This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

In seventh Grade I noticed half my gym class was absent. I asked a fellow student where is everyone and he answered Mrs. Lind had a field trip for her three classes to see Airport. Confused I responded, "JFK or LaGuardia?" My classmate said "No silly It's a movie." Still not sinking into my gray matter. A movie about an Airport? Must be boring!" The next day I asked one of the classmate who went to see the movie how it was and he said it was about a Man who is a demolitions expert, down on his luck, who takes out a large life insurance policy smuggling a bomb on a jet liner headed for Rome, plus an old lady giving forged boarding passes and the Airport manager has a blonde girlfriend while his wife bitches on the phone and furthermore The pilot of the plane impregnated his stewardess girlfriend who is also married to the airport manager's sister.A blizzard, snow on the runways Oh by the way the Pilot of the Boeing 707, is Dean Martin. I guess it's not boring. Was Dean Singing and drinking while flying? Was there an up in the clouds movie? Is Jerry Lewis the co-pilot? The classmate said it wasn't a comedy. A few years passed and I finally caught this film on Television. Exceptional all-star cast lead by Burt Lancaster as Mel Bakersfield, Dana Wynter as his fussy wife. Jean Seberg as his girlfriend Tanya Livingston. Van Heflin as the "mad bomber" Guerrero. Maureen Stapleton as Mrs.Guerrero. Familiar faces, the likes of Larry Gates as the Commish deciding to shut down the Airport and Lloyd Nolan as the head of Customs but fails to check for explosives when passengers board flights. Other notables in the film.... Gary Collins, Barbara Hale,Lou Wagner as the brainy nerd and Barry Nelson as Dean Martin's co-pilot. Two stand out performances in the film are the cigar smoking George Kennedy as Joe Patroni who disables a stalled jet on a runway just in the nick of time. Maureen Stapleton as the daunting Wife pleading for someone to stop her suicidal Husband.The shining star in all this controversy is the matriarchal veteran of the stage Helen Hayes. As Ada Quonsett the innocent sweet old trickster of flight tickets is the consummate actress with her mannerisms and timing keeps you fixated waiting for her next line. Jacqueline Bisset as the head stewardess and Dean Martin's Girlfriend who get seriously injured and plays a nice patient. Oh I almost forgot; Dort Clark and Whit Bissel are passengers as well on this bombing expedition in a blizzard outside Chicago. Piece this explanation together and you have the movie Airport which did well at the box office and carried it's name brand franchise for the rest of the decade with horrible sequels one after another all the way to new aircraft called the Concorde SST death flight piloted by Mr Brady (Robert Reed) with Regis Philbin the trademark of a bombed movie. A bit sterile the original, but entertaining and I'll watch it as this movie was lightning in a bottle but bottles run dry by the sequel in most cases.

So I confess that I have a love for disaster films, no matter what other people think of them. Thank heavens for movie subjectivity! Anyhow, Airport is a movie that is the pioneer for modern disaster movies, but I really enjoyed it. There are undeniably many flaws, but my gosh I had a blast watching the film and the campy tone gave the film spirit. My biggest flaw I had with the film is the scenes involving the personal lives of the manager. I mean, his pending divorce has nothing to do with the rest of the plot, including trying to save the plane. Other than that plot issue, I really had fun watching the granddaddy of all disaster films.This film is about this airport that is stricken due to a blizzard. But even more serious problems arise when a bomb-damaged plane needs an emergency landing in order to save the people on the plane. The manager of the Lincoln Airport, Mel Bakersfield, has his hands full in trying to combat the weather and personnel in order to save the plane.The film has a stacked cast full of Oscar nominees. Now while no one truly gives Oscar-worthy performances, there is no denying that they were solid performances. Burt Lancaster did a good job as Mel and Dean Martin as the head pilot, Vernon. Those performances came across as serious despite the campy tone, but they were still good. However, I felt the best performance came from Helen Hayes, a 70-year-old woman who makes a fuss about plane tickets which causes her to hitch airplane rides while avoiding authorities. Her comic relief was excellent, and maybe she did deserve that Oscar.Overall, Airport is a fun disaster movie and in hindsight, it set the tone for the major disaster movies that will come in the future. It is a great movie? Not really. Is it a fun, entertaining movie? You bet it is! I am very amazed how this film achieved ten Oscar nominations. If this same film was released in 2015, it more likely would have received ten Razzie nominations. Oh how the time change! But on the whole, a really fun movie with some cool sequences including my favorite which was the bomb going off in the plane.My Grade: B+/A-

At Times Anachronistic, the Movie was Dated Even in 1970. Famous Movie Critic Judith Crist Famously Called This..."The Best Movie of 1944". It was Released at the Height of the Generation Gap, The Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, and Right in the Middle of the Hollywood System's Inevitable Demise.The Country at the Time was Divided Right Down the Middle. Simply Stated, Young vs Old, or it Could be Said, Those that THINK YOUNG and Those that THINK OLD. No Doubt What Side This Thing Was On. Anyway, it was Turbulent Times.The Movie is High Gloss and Looks Great. It is So Slick it Almost Slides of the Screen. There are Some Elements Here that Hollywood Had Been Doing Successfully for So Many Years that it is Not Surprising Just How Well Done It Is.But it is More than Well Done, it is Over Baked. The First Third of the Movie is the Most Cringe Inducing with its Marital and Extramarital Affairs Dominating the Dated Dialog Delivered by Aging Stars. There are Many Attractions in the Film. No Not the Name Actors.The Sleek, Slender, and Colorful Cinematography. The Snow Storm. The Airplane. All Add to the Charm as Does the Plot Once it Gets Beyond the Sickly and Soapy Beginning. When Things Finally Get Off the Ground it is an Entertaining Picture.Overall, Listing the Cast and Their Contribution or Lack Thereof to the Ultimate Success, both at the Box Office and the Academy, is the Stuff of Lampoon and Legend. Suffice to Say that the Movie was a Hit Despite Itself. The Most Interesting Thing Might Be How it Managed Such a Feat at a Time When Other Movies were So New, Different, Ground Breaking, and In Touch with its Own Place and Time. In 1970 the "Silent Majority" Still was Managing to be Heard.

There is a snow storm at Chicago's Lincoln International Airport. Manager Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster) is working hard to handle all the emergencies. There is a demonstration against the new runway that flies over a neighborhood. He calls in mechanic Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) to pull out a plane stuck in the snow. D.O. Guerrero (Van Heflin) intends to blow up his plane in the air so that his wife Inez (Maureen Stapleton) could collect the life insurance money. Captain Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) keeps pushing the airport to run faster and pushes the pilot to take off. Stewardess Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset) is on board and is pregnant with the married Demerest's baby. Mrs. Ada Quonsett (Helen Hayes) is an expert stowaway.The movie has a lot of character minutiae before it gets to the drama. The cast is amazing and Helen Hayes probably won the Oscar for her body of work. The acting suffers from the scale which overshadows everything. There are too many stories to follow. I don't care about most of them. It's rather boring for much of the movie. It's a big movie that doesn't generate enough tension. I am also uncertain whether to praise its influence in starting the 70s disaster movie craze or to hate it for the camp that most of that genre represent. This is not a terribly compelling movie until they get on the plane. Basically the last half is a good disaster movie but the first half is boring as hell.