Airplane!

Airplane! (1980)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: The ZAZ trio

Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges

From: Paramount

Surely you can't be serious in saying you don't even remember the last time you saw this in full?

I am... and don't call me Shirley.

Quite simply, when I discovered last night that this movie was on Prime (& it could be seen free for me as a Prime member) the choice was easy for me.

By now many people have the foreknowledge of Airplane's plot. It spoofs the Airport disaster movies of the 70's-which I've viewed-along with closely following the plot of 1957's Zero Hour, which I haven't seen for comparison's sake. Unlike what happened to spoof comedies a few decades ago, this is not predicated on then-modern humor (for the most part) for its gags. Rather, the humor is full of silly puns involving names, sight gags, running gags revisited occasionally, wordplay, etc.

Also, there was more off-color humor than what was in my memory banks. Not all of my Letterboxd mutuals enjoyed that aspect, which is fair. There's a pun involving a woman inflating the automatic pilot (those unfamiliar w/ the movie, it makes sense in context!) which looks incredibly vulgar from behind, Peter Graves plays a pilot who implies he likes little boys, a little girl “likes black men”, etc. Personally, it's too silly for me personally to be offended. Jerry Seinfeld says that comedy now is “too woke” and I'd rather not go down that path... except to say that no matter your opinion on the topic, the subsequent release of his big Netflix movie flopping hard in terms of general reception did not help his cause.

In any regard, even if you've never seen Airplane it is likely you've heard some of his most famous phrases/moments that have entered the lexicon. From old white lady Barbara Billingsley talking jive and “I've picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue” to Otto the blowup doll automatic pilot and many others, it's quite the feat that the movie has soared since 1980 when before release it was just seen as a silly little comedy no one had expectations for. They were able to hire familiar faces known for drama who never winked at the camera while they acted serious in increasingly absurd situations.

As I believe that modern comedy in general is pretty terrible-no matter the reasons why this may be the case-it is a relief that Airplane for the most part hasn't aged poorly.