Alright, rewind your minds, fellow tapeheads. Picture this: it’s late, the tracking on the VCR is just right (mostly), and you’ve stumbled upon a box that promises pure, unadulterated 70s disaster spectacle, cranked up to Mach 2. I’m talking about The Concorde… Airport '79, the film that tried to strap rocket boosters onto a fading genre and fly it straight into the 80s. Did it succeed? Well, let's just say the flight path was… turbulent.
This wasn't just another trip; this was the Concorde, the needle-nosed epitome of futuristic cool back then, slicing through the sky faster than bad news. And boy, does bad news travel fast for the passengers on this flight. The plot centers around TV reporter Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely) who uncovers dirt on her suave, ridiculously wealthy boyfriend, Dr. Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner, radiating smug evil). Harrison, it turns out, is a big-time illegal arms dealer, and he really doesn't want Maggie spilling the beans. His solution? Sabotage the Concorde she's flying on – multiple times. Because one near-death experience just isn't enough when you're this cartoonishly villainous.
### Supersonic Mayhem and Melodrama
Leading the charge against Harrison's increasingly ludicrous attempts to down the plane are Captain Paul Metrand (Alain Delon, bringing his icy French cool) and the franchise stalwart himself, Joe Patroni (George Kennedy, the only actor to punch his ticket for all four Airport films, bless his heart), now flying co-pilot/technical advisor. What follows is less a coherent thriller and more a series of unfortunate events strung together with soap opera threads. We get missile attacks from rogue jets, sudden explosive decompression when a cargo door inconveniently blows out, and even a harrowing emergency landing in the snow. Remember how real those miniature explosions and shaky cockpit sets felt back then? It wasn't seamless, but the tangible nature of it – real fireballs, models taking hits – had a weight that modern CGI, for all its polish, sometimes lacks. They were throwing everything including the kitchen sink (and possibly Charo's luggage) at the screen.
Speaking of the cast, it's a glorious time capsule of late 70s celebrity salad. Alongside the leads and Kennedy, you've got Sylvia Kristel (yes, that Sylvia Kristel from Emmanuelle), Eddie Albert, Bibi Andersson, Cicely Tyson, David Warner, and, in truly baffling but memorable cameos, comedian Jimmie Walker ("Dyn-O-Mite!") and the legendary Martha Raye dealing with in-flight incontinence. It’s the kind of bizarre ensemble that only a 70s disaster flick could assemble, bless its polyester heart. It's almost a meta-commentary: the passenger list is almost as chaotic as the flight itself.
### Practical Effects Panic
The action sequences are where the film tries to shine, banking heavily on the novelty of the Concorde and the thrill of high-altitude danger. Director David Lowell Rich certainly keeps things moving, throwing one crisis after another at our heroes. The missile evasion sequence, involving flares and some frankly physics-defying maneuvers (including flying upside down!), is peak 70s action filmmaking. You can almost feel the wires holding the models, see the squibs popping for bullet hits inside the cabin. One fun fact: the script, believe it or not, was co-written by Eric Roth, who would later pen cinematic masterpieces like Forrest Gump and Dune. It's fascinating to see his name attached to lines like "He's attempting a forced landing... on snow!"
The practical effects, while perhaps creaky by today's standards, were ambitious for their time. The shots of the Concorde itself, often using real footage provided by Air France and British Airways, still possess a certain majesty. But it’s the miniature work during the disaster scenes that really screams "VHS era". There's a tactile quality to seeing a model plane get hit by a model missile, even if the scale feels slightly off. Wasn't that kind of raw, almost handmade feel part of the charm? It felt like they were really building the danger, not just rendering it.
### The Final Descent
Let's be honest, The Concorde... Airport '79 (sometimes just titled Airport '80: The Concorde outside the US, trying to sneak into the next decade) was met with critical derision and underperformed significantly at the box office. Reportedly budgeted around $14 million, it barely scraped that back domestically, signaling the end of the line for both the Airport franchise and the mainstream disaster movie craze it helped popularize. It became less a blockbuster event and more late-night TV fodder or a dusty gem found in the back aisles of the video store. I distinctly remember renting this one, drawn in by the promise of the Concorde and high-stakes action, and being... well, entertained, if not entirely convinced.
The film is undeniably silly, often nonsensical, and packed with enough questionable decisions (both by characters and filmmakers) to fill a flight log. Yet, there's an earnestness to its spectacle, a go-for-broke energy that's hard to completely dismiss. It’s a relic from a time when disaster movies tried to blend glamour, ensemble drama, and pyrotechnics into one package, even if the seams showed.
Rating: 4/10
Justification: While undeniably packed with unintentional humor, dated effects, and a plot held together by hope and Gaffer tape, the film delivers a certain kind of goofy, over-the-top spectacle endemic to the era. The practical effects have nostalgic charm, the cast is bizarrely compelling, and it serves as a fascinatingly flawed capstone to a major genre cycle. It fails as serious drama or thriller, but succeeds as a campy time capsule and a testament to late-70s cinematic excess. It’s not ‘good’, but it’s rarely boring.
Final Take: A gloriously bumpy ride full of turbulence both intentional and accidental. It’s the movie equivalent of finding a slightly damaged but incredibly flamboyant souvenir from a bygone era – worth examining, perhaps with a chuckle, for its sheer audacity and dedication to throwing absolutely everything at the screen, hoping some of it would stick. Just maybe check the cargo door before boarding.