''Airport '77'' is a 1977 American air
disaster film
A disaster film or disaster movie is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters may include natural disasters, accidents, offensive (military), military/terrorism, terrorist att ...
, the third installment of the
''Airport'' film series. The film stars an
ensemble cast of veteran actors including
Jack Lemmon,
James Stewart,
Joseph Cotten,
Olivia de Havilland, and
Brenda Vaccaro as well as the return of
George Kennedy from the two previous ''Airport'' films. It is directed by
Jerry Jameson, produced by
William Frye, executive produced by
Jennings Lang with a screenplay by Michael Scheff and David Spector.
The plot concerns a private
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023.
After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...
packed with
VIPs and priceless art that is hijacked before crashing into the ocean in the
Bermuda Triangle, forcing the survivors into a desperate struggle for survival.
Despite mixed critical reviews, ''Airport '77'' was a box-office hit, grossing $91.1 million worldwide. It was nominated for two
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
.
Plot
Wealthy
philanthropist Philip Stevens is having invited guests flown in his luxurious privately-owned
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023.
After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...
-100, Stevens Flight 23, to his
Palm Beach, Florida estate. Aboard are his estranged adult daughter and her young son, whom he hopes to reconnect with, as he is secretly dying. Priceless artwork from Stevens' private collection destined for his new museum is also on the jetliner. The collection has motivated a group of thieves led by co-pilot Bob Chambers to
hijack the aircraft.
Mid-flight, Captain Don Gallagher is lured from the cockpit and knocked unconscious. A
sleeping gas secretly installed pre-flight is released into the cabin, rendering unprotected crew and passengers unconscious. Chambers, flying to a small deserted island to offload the art treasures, drops the plane below radar range causing Stevens Flight 23 to "disappear" in the
Bermuda Triangle. Descending to virtually wave-top altitude, Flight 23 heads into a fog bank, reducing visibility. Minutes later, a large
offshore platform
An oil platform (also called an oil rig, offshore platform, oil production platform, etc.) is a large structure with facilities to extract and process petroleum and natural gas that lie in rock formations beneath the seabed. Many oil platforms wi ...
emerges from the haze, and Flight 23's wing clips the platform's tower, igniting an engine. Chambers extinguishes the fire, but due to a sudden loss of airspeed, the plane stalls and crashes into the water, floating momentarily before sinking below the surface.
The plane settles in relatively shallow water that is above the plane's crush depth, though water pressure gradually compromises the fuselage. Many passengers are injured, some seriously. Chambers, the only surviving hijacker, reveals the plane is two hundred miles off course, meaning search and rescue efforts will be focused in the wrong area. As a search for the missing plane is launched, veteran aeronautics expert Joe Patroni joins the rescue operation as a technical adviser, joined by Philip Stevens. Meanwhile, the trapped crew can only contact rescuers by getting a signal buoy to the surface. Captain Gallagher and a professional diver, Martin Wallace, enter the main cargo preparing to swim to the surface using air masks. The hatch door malfunctions, forcing Wallace to open it manually. The sudden onrush of water kills him, but Gallagher is able to make it to the surface and activate the emergency beacon. The signal is detected and a rescue operation is launched. Meanwhile, the plane's fuselage is steadily leaking, and on top of that, air is running out.
The Navy dispatches a sub-recovery ship,
USS ''Cayuga'',
USS ''Agerholm'' and a flotilla of other vessels to the crash site, rescuing Gallagher. Stevens, meanwhile, has joined ''Cayuga'' via helicopter while Patroni stays on the mainland to study the aircraft's risks of imploding underwater, which he warns Gallagher about over the phone. Guided by Gallagher, Navy divers rig the plane with balloons and inflate them, slowly raising the aircraft. Just before the plane reaches the surface, a balloon breaks loose and pressure is reduced to stabilize the aircraft. A cargo hold door inside the plane bursts open and seawater floods the cabin; Chambers and Wallace's widow Karen drown, while Emily’s injured friend Dorothy dies from her injuries. With time running out, air pressure is increased, raising the plane to the surface, and all survivors are quickly evacuated. Captain Gallagher and Stevens' assistant, Eve (whom Gallagher is in love with), become trapped inside and escape through the upper deck where they are fished out of the ocean by a Navy helicopter, as the 747 sinks under the waves for the last time. Stevens reunites with his daughter and tearfully hugs his grandson, while the helicopter carrying Gallagher and Eve lands aboard ''Agerholm'', where they are both met by the grateful survivors.
Cast
*
Jack Lemmon as Capt. Don Gallagher
*
Lee Grant as Karen Wallace
*
Brenda Vaccaro as Eve Clayton
*
Joseph Cotten as Nicholas St. Downs III
*
Olivia de Havilland as Emily Livingston
*
James Stewart as Philip Stevens
*
George Kennedy as Joseph "Joe" Patroni
*
Darren McGavin as Stan Buchek
*
Christopher Lee as Martin Wallace
*
Robert Foxworth as Bob Chambers
*
Robert Hooks as Eddie
*
Monte Markham as Banker
*
Kathleen Quinlan as Julie
*
Gil Gerard as Frank Powers
*
James Booth
James Booth (born David Noel Geeves; 19 December 1927 – 11 August 2005) was an English film, stage and television actor and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Private Henry Hook in '' Zulu.''
''Variety'' called him "a punchy b ...
as Ralph Crawford
*
Monica Lewis as Anne
*
Maidie Norman as Dorothy
*
Pamela Bellwood as Lisa Stevens
*
Arlene Golonka as Mrs. Jane Stern
*
Tom Sullivan as Steve
*
M. Emmet Walsh as Dr. Harvard Williams
*
Michael Pataki as Wilson
*
George Furth as Gerald Lucas
*
Richard Venture as Commander Guay
*
Elizabeth Cheshire as Bonnie Stern
* Anthony Battaglia as Benjy Stevens
Production note
Although the disaster portrayed in the film is fictional, rescue operations depicted in the movie are actual rescue operations utilized by the
Navy
A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...
in the event of similar emergencies or disasters, as indicated at the end of the film prior to the closing credits. The disaster itself—a hard water landing as shown in the film, and an intact sinking—would not be likely given the hard
tailstrike, which would have demolished the aircraft.
For its initial broadcast on
NBC-TV in September 1978, an additional 70 minutes of outtakes and new footage shot especially for network TV was added.
Reception
Critical reception
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, a
review aggregator, reports that 40% of 10 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 5.4/10. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
the film has a
weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. ''
Variety'' wrote, "The story's formula banality is credible most of the time and there's some good actual US Navy search and rescue procedure interjected in the plot."
Roger Ebert of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times'' rated it 2/4 stars and wrote, "The movie's a big, slick entertainment, relentlessly ridiculous and therefore never boring for long." ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' wrote, "''Airport '77'' looks less like the work of a director and writers than like a corporate decision."
Box office
The film grossed $30 million in the United States and Canada and $61 million internationally for a worldwide total of $91.1 million.
Award nominations
Theme park attraction
From late 1977 until the early 1980s, the
Universal Studios Tour in California featured the "Airport '77" Screen Test Theater as part of the tour.
Several sets were recreated, and members of the audience were chosen to play various parts. The audience would watch as these scenes were filmed. Key scenes such as the hijacking, crash and rescue were recreated, and the footage was then incorporated into a brief digest version of the film and screened for the audience on monitors. Each show's mini-film was made available for audience members to purchase on
8 mm film and videotape.
References
External links
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{{Jerry Jameson
Airport (film series)
1977 films
1977 thriller films
1970s American films
1970s disaster films
1970s English-language films
American aviation films
American disaster films
American sequel films
English-language thriller films
Films about aircraft hijackings
Films about aviation accidents or incidents
Films based on works by Arthur Hailey
Films directed by Jerry Jameson
Films scored by John Cacavas
Films set in the Bermuda Triangle
Films set in Miami
Films set on airplanes
Universal Pictures films