Tonight's Movie: Airport 1975 (1974) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

One of my favorite '70s films, AIRPORT 1975 (1974), is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

Kino Lorber has released all four AIRPORT movies, including the original AIRPORT (1970), which I recently reviewed.

I'm being quite serious when I say this film is one of my favorites of the era. I've previously written about seeing it in 2010 and 2014, and as I wrote on Twitter after rewatching it for this review, "Whether you take it seriously, view it as AIRPLANE! style comedy, or a little bit of both, this movie never fails to entertain."

The plot finds a small plane piloted by Dana Andrews colliding with a 747 coming in for a landing in Salt Lake City. The collision kills the copilot and flight engineer and incapacitates the pilot (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), leaving head stewardess Nancy (Karen Black) to fly the plane.

Eventually a wild plan is concocted to lower a very experienced pilot (Charlton Heston) -- coincidentally Nancy's boyfriend -- into the broken cockpit window via a helicopter so that he can land the plane.

The actors play it absolutely straight, but I can't help chuckling at times. That said, the only really painful part is Helen Reddy singing to Linda Blair. Otherwise, I love it all; it's simply grand fun, from the pink and purple airplane seats to the big stars and also the small parts filled by Universal contract players.

There are many fun stars to watch in this film, including Myrna Loy (who's hilarious), Nancy Olson, and Gloria Swanson. Heston's BEN-HUR (1959) mother, Martha Scott, is even on board as a nun!

For a few more details, including a great bit of trivia on the Andrews and Zimbalist pilot roles, I also recommend checking out the piece I wrote when I first saw the movie 15 years ago.

AIRPORT 1975 runs 107 minutes. It was directed by Jack Smight, written by Don Ingalls, and filmed by Philip H. Lathrop.

The Kino Lorber Blu-ray print is from a new HD master from a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. It also features 5.1 Surround sound.

This film is presented as a Special Edition with a cardboard slipcase. Extras consist of the trailer; a gallery of five additional trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber; and a commentary track by Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson.

Very much recommended.

Coming in the future: Reviews of Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray releases of AIRPORT '77 (1977) and THE CONCORDE...AIRPORT '79 (1979).

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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