8mm Forum: Airplane 1980

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Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on July 25, 2007, 06:07 PM:

Cast Robert Hays
Julie Hagerty
Lioyd Bridges
Leslie Nielson
Robert Stack
Peter Graves
What a cast in this "take off" excuse the pun of all the Airport disaster films you can think of,I dont think Universal were game to make another one after this film was released.

From the opening scene of a mis-guided 747 crashing through the terminal we move into the story if you could call it that, of Ted Striker "Hays" an X fighter pilot who has a phobia of flying trying to make up to his girlfriend a air-hostess "Hagerty" during her flight, and while she is looking after the passengers Hays is quite literally boring to death his fellow passengers recounting his past. We are then taken back to a seedy night club where he first met her, there we encounter two girl guides fighting with each other and with a sudden impact on the jukebox causing it to play Beegees "Staying Alive" Hays reveals his white coat and does superb send-up of Travolta Saturday Night Fever.

Back on the aircraft disaster is about to strike as the passengers and crew slowly become violently ill from food poisoning "its the fish" one passenger comments I've never felt this awful since we saw that Ronald Reagan film, well its now down to the air-hostess to fly the plane, and with the help of ground control "Robert Stack and Lioyd Bridges" they get her to engage the auto-pilot a life-size inflatable man-doll, everything seems to be going well until he begins to deflate, she is then instructed that she must blow him up, with this act the aircraft levels from its desent, the auto-pilot now has a [Smile]

Hays now takes control and with sweat pouring down his face we are subjected to the longest landing in history, in the terminal you here gate 7 gate 8 gate 9 etc etc it goes on forever, Hays saves the day and lands the aircraft makes up with his girlfriend, the passengers are safe, and the film finishes with the aircraft again taking of under the control of the auto-pilot and this time has his girlfriend another "blow up doll" and with a [Wink]

he flies of into the sunset.

This film is a roller coaster ride of gags, they come thick and fast, from the scene of the passengers watching the in flight movie showing a 707 crashing and bursting into flames to the comment that the S--- is about to hit the fan which it literally does. Airplane might not appeal to everyones sence of humor, its a 70s look film and I wonder if it was made today would they get away with some of it, for myself I thoroughly enjoyed it, Marketing films 3/400ft well edited with very good colour and sound its a film I would highly recomend.

Graham.

'

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 25, 2007, 06:55 PM:

My warped sense of humor was once complimented(?) by a friend at work telling me "I saw that movie and I thought of you: you could have written it!"

I am serious, and don't call me Shirley!

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on July 25, 2007, 10:39 PM:

"I Picked a fine time to give up smoking ... "

This was an excellent comedy!! This same team made the "Naked Gun" series ...

"I Picked a fine time to stop drinking"

... as well as the "Hot Shot" movies ...

"I picked a fine time to stop sniffing glue"

the "Police Squad TV show, the recent movie "Rat Race"

"I picked a fine time to stop taking ametaphetamines"

and are hands down the funniest writers and directors of the last 30 years on film, consistently funny.

This 3X400ft version is really good, as the original feature was only a little over 80 minutes long.

The magic of these guys is that they make movies that you really have to WATCH, as there are gags, visual and verbal, going on all the time!

I'd love to get ahold of this release!

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on July 26, 2007, 12:06 AM:

Was "Hot Shot" ever available in 8mm ? (in any version)

cheers,

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on July 26, 2007, 04:44 PM:

A couple of things I forgot to mention, is that this print will fit nicely onto a Elmo 800ft reel, it must be polyester stock as the running time is exactly 50 minutes, another good point is that it was originally filmed 1.78:1 which means an easy transfer to Super8 with virtually little loss of picture.

Watched it twice last night, and will finish with the comments from air-hostess Lorna Patterson "Randy" as she helps the passengers jump out of the aircraft and down the slide, "Have a nice day, [Smile]

thank you for flying "Trans-American". [Smile]

Graham.

Posted by Joerg Polzfusz (Member # 602) on July 27, 2007, 03:53 AM:

Hi,

in 1979 marketing decided to completely switch to polyester film. So this film has to be on polyester.

Another collector here in Berlin used to have an airline-print of this film. It's still not the complete feature as approx. 5mins are missing, but it's more complete than the marketing version [Wink]

Jörg

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on July 27, 2007, 05:26 AM:

No, wait!

They showed "Airplane" on airplanes?

I didn't think the airlines had that kind of sense of humor!

Can you imagine being a nervous flyer and seeing that on the screen, especially if they didn't pay the extra 5 bucks for the headphones?

I wonder if they clipped out the sequence where the passengers are watching their own in-flight movie and it's footage of planes crashing!

Posted by Trevor Adams (Member # 42) on July 30, 2007, 05:58 AM:

Airplane! is my "most projected" flick. The Zucker/Abrahams team were "sight gag" world champs!

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on July 30, 2007, 06:45 AM:

The team behind this movie also made and some of them starred in, Kentucky fried movie, This was a skecth film but quite good and was one of Major 8mm 2x400ft, one reel was the spoof Kung fu section called a fistfull of yen. Often comes up on the list, the sketch reel was a little soft but the kung fu spin off was very good for major 8

Posted by Gordon G. Ellis (Member # 4663) on February 24, 2016, 03:21 PM:

I'm late to this particular party, but why not join in?

Rejuvenating my relatively modest Super 8 hobby, I’ve finally gotten around to screening my copy of the 3 x 400’ Airplane. And, holy cow, what a treat. I’ve always found Super 8 cutdowns to be interesting curios. This one does a remarkable job of presenting the whole story, and is as wonderful a digest as one could want.

As discussed above, the thinner polyester stock allows the film to easily mount on an 800’ reel. Colors in my print are okay. A few striking blues pop from the screen, especially in the neon-lit nightclub scene in the first reel.

The edit gives a very complete sense of the film, with enough time for character’s backstories and running gags. Of course, in the service of telling the whole story, there are some omissions. And, although one shouldn't really complain about such a well-edited and fun digest, the omissions include (SPOILER ALERT) a few of the films most famous scenes. These include:

— Barbara Billingsley’s “Stewardess, I speak jive” scene. The original scene plays out in barely a minute, and would seem to have fit smoothly into the digest edit.

— Joey’s visit to the cockpit (“Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?”). In the original, this sequence plays out over a few minutes — probably too much footage to include at length, but a few of the key gag-lines could have been cleanly edited into the flow.

— A curious and slightly disappointing omission is the very first (and most famous) instance of Leslie Nielsen’s “Don’t call me Shirley.” This running-gag line is repeated later in the film, so it is represented in the digest. But, the original instance could have fit seamlessly into the flow of the digest, and again would have required only about 15 ft of additional footage.

Graham above mentions a 50 minute running time. By my clock, the digest runs closer to 47 minutes (~950 feet). That’s ample, but again it seems that there should have been room to retain a few of those relatively short gag scenes mentioned above. (Maybe those moments weren't as iconic at the time, and were simply cut with a focus on moving the story forward.)

In any event, I’m thrilled to own a copy. It will definitely be at the top of my replay list.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on February 24, 2016, 03:51 PM:

Great valid points made there Gordon, but like you, I feel this is a real comedic cut down that still manages skilfully to keep the storyline of this film well and truly in tact.

A really entertaining 45minutes of Film including the inflatable smiling pilot! [Big Grin]

A lot still have superb colour btw throughout as a bonus.

Posted by Tom Photiou (Member # 130) on February 24, 2016, 04:38 PM:

there are quite a few of the full length ones out there.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on February 24, 2016, 04:46 PM:

Never seen one Tom, but would welcome with open arms as also Naked Gun. [Smile]

Posted by Simon Balderston (Member # 5106) on February 26, 2016, 06:21 AM:

one of my best films in my collection started with the 3x400 vision then 16mm and finally proud owner of 35mm.it took some years.such a funny film can watch it over and over again [Big Grin]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on December 22, 2018, 08:22 PM:

Wow its been that long....anyway this is December 2018 "last night" screen shots of the 3/400 footer....

Posted by Leon Norris (Member # 3151) on December 23, 2018, 11:24 AM:

This is a good and funny film. I had the 3 parter a few years ago In very good condition. The print was nice with nice color also. I wish I kept it . It was well edited! Leon Norris.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on December 23, 2018, 01:57 PM:

Last screen shots from the other night. I will post an update in another 10 years time. [Wink]

And the last one....flying of into the sunset... until the next Super 8 screening.......

Posted by Jason Patnode (Member # 5973) on December 24, 2018, 06:08 AM:

This looks great, Graham. I almost won a print on eBay but, someone got it at the last minute. Love the look of yours. The colors still look very good.

On a fun side note, does anyone know if it's true if Airplane is really a remake of the movie Zero Hour? The story goes that the Zucker bros bought the rights to remake Zero Hour but, they did it as a parody. Check out the shot by shot comparisons.

https://youtu.be/-BjU-e01zQ4

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on December 26, 2018, 12:01 PM:

Hilarious film and thank you for the review!

Posted by Leon Norris (Member # 3151) on March 06, 2019, 01:04 PM:

I just came across a nice looking print of this three parter!. Its sharp and good color! And in nice shape no scratches no splices! I lucked out on this one!

Posted by Chip Gelmini (Member # 44) on March 06, 2019, 08:41 PM:

I actually own the full feature on super eight one of the very rare Jeff Aikman film prints

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on March 07, 2019, 05:11 AM:

Have the Marketing feature. Great FUN.

Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on November 16, 2019, 08:15 AM:

This is one of the few films i have actually walked out on at the cinema . I know it is all very subjective but i never laughed once and got extremely bored with it and went to the pub instead where i had a much better laugh at the natural comedy that was going on in there . I really can not laugh at any of these kind of films. [Smile]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on November 19, 2019, 11:39 AM:

The Zuckerman/Abrams connection was a certain "genre" within comedy that a person either likes or not. Quite zany and the kind of humor you really have to pay attention to, at times, to get.

I LOVVVVVE IT!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 19, 2019, 02:06 PM:

I find the humor kind of childish...

-which is what I LOVE about this movie!

It's just so completely unhinged it was an adventure to see it the first couple of times: you never knew where they'd go next!

There's a certain class of movie where I want to have a film print, regardless of what other formats I also have. This one is one of those (-and yes, I do).

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 19, 2019, 11:09 PM:

Well there is VFR Visual Flight Rules which I did way back in the 1970s [Roll Eyes]

then there is Instrument Flying, something I never moved onto, but in this movie they have a whole new approach to that subject [Big Grin]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 20, 2019, 08:53 AM:

"It's a completely different kind of flying!"

"-altogether!"

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on November 20, 2019, 04:49 PM:

Remember that brilliant number "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees in the film, well while we were on a first aid course for the bus company, they taught us all CPR. The thing was the get the timing right for the number of chest compressions. What they did was to play "Sayin Alive" while we practiced CPR on the dummy.

Try it... the timing to the music works.

I must say though that some of the lady drivers present, did add a bit of flair to there interpretation of doing it [Big Grin]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on November 20, 2019, 07:01 PM:

True: I did my CPR refresher a few months back.

Stayin' Alive it is!

"The Hospital!...What is it?!"

"-that's the big building where doctors work, but that's not important right now!"

Trivia: James Doohan once played Ted Stryker.

-in a radio production of Zero Hour!, which Airplane! parodies.

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