Airplane! (1980)

Can you fly this plane, and land it?

Surely you can't be serious.

I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.

David Zucker is a one trick pony director who has dedicated his film career to churning out mostly parody/spoof type films. More recently he has directed the latter half of the Scary Movie franchise films in numbers 3 and 4 and has produced the universally condemned Superhero Movie and the soon to be universally condemned Sci-Fi Movie. Along the way he directed the not so bad Naked Gun films which did actually provide some great comedy moments even if the gags did start to become slightly repetitive.

But there was a time when words such as 'atrocious', 'average', 'forgettable', 'mediocre' and 'useless' did not apply to Zucker. In 1980, the year which produced two classics in Scorcese's Raging Bull and Kubrick's The Shining, Zucker, along with his brother Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams (ZAZ as they have become to be known) directed and wrote their first feature length film, a film that comes very close to the classic status of the two films mentioned above, albeit in the genre of slapstick parody comedy.

The film follows Ted Striker (Robert Hays) a man who is now fearful of flying after a traumatic incident he was involved in during the war. Elaine Robinson (Julie Hagerty) was the love of his life during the war and Ted wants to be reunited with her. The trouble is, Elaine is now a stewardess and Ted is going to have to overcome his fear of flying if he wants the chance to charm her. He boards the flight but she initially spurns his advances. Things take a sharp turn to the right however when a large amount of passengers on board the flight, including the pilot and his crew, are struck down with food poisoning. Fearing that nobody is going to be able to land the plane successfully Elaine realises that Ted may be the only chance there is of survival.

I firmly believe that what ZAZ have created here is the greatest comedy of all time. It's a film where there is no need to talk about film techniques. Cinematography is redundant, there is no special musical score or great lighting effects, it is just good, in fact very good, laugh out loud comedy from the moment it begins.

Dr.Rumack (played by Leslie Neilsen): "You'd better tell the Captain we've got to land as soon as we can. This woman has to be gotten to a hospital. "

Elaine: "A hospital? What is it?"

Rumack: "It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now."

The above is just one of the many examples of incredibly witty gags in which ZAZ play incredibly successfully on the double meaning and context of words found in the English language which make it one of the most quotable scripts in film history. It's a script that could almost be described as shameless. At times you will cringe (whilst laughing your head off) at the corniness of some of the gags but that is what makes Airplane! so good. Comedies are just not made like this anymore, it's simple. Also, I do wonder where it all went wrong for the Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker partnerships because they have not made a comedy that comes anywhere near close to the greatness of Airplane! ever since and the way their filmography is heading, it doesn't look like they ever will.

If anything negative had to be said about Airplane! is that it takes everything it uses from elsewhere but this isn't really a negative at all because Airplane! isn't simply a rehash it's a highly original piece of work that acknowledges that it's borrows from other sources but then turns it all into something really rather special. Airplane! is a truly great comedy that will really take some beating to knock it off it's perch. It's the only comedy that I would consider one of my favourite films of all time. It's a must see for people that like a good laugh, groan and a giggle.

Rating: 9/10 - highly recommended.