An empty reshaping of GRAND HOTEL, held together by disaster in the sky.
Heflin smuggles a bomb on board, then blows himself out of an airborne jet, which limps along for more than two hours looking for a place to land while a score of passengers' lives are capsulized. Frantic ground people sweat over microphones and runway equipment, desperately trying to move a
stalled plane on the only runway available (during a blizzard!) while ground crew chief Kennedy blathers heroically.
The film cost more than $10 million, and Universal chiefs held their breath. They need not have worried; the production soared beyond a $45 million gross and spawned three, progressively inferior, sequels. Nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Picture. Both Stapleton and Hayes were
nominated for Best Supporting Actress, and Hayes won, proving sentiment and cloying cuteness can conquer any mediocre script. AIRPORT will be remembered as the trailblazer of the disaster epic, one of the most trivial genres in the history of motion pictures. leave a comment
