Brian Damage
06-26-2010, 10:46 PM
Back in 1979, when “Airplane!” was being shot on Universal’s back lot in Los Angeles, it didn’t seem like a potential blockbuster. The three Wisconsin-born filmmakers were rather amazed that anybody would give them a budget — and $3.5 million at that — to make such a lark, one that had no big stars. A follow-up to their 1977 cult film “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” which they had written, this was an extended riff on “Zero Hour!,” a glum thriller from 1957 about an imperiled aircraft that set the template for the next half-century’s worth of disaster pictures.
The plentiful pop cultural references and anything-for-a-laugh attitude of “Airplane!” recalled early films by Mel Brooks (“Blazing Saddles”) and Woody Allen (“Bananas”). But its velocity and density were new. Every scene was packed with surreal, often faintly metafictional sight gags (including a supporting turn by the N.B.A. giant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a co-pilot who denies that he’s really Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a cameo by Ethel Merman playing a psychiatric patient who thinks he’s Ethel Merman). And the film proudly served up jokes so astoundingly corny that they somehow managed to circle around the bend and become hilarious. (“Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley!”)
At the same time “Airplane!” wasn’t just a collection of bits. The narrative hewed closely to that of “Zero Hour!,” and if you can factor out all the silliness — no small feat with a movie that segues from a “Casablanca”-inspired romantic flashback to a “Saturday Night Fever”-like dance number — what remains is a compact, even classical piece of filmmaking.
“A lot of comedies in the last 30 years have wanted to be ‘Airplane!,’ ” said Patton Oswalt, a comedian and actor and the voice of the hero in “Ratatouille.” “But most of those movies took the wrong message from ‘Airplane!’ They were gag, gag, gag, gag, where ‘Airplane!’ is really structured, driving the story along all the time. In a weird way it’s like a Beatles movie. It looks like the easiest thing in the world, but there’s a lot of sweat and blood that went into it.”
The filmmakers Z.A.Z. team cast relative unknowns — Robert Hays, a co-star of the sitcom “Angie,” and the angel-voiced, deeply kooky Julie Hagerty — as the film’s estranged lovers. And they filled out the production with sturdy, unglamorous character actors, including Graves, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Leslie Nielsen, who would build a second career out of playing clueless, comic creators of mayhem.
Mr. Hays, who played Ted Striker, the shell-shocked ex-military pilot with a drinking problem (cue beverage tossed in face), said Mr. Nielsen, a prankster, was a key influence on the movie’s tone. Mr. Nielsen kept the actors off-balance by interrupting their line readings with his favorite comic prop, a hand-held toy simulating flatulence.
“He played that thing like a maestro,” said Mr. Hays, who conveniently was a licensed pilot flying small aircraft since the late 1970s. (“To this day, when I’m heading over to a plane, I sometimes still get looks from people that are like, ‘Are you sure you want to get in there?’ ”)
The nominal plot of “Airplane!” recounts the efforts of a stalwart flight crew trying to land a commercial airliner after spoiled fish incapacitates most of the crew and passengers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/movies/27airplane.html
The plentiful pop cultural references and anything-for-a-laugh attitude of “Airplane!” recalled early films by Mel Brooks (“Blazing Saddles”) and Woody Allen (“Bananas”). But its velocity and density were new. Every scene was packed with surreal, often faintly metafictional sight gags (including a supporting turn by the N.B.A. giant Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a co-pilot who denies that he’s really Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and a cameo by Ethel Merman playing a psychiatric patient who thinks he’s Ethel Merman). And the film proudly served up jokes so astoundingly corny that they somehow managed to circle around the bend and become hilarious. (“Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley!”)
At the same time “Airplane!” wasn’t just a collection of bits. The narrative hewed closely to that of “Zero Hour!,” and if you can factor out all the silliness — no small feat with a movie that segues from a “Casablanca”-inspired romantic flashback to a “Saturday Night Fever”-like dance number — what remains is a compact, even classical piece of filmmaking.
“A lot of comedies in the last 30 years have wanted to be ‘Airplane!,’ ” said Patton Oswalt, a comedian and actor and the voice of the hero in “Ratatouille.” “But most of those movies took the wrong message from ‘Airplane!’ They were gag, gag, gag, gag, where ‘Airplane!’ is really structured, driving the story along all the time. In a weird way it’s like a Beatles movie. It looks like the easiest thing in the world, but there’s a lot of sweat and blood that went into it.”
The filmmakers Z.A.Z. team cast relative unknowns — Robert Hays, a co-star of the sitcom “Angie,” and the angel-voiced, deeply kooky Julie Hagerty — as the film’s estranged lovers. And they filled out the production with sturdy, unglamorous character actors, including Graves, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Leslie Nielsen, who would build a second career out of playing clueless, comic creators of mayhem.
Mr. Hays, who played Ted Striker, the shell-shocked ex-military pilot with a drinking problem (cue beverage tossed in face), said Mr. Nielsen, a prankster, was a key influence on the movie’s tone. Mr. Nielsen kept the actors off-balance by interrupting their line readings with his favorite comic prop, a hand-held toy simulating flatulence.
“He played that thing like a maestro,” said Mr. Hays, who conveniently was a licensed pilot flying small aircraft since the late 1970s. (“To this day, when I’m heading over to a plane, I sometimes still get looks from people that are like, ‘Are you sure you want to get in there?’ ”)
The nominal plot of “Airplane!” recounts the efforts of a stalwart flight crew trying to land a commercial airliner after spoiled fish incapacitates most of the crew and passengers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/movies/27airplane.html