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Every one of the Airport movies is its own beast. And The Concorde ... Airport ’79 couldn’t be more different from its predecessors. This thing opens like an episode of The Love Boat... Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert, John Davidson, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Avery Schreiber, Sybil Danning, Sylvia Kristel, Jimmie Walker, and Charo! And plays out like some horrible made-for-TV movie.Federation Airlines has purchased the Concorde, and it’s making its maiden flight from Dulles International in D.C., to Moscow by way of Paris on a pre-Olympics goodwill tour. Aboard are members of the U.S.S.R. Olympic gymnastics team, the head of Federation Airlines and his trophy wife, Jimmie Walker as a tokin’ saxophonist, and the terminally incontinent Martha Raye. There are also a couple of reporters on board: John Davidson’s is in love with the star Russian gymnast, but the one you really want to keep an eye on is Susan Blakely’s Maggie Whelan. She’s the girlfriend of Robert Wagner’s weapons manufacturer and illegal arms dealer Kevin Harrison.
Whelan has learned about Harrison’s dirty dealings and is duty-bound to expose him. Instead of silencing her discretely, Harrison opts for a Goldfinger-scaled plot that involves attempting to bring down the Concorde by firing one of Harrison Industries’ surface-to-air Buzzard missiles at it, having an F-4 Phantom attack it, and sabotaging the cargo hold to open during flight causing the plane to rip apart. Thankfully, Federation Airlines hired Joe Patroni to pilot this bird, because only on his capable shoulders could the passengers and crew make it through.
During the Buzzard attack, Patroni is able to evade the missiles through his skill and sheer force of will, and by that I mean he executes perfect barrel rolls. Now, Patroni is the only character we see in all four Airport movies, but this is the first time we see him in the cockpit in the air. And it was at this point that the kiddo turned to me and stated with that mix of deadpan and sincerity that only a 10-year-old could pull off, “Patroni’s a really good flyer.”
As atrocious as the special effects in this thing are even when dialing back to era-appropriate expectations, it’s the credibility-stretching logic that really does it in. Thankfully, Patroni knows everything about the attacking fighter planes and the weapons being fired at them. To evade the heat-seeking missiles during the F-4 Phantom attack after making it to French airspace, Patroni decides his best course of action is to depressurize the plane, open a cockpit window, and stick his arm out while zipping along at Mach 2 to fire a flare.
I’ll wait a moment while you let that sink in. Got it? Ok.
When the flare gun jams, Patroni brings his unharmed and amazingly still attached arm back inside the cabin and promptly accidentally fires a flare inside the cockpit. (Cue The Breakfast Club quote.) It damages some hydraulics and equipment, but otherwise they’re all fine. Patroni then elects to cut the engines to evade the remaining missiles, pulling out of a nosedive that the fighter jet can’t. With the reverse thrusters damaged from the errant flare, Patroni executes an emergency landing in Paris with runway nets and emergency brakes.
We learn that Patroni’s wife (Webster’s mom from back in ’75) has recently died in a car crash – I guess even with all the air travel mayhem that seems to follow old’ Joe around, planes really are safer than cars! During the stopover in Paris, the French co-pilot offers to set Patroni up on a date that evening. Patroni accepts because he’s nothing if not a smouldering hunk o’ masculinity, and after dinner this playa bags the girl on a rug in front of a roaring fire under a satin comforter. Then three minutes later goes back for more!
Again, let me give you a moment to either let that sink in or try to scour that image out of your brain with some mental bleach. Ok?
Next day, back in the cockpit, Patroni’s co-pilot buddy informs him that his date was actually a prostitute. And everyone has a good laugh (as you do in such a situation).
While Patroni was getting his freak on, Harrison was working on his latest plan to get rid of the incriminating documents his reporter girlfriend has in her possession. Harrison arrives in Paris and meets with Whelan, who informs him she’s going to run the story as soon as she gets to Moscow. Instead of efficiently killing her when they’re alone, Harrison figures it would be better to destroy the entire plane and its passengers and dispatches a henchman to rig the luggage door to open remotely mid-flight and rip the plane apart.
The door opens en route from Paris to Moscow and the plane does start to come apart at the seams, prompting the pilot to exclaim, “We’ve got explosive decompression!” and Eddie Albert – still strapped into his seat – plugs the hole in the floor of the plane by falling into it.
The craft is hemorrhaging fuel and doesn’t have enough to make it to Innsbruck. Thankfully, Patroni’s co-pilot has skied in the Alps and knows the terrain well. He radios ahead to a nearby ski patrol that mobilizes and marks a makeshift landing strip and sets up a triage hospital in record time. Patroni belly flops the Concorde into the snow, at which point the kiddo turns to me and declares, “That plane’s a survivor!”
Broadcasting from the crash site, Whelan reports that she also has a breaking story on Harrison Industries. From his private jet, Harrison watches news coverage of the plane’s miraculous landing and his girlfriend’s announcement, and puts a bullet in his head. We then learn that the fuel tank has ruptured and the pressure of the snow the Concorde’s buried under is going to make it explode. Presumably saving everyone the trouble of figuring out how to get the husk of the plane out of the Alps. Huge explosion. Fade to black.
I can easily find reasons to recommend Airport, Airport 1975, and Airport ’77, but there really isn't anything good to say about The Concorde ... Airport ’79. In fact, its only redeeming quality was pointed out by the kiddo. I asked him which of the four movies he liked the best, and he shocked me by saying, “The Concorde," and when I asked him why, he told me "because nobody died in this one. Except the bad guy who killed himself at the end. But all the passengers made it this time!” Yeah, I guess he's right. That Patroni is a really good flyer.
On page 345 of the current Previews comic shop catalog, there is a solicit for Back Issue #56. It’s their “Avengers” issue, and among the pieces in it is my examination of Clint Barton’s Hawkeye. I’m really excited about the piece and the folks I was fortunate enough to talk with about the character. Of course, I would love to have had the opportunity to speak with the late Mark Gruenwald about his epic Hawkeye four-issue limited series, but I was able to talk with the amazing Brett Breeding who inked the first half of that series, and the entire creative team behind the West Coast Avengers limited series – longtime Avengers scribe Roger Stern, penciller Bob Hall, and inker Breeding. I also had the chance to speak with Roy Thomas about the transitions he put the character through in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I had a great time researching, conducting interviews for, and writing this piece.
The Hawkeye story is significantly longer than the Elektra piece I wrote for Back Issue last year, which allowed me to stretch a bit and explore the depth of character added by Hawkeye’s strengths and flaws, specifically the egotism required of a non-superpowered character to be successful in the world he inhabits and the self-doubt resulting from that same set of circumstances.
You can order your copy of the magazine through Previews, or get it direct from the publisher (which comes with a free digital copy of the issue) or pickup just the digital copy at a discounted price for your tablet or PC. There's sure to be plenty of Bronze Age comic-y goodness packed in the issue! Hope you’ll check it out!
My sister was visiting last weekend, and we went to see our only living grandparent: our mom's mom.
That’s grandma on the right holding yours truly, and my bratty big sister between her and our grandfather, circa 1970.
The vinyl sides of the van had that old sticky feeling – that accumulation of decades-worth of being brought to life with a combination of little kids’ imagination and their grimy little hands. The back of the van opens, but one of the tabs was broken. I didn’t see the Evel Knievel action figure or his bike anywhere, but the blue roof ramp was there, along with some other random toys stuffed inside the van – some I recognized from childhood, some that were clearly of a newer vintage.
At some point I need to go back and inspect the van further, perhaps clean it up a bit, and also look for Evel Knievel and his gyro powered stunt cycle and launcher, but in that moment I just snapped a quick photo on my iPhone (as a validation of my memories as much as anything else) before returning it to the place in which it so clearly belongs.
Weaving my way through the past, I am uncovering all these seemingly disparate connectors between memories. Flipping through The ZOOM Catalog and seeing the lyrics to “The Cat Came Back” jolted me from my toddler years and my sister to my late teens and my girlfriend Pam. You see, our first official date was to the Animation Festival at the Akron Civic Theatre in February 1989. For whatever reason, I kept the flyer from that event. And, while looking at the single images for each of the shorts on the back of the flyer stir flickers of recognition, it’s “The Cat Came Back” that has always stuck with me most vividly. I know the song to this day. It conjures a jumble of ZOOM, my parents listening to folk music on WKSU, The Muppet Show, and being at the Civic with Pam.
I’ve written about Pam before (particularly scattered throughout the End of the Eighties posts), she’s the one who really helped unlock my creative side. “The Cat Came Back” evokes all those same emotions associated with a dramatic end-of-adolescence love. It’s a song that is as tied to my remembrances of that relationship and that era as any song by Depeche Mode or Peter Murphy.
Bonus Artifact:
Tucked in with the Animation Festival handbill was this mimeograph-type upcoming events flyer for March 1989. Man, what an incredible line-up of shows! I think we only saw Hairspray and Holy Grail, but I would love to have seen all of these offerings in the grand theatre.
One of Loew’s atmospheric movie houses, the Akron Civic was a lady in decay after years of neglect, like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. Downtown Akron was struggling and hollow and empty too, and a convenient gathering place for the all the punks from Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Richfield, Bath, and farther afield (like my little town between Akron and Canton). I know this was a universal hangout because not only did I hang out in places like the old and deserted parking deck behind the Civic, but so did my future wife Tracy with her friends (although we didn’t know each other at the time).
My sister got The ZOOM Catalog when we were little. I was only two or three at the time, but I remembered the book vividly even before my mom gave it to me recently. My sister was eight or nine when she got the book, and I loved looking through it with her. Even though the show was upbeat and fun, the book perfectly matches my memories of the era: a two-color drab ’70s haze, with a faint smell of old paper.
The thing about ZOOM is that it was a show completely written and performed by kids. Kids in stripped rugby shirts. The theme song (“Who are you? What do you do? How are you? Let’s hear from you!”) still stirs in me all those melancholy PBS feelings of childhood and graduating from Sesame Street to Electric Company to ZOOM.
When I flipped through The ZOOM Catalog (which is remarkably well preserved), I was struck by how familiar it all was. Things like the coveted ZOOM sticker on the cover, the Wally the Watermelon story, the instructions and pictures on how to make a Jacob’s Ladder, the “The Cat Came Back” song, and all the plays and songs and stories submitted by all the other kid viewers echoed over the decades.
The one thing about ZOOM I could never decipher was the Ubbi Dubbi language. I seem to recall my sister and her neighborhood friends speaking it, but for the life of me I could never master it.
I’m pretty sure we had the Come On and ZOOM original album of “songs & stuff” as well, but that might be either lost to time or a faulty memory. Regardless, I think it’s pretty cool that this artifact from my and my sister’s childhood has survived.
Three movies into the Airport franchise now and the kiddo and I are still holding strong, but it’s amazing what a few years can do. Where Airport had some comedy and camp elements, and Airport 1975 had a high-flying adventure spin, Airport ’77 is all claustrophobic suspense. Right down to its very ’70s score (the kiddo loved the ominous musical cues), and Edith Head award winning costumes, this is a movie steeped in the decade more so than either of its forerunners. It has a completely different tone.
Keeping in line with the all-star cast tradition, this time out we have Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Christopher Lee, and Olivia de Havilland alongside recognizable faces like Darren McGavin, Kathleen Quinlan, Gil Gerard, and M. Emmet Walsh. Filling the Helen Reddy role of singing passenger from the last film, we have blind singer Tom Sullivan as the inflight piano man. Notable TV director Jerry Jameson (The Mod Squad, The Six Million Dollar Man, Hawaii Five-O, Magnum, P.I., Dallas, Dynasty, Touched by an Angel, Dr. Quinn) helms this high flying – and deep diving – adventure.
The premise is wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens (Stewart) flying a bunch of guests aboard his new tricked out luxury aircraft (complete with a piano bar, table-top Pong arcade machine, and a Laserdisc player!) to meet him at his private Palm Beach estate. Along with the people, including his estranged daughter and grandson, Stevens is transporting his private and valuable art collection. Unfortunately, a trio of art thieves that includes the co-pilot is also aboard the flight.
The hijackers plan to knock out the crew and passengers with sleeping gas, land the plane on an abandoned airfield, lift the art, and get outta Dodge before everyone comes to. To get to the deserted airfield, the co-pilot art thief has to fly the giant 747 low across the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle to get the plane off radar. Everything goes according to plan until an unaccounted for fog reduces his visibility and he clips an oil derrick, damaging an engine. They crash into the ocean and immediately descend, coming to rest on a shelf ledge.
To recap: Trapped passengers on hijacked and crashed plane under water in the Bermuda Triangle. Yep, that about covers it.
The impact wakes the drugged passengers while killing two of the three hijackers and badly injuring the co-pilot, and it’s up to Captain Don Gallagher (Lemmon) and airplane coordinator Stan Buchek (McGavin) to try and save the trapped passengers from inside, with the eternally promotable Joe Patroni (George Kennedy reprising his role from the first two Airport installments) and the U.S. Navy to organize efforts from the surface.
Captain Gallagher and Stevens’ assistant Eve Clayton (Brenda Vaccaro) are romantically involved and both on board the plane, and we see Stevens’ concern for his daughter and grandson from afar. But this time around, the love story focuses on a triangle between two business partners (Christopher Lee and Gil Gerard) and one partner’s wife (Lee Grant). It’s dark and tragic and mirrors the overall tone of the movie.
When I asked the kiddo how this movie stacks up against the first two Airport movies, he said this one is definitely “scarier, but the captain [Lemmon] is by far the best actor we’ve seen!” I thought the movie was every bit as entertaining as the previous one. Because of its claustrophobic nature, it certainly ratchets up the suspense over its predecessors.
Much in the same way each of the Alien movies is of a different genre, the Airport movies seem to share that quality. And because the fourth Alien movie sucked so hard, I have my concerns about The Concorde … Airport ’79. Things don’t bode well for the franchise’s final installment…
Every one of the Airport movies is its own beast. And The Concorde ... Airport ’79 couldn’t be more different from its predecessors. This thing opens like an episode of The Love Boat... Robert Wagner, Eddie Albert, John Davidson, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Avery Schreiber, Sybil Danning, Sylvia Kristel, Jimmie Walker, and Charo! And plays out like some horrible made-for-TV movie.
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