Airport ‘80: The Concorde ** (1979, Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel) – Classic Movie Review 5,428

Alain Delon strays way off his usual flight path as Captain Paul Metrand, pilot of the Concorde, in the tired and wooden 1979 film Airport ‘80: The Concorde, a funny farrago.

‘At twice the speed of sound, can the Concorde evade attack?’ Well, what do you think? Director David Lowell Rich’s 1979 fourth and final Airport series movie is a lumbering disaster movie epic that’s at least good for a bit of a laugh. It follows a couple of years after Airport ’77 (1977) and nine years after the original Airport (1970).

Alain Delon finds flying the Concorde is not plane sailing,

French cinema icon Alain Delon strays way off his usual flight path as Captain Paul Metrand, pilot of the Concorde, in this tired and wooden addition to the series. Emmanuelle’s Sylvia Kristel and Ingmar Bergman’s actress Bibi Andersson are the other surprise Euro-stars involved.

Unbelievable though they are, there’s worse from Robert Wagner as Dr Kevin Harrison, a computer scientist out to destroy the plan, Susan Blakely as his newscaster mistress Maggie Whelan and Mercedes McCambridge as a Soviet gym teacher unfortunately called Nelli. Naturally the one returning series regular George Kennedy (as Joe Patroni) is again at hand to dispense with his wisdom, now promoted to pilot. Otherwise the film is not a direct sequel because it uses different characters and settings.

The movie is a bit of a farrago but it is funny if you’re in the mood to scoff at struggling movies.

It runs 113 minutes but the US TV version runs 19 minutes longer and there is a 108-minute home video version.

Also in the cast are Eddie Albert, John Davidson, Cicely Tyson, Andrea Marcovicci, Martha Raye, Jimmie Walker, David Warner, Avery Schreiber, Sybil Danning, Monica Lewis, Nicolas Coster, Robin Gammell, John Cedar and Ed Begley Jr.

It killed off the Airport franchise as its fourth and final instalment after bad reviews and poor box office in North America. However, the film was a commercial success internationally, grossing a total of $65 million on a $14 million budget.

To use the Concorde, it took producer Jennings Lang a number of years to get permission from Air France, who insisted on changes to the story and dialogue.

The plot to bring down the Concorde is similar to the Turkish Airlines Flight 981 accident six years earlier, in which the cargo hold door blew off in flight, causing an explosive decompression and loss of control.

Alain Delon looks better on a horse than at the controls of the Concorde.

It is also called The Concorde… Airport ’79 (original  1979 American title) and just plain Airport ’79. But in the UK it was released a year later as Airport ’80: The Concorde.

The Concorde… Airport ’79 Airport ‘80: The Concorde is directed by David Lowell Rich, runs 113 minutes, is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by Eric Roth, is shot in Technicolor by Philip H Lathrop, is produced by Jennings Lang and is scored by Lalo Schifrin.

The cast are Alain Delon as Captain Paul Metrand, Susan Blakely as Maggie Whelan, Robert Wagner as Kevin Harrison, Sylvia Kristel as Isabelle, George Kennedy as Captain Joe Patroni, Eddie Albert as Eli Sands, Bibi Andersson as Francine, Charo as Margarita, Pierre Jalbert as Henri, John Davidson as Robert Palmer, Andrea Marcovicci as Alicia Rogov, Martha Raye as Loretta, Cicely Tyson as Elaine, Jimmie Walker as Boise, David Warner as Peter O’Neill, Mercedes McCambridge as Nelli, Avery Schreiber as Russian coach Markov, Sybil Danning as Amy, Monica Lewis as Gretchen, Nicolas Coster as Dr. Stone, Robin Gammell as Halpern, Ed Begley Jr. as Rescuer #1, Jon Cedar as Froelich, Macon McCalman as Carl Parker, Kathleen Maguire as Mary Parker, Marneen Fields as American Olympic Athlete, and Harry Shearer (voice) as announcer Jeffrey Marx.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,428

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