The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979)

Some slack might be cut this movie due to the fact that it was made in 1979. That much said, it really is pretty dire.

Never mind the laughable back-projection or the awful, awful camera-tracking of supposed "in-flight" objects, it's the stunts that the Concorde pulls off that will have you blinking in disbelief at the absurdity. Barrel-rolls, loop-the-loops and violent "evasive" maneuvers left me wondering why the Air-Forces of the world didn't just fly Concordes as their main fighters.

So, here are the important lessons I learned from this celluloid cheese-fest:

1. The Concorde is at least as agile as a Phantom 4 jet-fighter.

2. You can fire a flare gun at Mach 2 simply by opening the cockpit window and sticking your arm out.

3. If the flare gun fails to discharge, do not drop it, as it may then go off.

4. The Concorde can dodge up to two Sidewinder missiles fired at it at once.

5. A flare will distract a heat-seeking missile every time.

6. Switching off your jet-engines is a sure-fire way of throwing heat-seeking missiles off track if 5 (above) fails.

7. When performing a crash-landing in the Concorde, it is apparently impossible to jettison your fuel beforehand.

8. Concorde pilots are all combat-trained veterans.

As you might imagine, this film is not very realistic. The effects are primitive by today's standards and that, coupled with the nonsense acrobatics the Concorde performs, makes this a movie deserving of little but scorn.

Not recommended. Not recommended at all!

Fmovies: This movie is scary at times, perhaps no more so than when a naked George Kennedy tells his hooker girlfriend he wants a little more sugar. Thankfully his nakedness is covered by a blanket, but the image is still more horrifying than anything you're likely to find in, for example, Schindler's List.

The dialog in this film was inspiring; it inspired me to watch another movie. In one scene, when a stewardess remarks about male pilots, Kennedy asks, "Why do you think it's called a 'cock' pit?" Charming.

And yes, contrary to what some have written, this film is very, very bad.

In the beginning, there was "Airport", an A-list, ultra-slick adaptation of a best-selling book, nominated for multiple Oscars (including Best Picture!) Then came "Airport 1975" with too much humor (intentional and unintentional) and Karen Black flying a damaged 747. "Airport '77" had a private plane sinking beneath the ocean while rich passengers dropped like flies. In an inane attempt to continue the exploitation of the original film (and cash in on the notoriety of the then-new Concorde, the fastest commercial plane ever), this film came along and ended the series for good. A year later, "Airplane!" would slam the coffin lid and seal it with it's hysterical sending up of the many clichés of the air-disaster genre. Here, Wagner is a high-powered industrialist who's been selling arms to enemies of the U.S. When his reporter mistress Blakely is informed of this, he tries kill her. After she boards the Concorde en route to Moscow, he (ludicrously) decides to pull out every stop in the book to demolish the aircraft, even though it is full of Olympians, TV journalists, music legends, human organs and little old ladies who can't stay out of the bathroom! The entire film is both stagnant and simultaneously uproarious at the same time. The director, writer, editor and the actors can't seem to get ANYTHING right! (See Blakely's ridiculously unconvincing newscast in which she never once looks into the camera and in which clips from events AS THEY ARE HAPPENING IN REAL TIME parade across the screen.) It also contains some of the most abominable blue-screen and model special effects ever to be seen in a major studio film. The cast of the film is huge and full of names, though most of them are given, literally, nothing to do but embarrass themselves. Wagner looks very tired and hardly bothers to vary his facial expressions. Blakely works hard but is defeated by the stupidity of the character and the script. Kennedy (the one actor who was in all four films) is promoted to Captain this time, but is reduced to cracking crude sexual jokes and (in the film's most celebratedly lunatic scene) cracking open the cockpit window and shooting off a flare! Haggard, former screen-god Delon as another pilot tries to beat preposterous dialogue like, "Your hair is my french fries" in his affair with sex kitten stewardess Kristel (whose calf-length uniform has a split up to her thigh!) Other oddities include McCambridge spouting a dreadful Russian accent and flouncing around in curtain-like tops as a gymnastics coach, Walker as a pot-smoking sax player, Lewis as a jazz legend (!) who feels she may be losing it, Schreiber as a Russian coach with a deaf daughter (at least she can't hear Lewis singing!) and Raye as a grandma with a bladder control problem (first dentures and now this?! What? Did June Allyson turn the part down?) Special mention must be given to the side-splitting appearance of Tyson as a mother escorting (!) a frozen heart to her dying son. (Since when do parents go off and collect organs while their kid is expiring somewhere else??) In an apparent attempt to disappear from this rancid film, she hides her face under every imaginable object. Already buried under Victoria Principal's fright wig from "Earthquake", she uses hankies, a clutch purse, blankets, ANYTHING to obscure her face from being seen, eventually turning away from the camera entirely! The endless cast list also contains Albert as the airline owner and Danning as his trophy wife, Davidson as

The Concorde... Airport '79 fmovies. Have you ever watched unintentional comedy? Well, this is it. There are so many absurdities, I couldn't keep track. The best scenes are when Robert Wagner decides to shoot down the plane with missiles and pass it off as a mechanical failure, Charo tries to smuggle a Chichiauah on the plane and, when it's discovered, claims it's her seeing eye dog, John Davidson's hair stays in place when the plane flies upside down, when a missile gets close to the plane, pilot George Kennedy rolls down the pilot's seat window (at the speed of sound) to shoot at it, Jimmy Walker smokes weed in the bathroom stall, and when stewardess Sylvia Crystal says seductively "You pilots are such men!", Kennedy replies, "They don't call it a cock-pit for nothing!" What floors me is that after the first disaster, the plane takes off for another flight and the passengers get back on! If I were a passenger, no way would I board that plane! All this is backed up by special effects that wouldn't pass for an episode of "Bewitched." If you can find this movie in the 99 cent section, I recommend it. I laughed more than I had laughed in weeks. It's great entertainment in the worst way possible.

The fourth and last of the calamitous Airport series, The Concorde is undeniably the most wretched of the bunch, but presented with such disregard for intelligence that it's also the funniest. Bubble--headed reporter Susan Blakely finds out that boyfriend Robert Wagner, a duplicitous arms dealer, has been secretly selling weapons to the Russians; when she boards the Concorde bound for Paris, he sends his latest heat-seeking missle after the plane. Pilots Alain Delon and George Kennedy (who started out as just a simple mechanic in the first Airport) turn the plane upside down to avoid it. After the missle is destroyed by some USAF sky jockeys, the plane continues on to Paris (!). Approaching France, a jet fighter starts shooting off missiles again at the Concorde, so Kennedy opens up the window (!!) to shoot off a flare. In Paris, Wagner tells Blakely it's all a mistake, so she gets on the Concorde again (!!!) to jet off to Moscow. A timer opens up the cargo hatch and the plane starts to break apart, but not before Delon lands the plane in the Alps (!!!!). A laugh riot, from start to finish!

All the Airport movies are stinkers, but this one is the biggest turkey of them all. The formula was different for this one because it focused on TWO disastrous flights and a lot of plot occurring on the ground, while the other movies focused on just one disastrous flight and less plot on the ground. The stunts with the Concorde are worth watching for the laughs, although the special effects aren't as terrible as I'd expect for a movie of this quality made in 1979. George Kennedy's sexist remarks are disgusting and his rendezvous with a prostitute in Paris is totally unnecessary (and made me gag a little). Poor Martha Raye was relegated to a role where she did nothing but relieve her bowel over and over in the Concorde's bathroom. There are no big stars in this movie compared to the previous films, giving you one more reason not to watch this one.