headlining the picture. George Kennedy gets a bump from bit player in '77 to fifth-billed leading man as the American pilot of The Concorde. Patroni's scenes with Delon are goofy due to the latter hiring a pr0st!tute to show the former his genuine friendship gestures. WTF is wrong with French people? 🙄A subplot involving a corrupt military weapons company targeting The Concorde for destruction due to a reporter onboard (Susan Blakely) having incriminating documents results in bad EFX work and some crazy shit (Patroni firing a flare outside the window... while The Concorde's at full speed! 😂), which only highlights how much like a made-for-TV movie this $14 million production comes across. 2.0 SYBIL DANNINGS PAYING THE BILLS BY KEEPING HER CLOTHES ON (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 11! 062 & 063.- THE ANT AND THE AARDVARK: PILOT (3/5/1969, DVD) & HASTY BUT TASTY (3/6/1969, DVD). Available to stream on YOUTUBE and INTERNET ARCHIVE.
The last duo of new characters introduced in the OG run of "Pink Panther" cartoons, this one features the titular red ant with laid-back attitude and a blue aardvark with a thick Jewish accent. Since I saw these shorts in Spanish growing up, the first time I heard the actual English voices of Ant and Aardvark mixed with the catchy-as-hell, jazzy music score (particularly the theme song) I was floored how much better the dynamic between the characters (both voiced by John Byner) comes across. This is basically non-stop Road Runner vs. Coyote 'catch me if you can' gags, but the personalities of Ant and Aardvark give their 17 shorts a goofy personality all its own. Both the Pilot (set around a picnic Ant's trying to steal food from) and 'Hasty But Tasty' (Ant has a new bike he uses to try and get around Aardvark's traps) easily earn 4 LIGHT BULB CORDS IN UNKNOWN UNDERGROUND TRAIN TRACKS (out of five).
Like when Hogan fought Andre at Wrestlemania 3 you just couldn’t see how Godzilla was going to overcome the odds but you can never bet against the hero.
Zero Hour! (1957, dir. Hall Bartlett)
ReplyDeleteIn the closing days of World War II, Canadian fighter pilot Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews) makes a decision that causes the deaths of six men in his squadron. Ten years later, he has a hard time holding down a job and his marriage is on the rocks. When his wife leaves him, he chases her into the airport and boards the same plane she's on. In the air, several passengers and both pilots suffer severe food poisoning, leaving Stryker the only one on board with any flight experience, so he must get over his fear of flying and land the plane.
If that sounded at all familiar, it might be because Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker based the script for Airplane! on this movie. And not just the basic plot, probably half of all dialogue in Zero Hour! is either copied word-for-word or only slightly altered for Airplane!. As a big fan of the latter movie, it's quite a bizarre experience to not only watch this and hear so many of the classic joke setups without the punchline, but also realize several things I would've thought were ZAZ jokes were actually from the original.
It's a totally solid, entirely unremarkable 50's disaster movie with a pretty good supporting performance from Sterling Hayden.
Oh, Lordy. Hall Bartlett later directed Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
DeleteIt is striking how much of the overwrought comedy of Airplane! is already present in Zero Hour! (exclamation point there, too). I laughed a few times when I saw this a few years ago.
Delete^^^ Beaten! 🤨😤😀
ReplyDelete'LOOK, UP IN THE SKY! IT'S A BIRD... IT'S A PLANE... NO! IT'S... 70's GEORGE KENNEDY??!!' QUADRILOGY!
057.- AIRPORT (1970, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY). Streaming on NETFLIX.
Ever wonder why ALL the 70's disaster movies start and prominently feature melodramatic plot lines and characters in emotional/marital turmoil that need to be sorted out as the titular disaster unfolds? Look no further than "Airport," both the Alex Haley 1968 novel (which I read a few times as a child) and this faithful 1970 movie adaptation, both monster hits in their respective time/media. They set a template that every disaster flick that decade followed slavishly. In the case of OG "Airport" there is one (the fictitious Lincoln Airport) whose functions and personnel are pushed to the limit during a severe snowstorm. The su!cide b0mber subplot doesn't appear until the end of the first act (it wasn't needed to engage me), and the third act balances the airborne danger with the emotional conflicts and duels of testy personalities clashing on how to do the right thing... for the safety of passengers and their crumbling marriages. This is the earliest 'G' rated movie I've seen in which pregnancy termination is openly discussed as a valid lifestyle choice.
Having so many characters and intersecting plot lines pushes "Airport's" running time to 137 min. Bloated, yes, but at least it features the titular location and characters working there that are absent from every other sequel that followed. 🙄In an all-star cast my favorites were Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin (alpha males constantly pushing each other's buttons), George Kennedy as ace engineer Joe Patroni (the only character to recur in the entire series), Jean Seberg as an airline executive that has an unrequited thing with Lancaster, Helen Hayes as the stowaway granny (complete with 60's sitcom music) and Van Heflin as would-be bomber D.O. Guerrero. The music is dated, the special effects mixed (real airplane footage looks great, but the flying miniatures are lame) and the direction flat, but I'd be lying if I said "Airport" didn't entertain me for most of its running time. Patience with slow, methodical pacing required. 3.5 CATHOLIC PRIESTS BITCH-SLAPPING PANICKY PASSENGERS (out of five).</b
[Here's where the review of "Airport 1975" would have gone... if I hadn't already used it for 'Linda Blair!' Day. Oops.🤨 So, to pinch-hit on behalf of "Airport '75," here comes a review for the OTHER Charlton Heston/George Kennedy blockbuster disaster movie released in 1974.]
ReplyDelete058.- EARTHQUAKE ('74, SHOUT! FACTORY BLU-RAY)
The epic that introduced 'Sensurround' to our kitschy movie vocabulary, "Earthquake" takes its sweet time (about 51 min.) setting up both 'the big one' and the army of stars/guest actors (Richard Roundtree, Barry Sullivan, Victoria Principal, Donald Moffat with normal eyebrows, etc.) in too many roles to list as regular Los Angeles residents going about their lives. Since Alex Haley was busy writing "Roots" it's Mario Puzo's turn to co-write the melodramatic plight of engineer Charlton Heston dealing with a nagging wife from hell (Ava Gardner), a domineering boss/father-in-law (Lorne Green with a mustache), and a widow with a kid (Geneviève Bujold and Tiger Williams, respectively) that go from friendly to new-family-in-the-making love affair in one morning. Then an orgy of model/miniature destruction and stunt work crashes in, with some special effects (Albert Whitlock's matte paintings) better than others (mirror reflections of glass building shaking), combined with "Star Trek" ship-under-fire acting.
George Kennedy stands out from the pack as an L.A.P.D. cop taking command when things turn sour and people act like cowards, especially looters and panicky demolition experts he has to push around to do the right thing. If you can tolerate stupid Hollywood storytelling tropes (why would a hospital designate emergency clinics in the basements of a badly damaged building? 🤨🫣) "Earthquake" is dumb, 70's disaster fun. 3.40 'WALTER MATUSCHANSKAYASKY' SPILLED DRINKS (out of five).
BONUS: 059.- EARTHQUAKE: TV CUT (1974/76, SHOUT! FACTORY BLU-RAY)
DeleteIncluded with the Blu-ray version of Shout! Factory's 2-disc set of "Earthquake" is an alternate TV cut of the movie that ran over two nights on NBC in 1976. Unlike Shout!'s TV version of the '76 remake of "King Kong" on Blu-ray that used the widescreen transfer of the theatrical cut, "Earthquake's" TV cut is the original 4x3 version with cuts and pans not in the theatrical. The extra 20+ minutes of added material mostly revolve around a newlywed married couple (Debra Lee Scott and her architect hubby) on a plane bound for LAX barely escaping fissures on the runway and then, while flying to Honolulu, debating whether to volunteer to help rebuild Los Angeles. We also get a few more scenes of creepy Jody (Marjoe Gortner) spying on Rosa (Victoria Principal) and, at the halfway mark, a recap of the first half of the movie for the start of night two on NBC. Most of the main plot and disaster sequences are intact, except for TV censorship cuts (Jody's bullies calling him a 'f@g,' glass on the face of a woman on the sidewalk, elevator blood splatter, etc.). A curio for hardcore "Earthquake" fans, but nothing that'd make any disaster fan pick the TV cut over the theatrical. 2.95 CLOSETS FULL OF YELLOW T-SHIRTS (out of five).
060.- AIRPORT '77 (1977, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY). Streaming on Netflix.
ReplyDeleteOr the one where a technologically advanced, luxurious new private airplane (that still looks like "Airport 1975's" 747 with a rushed paint job) carrying valuable artwork and VIP passengers, is lost in the Bermuda Triangle due to thieves trying to steal the expensive stuff. Jimmy Stewart (rich owner of the plane and its valuables), Jack Lemmon (pilot shouting loudly at everybody) and Christopher Lee (why was he on board? 🤔) are the biggest names that debase themselves for a studio paycheck. Lee Grant is insufferable as Karen (Christopher Lee's wife), a woman who doesn't give a s*** about anybody but herself. The last 30 minutes of "Airplane '77" are slow and insufferable as we watch (almost in real time) Coast Guard procedures on how to lift a sunken airliner to the surface with inflatable air balloons. It's like "Raise The Titanic," except with average miniature effects mixed with U.S. military people doing Universal a solid. George Kennedy's Patroni, unlike the previous two "Airport" films' deep involvement in the plot, is basically a glorified three-scene cameo. The poster for this movie is so much cooler than anything in it. 🙁 2.40 DARRIN MCGAVINS LIMPING INTO/OUT OF A FLOODED FREEZER (out of five).
061.- THE CONCORDE... AIRPORT '79 (1979, KINO LORBER BLU-RAY)
ReplyDeleteThe "Jaws The Revenge" of the "Airport" franchise, and the only entry in the series that (a) lost money at the box office and (b) Netflix didn't even bother to ask for its streaming rights. Like Patrick with the FTM social media movie festivals, Netflix knows what it's doing. 😁We're down to French movie stars (Alain Delon and Sylvia Kristel) and TV-level talent (Robert Wagner, Charo, John Davidson, Jimmy J.J. Walker, etc.) headlining the picture. George Kennedy gets a bump from bit player in '77 to fifth-billed leading man as the American pilot of The Concorde. Patroni's scenes with Delon are goofy due to the latter hiring a pr0st!tute to show the former his genuine friendship gestures. WTF is wrong with French people? 🙄A subplot involving a corrupt military weapons company targeting The Concorde for destruction due to a reporter onboard (Susan Blakely) having incriminating documents results in bad EFX work and some crazy shit (Patroni firing a flare outside the window... while The Concorde's at full speed! 😂), which only highlights how much like a made-for-TV movie this $14 million production comes across. 2.0 SYBIL DANNINGS PAYING THE BILLS BY KEEPING HER CLOTHES ON (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 11!
ReplyDelete062 & 063.- THE ANT AND THE AARDVARK: PILOT (3/5/1969, DVD) & HASTY BUT TASTY (3/6/1969, DVD). Available to stream on YOUTUBE and INTERNET ARCHIVE.
The last duo of new characters introduced in the OG run of "Pink Panther" cartoons, this one features the titular red ant with laid-back attitude and a blue aardvark with a thick Jewish accent. Since I saw these shorts in Spanish growing up, the first time I heard the actual English voices of Ant and Aardvark mixed with the catchy-as-hell, jazzy music score (particularly the theme song) I was floored how much better the dynamic between the characters (both voiced by John Byner) comes across. This is basically non-stop Road Runner vs. Coyote 'catch me if you can' gags, but the personalities of Ant and Aardvark give their 17 shorts a goofy personality all its own. Both the Pilot (set around a picnic Ant's trying to steal food from) and 'Hasty But Tasty' (Ant has a new bike he uses to try and get around Aardvark's traps) easily earn 4 LIGHT BULB CORDS IN UNKNOWN UNDERGROUND TRAIN TRACKS (out of five).
Godzilla v Mechagodzilla (1974) dir. Jun Fukuda
ReplyDeleteLike when Hogan fought Andre at Wrestlemania 3 you just couldn’t see how Godzilla was going to overcome the odds but you can never bet against the hero.