Airport ’77 ** (1977, Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, George Kennedy, Olivia de Havilland, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee) – Classic Movie Review 673

Director Jerry Jameson’s 1977 third Airport movie is a lumbering disaster movie epic that is completely preposterous and often unintentionally funny. But it is still fairly exciting and somewhat enjoyable.

It sends a luxury 747 airliner plunging into the sea with Captain Jack Lemmon, his crew, guest-star passengers and valuable art treasures on board, after art thieves hijack the plane, which hits fog and crashes into the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle. Luckily for the passengers and crew, as well as the film, they hit a sandbank, trapping them under 100 feet of water, and the struggle is on to get out alive before the plane floods with water.

Playing the heroic Captain Don Gallagher, Lemmon deserves classier material than this, but he goes through the motions capably enough and it is interesting to see him in a non-comedy action role. And at least he has a decent role to bite on. And series regular George Kennedy is at hand with the wisdom too as Joe Patroni.

It is sadder, though, to see Olivia de Havilland, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee and Lee Grant not well used or properly respected and pretty much sinking aimlessly.

Number three in the series is several notches down from the 1970 Airport and even a couple down from Airport ’75, but it was still popular and grossed more than $16 million in America. The series finally died after the 1979 part four, Airport ’80: The Concorde [The Concorde: Airport 79].

Also in the cast are Brenda Vaccaro, Robert Foxworth, Robert Hooks, Monte Markham, Kathleen Quinlan, James Booth, Gil Gerard, Pamela Bellwood, Arlene Golonka, M Emmet Walsh and Chris Lemmon.

It is written by Michael Scheff and David Spector, shot in widescreen by Philip Lathrop, produced by William Frye, scored by John Cacavas and set designed George C Webb.

William Frye, who also produced Airport ’75, The Trouble with Angels and Raise the Titanic!, died on 3 November 2017, aged 96.

Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, turned 100 on 1 July 2016.

George Kennedy, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Cool Hand Luke, turned 90 on 18 February 2015. He died on February 28 2016 in Boise, Idaho, aged 91. He was memorable in Charade (1963) and was a fixture of Seventies disaster movies, including Airport (1970) and its three sequels and Earthquake (1974).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 673

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