Airport, the 1970 disaster film responsible for creating not one but two major movie genres, is now available to watch on Netflix, along with two of its sequels. If you’re of a certain age, you may remember that Airport was one of the biggest hits of its era, using its star-studded cast and (for the time) cutting-edge special effects to make over $100 million at the box office on a budget of just $10 million. If you’re younger, you may never have heard of this movie, but you’ve probably heard of what it did.
Airport is a landmark, it’s a relic, it’s a soap opera in the sky, and you can stream it for the price of a Netflix subscription.
They don’t make movies like Airport anymore
For better and worse
Airport is set at the Lincoln International Airport, a fictionalized version of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. We follow a variety of characters as they go about a very hectic day: Mel Bakersfeld (Burt Lancaster) is the airport manager who’s trying to keep the place running during a snowstorm; Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin) is a pilot having an affair with a stewardess (Jacqueline Bisset); the improbably named Ada Quonsett (Helen Hayes) is a widow who habitually stows away on flights; and D. O. Guerrero (Van Heflin) is a failed salesman who decides to blow up a plane mid-flight so his wife can collect his life insurance money.
Guerrero obviously represents the disaster in this disaster movie, although he doesn’t make his move until pretty late in the film. Airport takes its time setting things up, something that disaster movies in the future would be less and less willing to do.
I don’t necessarily mean that as a compliment. Airport may show restraint, taking time to get into the minutia of running an airport, but the drama is pretty broad and melodramatic; there are multiple extramarital affairs in the offing, sometimes the film feels like a commercial for air travel itself, and the hairstyles and outfits were old-fashioned even when the movie came out. Burt Lancaster, who was known to be an irascible guy, once called Airport “the biggest piece of junk ever made.”
So why are we recommending it? Well, because sometimes a straightforward drama that isn’t too taxing on the brain is exactly what you need. Because watching Airport is like looking through a window into the past when someone could spend their lives sneaking onto planes more or less for fun, an impossibility for anyone who’s used to flying in a post-9/11 world. And because despite its shortcomings, Airport is a hugely influential movie.
Airport is the granddaddy of the “modern” disaster movie
From airplanes to cruise ships to asteroids to the Moon
Airport’s success immediately inspired a number of similar disaster movies that arguably are better remembered than the original, including 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure (people must survive on a sinking ship) and 1974’s The Towering Inferno (people must survive a fire in a skyscraper). Like Airport, both films featured star-studded (for the time, anyway) casts and were huge hits.
The disaster trend of the 1970s eventually burned itself out, but it came roaring back in the 1990s with films like Armageddon, Dante’s Peak, Deep Impact, Twister, Volcano, Independence Day, and even Titanic, all movies about ordinary people trying to survive some kind of calamity. These films were bigger and more spectacular than Airport, making use of the state-of-the-art special effects of the day, but Airport’s DNA is still very clearly a part of them.
The disaster revival eventually burned itself out too, with movies like The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 (which NASA has named the least scientifically accurate movie ever) pushing things past the point where people could take them seriously. By the time we got to 2022’s Moonfall, which is about what happens when the Moon gets on a collision course with Earth, the genre had basically become a parody of itself, but it was interesting while it lasted.
And speaking of parodies…
Airport also inspired the spoof genre while it was at it
With a layover in 1980
The biggest single legacy of Airport may be the 1980 movie Airplane!, which spoofs Airport and all the disaster films that followed. “Surely you can’t be serious?” “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley.” There are a ton of classic bits from Airplane! that still get quoted by film nerds today.
Moreover, Airplane! inspired its own movie genre. The Scary Movie franchise, for which Airplane! director David Zucker helmed several entries, owes its existence directly to Airplane!, as do films like Not Another Teen Movie, Superhero Movie, Epic Movie, and Disaster Movie, just to bring this full circle. A new Scary Movie, simply titles Scary Movie, is due out in June, proving that Airport’s legacy is still alive. It’s just a shame that Airplane! isn’t also available to watch on Netflix, although there are plenty of other great comedies to check out on the service.
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Watching the classics
To be completely honest, I don’t think Airport quite holds up as a movie, although mileage may vary, to say nothing of frequent flyer mileage. But as a piece of film history, it’s fascinating, and worth a watch for the outdated earnestness alone.
Two of the three Airport sequels, Airport 1975 and Airport ’77, are also now on Netflix. But if you’re interested in classic movies, you might have better luck looking at different streaming services.
- Release Date
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May 29, 1970
- Runtime
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137 Minutes
- Director
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George Seaton
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Burt Lancaster
Mel Bakersfeld
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Dana Wynter
Cindy Bakersfeld
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Dean Martin
Vernon Demerest
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Barbara Hale
Sarah Demerest
