AIRPLANE! (1980)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
The comedy fools who brought slapstick and movie spoofs to a new level were the Zucker Brothers. They were responsible for some of the funniest movies of the 1980's, namely "Top Secret" and "The Naked Gun." "Airplane" followed the purely ingenious "Kentucky Fried Movie," their first film, with several in-jokes and references throughout, poking fun at just about everything. It is a no-holds-barred approach and they could care less if anyone was offended or grossed out - the gags just keep coming at full speed.
"Airplane!" spoofs the "Airport" movies and an old movie from the 50's called "Zero Hour." The pilots are played by Peter Graves and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (!), the doctor on board is played by Leslie Nielsen, and one of the main stewardesses, Eileen, is played by Julie Hagerty. On board the plane is Ted Striker (Robert Hays), a war veteran who is in love with Eileen and wants her back (he is also a cab driver who left his fare at the airport). Also on board is a girl in need of a heart-transplant, some jive-talking dudes, a jive-talking lady (Barbara Billingsley, formerly June Cleaver on "Leave it to Beaver"), a nun who reads "Boy's Life," a young kid who idolizes Kareem and who reads "Nun's Life," a Japanese General, David Leisure as a Hare Krishna and so on. The plot deals with the fish menu on board that is tainted and is making all the passengers sick, including the pilots. It is up to Striker to land the plane and for the doctor to cure the passengers.
The jokes in this type of movie are easily hit and miss, and there are lots of hits and a few misses. Watching feces splattered across a fan is not especially funny. A woman running and bumping into every object while saying goodbye to her love aboard the plane was just plain silly. I also found one of the air traffic controllers (the late Stephen Stucker) to be the equivalent of fingernails being run across a chalkboard.
As for the jokes that hit, I like the dueling voices at the airport for red zone and white zone parking, especially when they argue. I like that the autopilot is actually an inflatable doll who needs air every once in a while, and darling Eileen helps breathe some air into an area that...well, just a moment you have to see to believe. Robert Stack as the solidly calm and determined Captain Kramer who beats the hell out of every passing Jehovah's Witness, Krishna and religious zealot is hilarious. And the nods to "Jaws," "Saturday Night Fever" and "From Here to Eternity" bring quite a few smiles. But when Ethel Merman appears as an officer in drag singing "Everything's Coming Up Roses," you know you are in for a treat.
"Airplane!" is not a great movie but it is undeniably clever and grossly funny enough to keep you occupied for 88 minutes. It was the beginning of the Zucker Brothers' successful comedy spoofs that lead to "The Naked Gun" and other similar spoofs. But pay close attention to the visual puns in the foreground as well as the background, and you can just as easily miss a joke or a reference on first viewing. They are clever that way.
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