"Frank F. Matthews" wrote in message ...
flyer wrote:
to begin with. Anyway, the whole campy 4-movie set is worth it just for the
laughs. If you watch them as a comedy, they're delightful.
"Frank F. Matthews" wrote in message ...
You want reality from jokes. There was a bit of reality in the original
book but even that was pretty much hit in the first movie. The sequels
were comedy at the prat fall level. FFM
The Concorde sequel was obviously nonsense when I saw it aged 10.
I caught the first one ('Airport') on TCM over the weekend. I used to
love that film when I was a kid so I thought it'd be fun to watch now
I have a few hours (student) logged, just to see what I could spot.
It got a lot more right than most airplane movies - no wacky runway
numbers; they squawked 7700 when the bomb went off and declared an
emergency; whenever Dean Martin left the cockpit the captain put his
mask on (even mentioned the FARs); the bomb didn't actually blow up
the airliner and the decompression fogged the air and everyone got
cold (nobody mentioned this scene during the whole 'explosive
decompression' debate a month or so back); pilots didn't fight a
'stall' by pulling back on the yoke and the plane didn't go wildly out
of control after the explosion. Then again those scenes with George
Kennedy trying to shift the stuck 707 were a bit silly.
The 'Precision Radar Approach' can't have been accurate though - the
controller talked them down ('left a bit, go higher...' and indicated
that the ILS was only a backup if they couldn't hear his voice - I
suspect that was made up to enhance the drama of the approach which
otherwise would be two guys staring at crossed needles. Also it seemed
to be the center controller who was talking to them rather than the
tower.
Considering how bad say, 'Executive Decision' was you have to give
'Airport' some credit...
'Airport 2004: The TSA'. Now *there's* a film - the human drama that
unfolds during a two hour wait in line as reports come in of a mother
smuggling ricin in bottles of breast milk...
TK
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