Trivia / Airport

• All-Star Cast:
  • The original movie starred Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, Barbara Hale, Van Heflin, and George Kennedy.
  • Aside from George Kennedy's reappearance as Patroni in Airport '75, there's Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Linda Blair, Gloria Swanson (As Herself!), Myrna Loy, Sid Caesar... the list just keeps on going.
  • Airport '77 had Jimmy Stewart, Jack Lemmon, Joseph Cotten, Brenda Vaccaro, Lee Grant, Christopher Lee, Olivia de Havilland...
  • Airport '79 featured a weird ensemble cast, with a bunch of performers more famous for their TV work acting alongside arthouse cinema notables like Bibi Andersson and Alain Delon, plus Emmanuelle herself Sylvia Kristel.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Christopher Lee accepted a role in Airport '77 purely to work with Jack Lemmon.
• Billing Displacement: Charlton Heston in Airport '75 is billed first, but Karen Black's character gets the most focus, as well as screentime.
• Box Office Bomb: The Concorde… Airport ‘79: Budget: $14,000,000; Gross: $13,015,688.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Susan Blakely appeared in The Concorde...Airport '79 as the first in a three-picture deal she signed with Universal following the success of Rich Man, Poor Man.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Burt Lancaster described Airport as "the worst piece of junk ever made."
  • Jack Lemmon later felt that appearing in Airport '77 was a big mistake.
• Creator's Favorite: Dean Martin named Vernon Demerest from Airport as one of his favourite roles.
• Dawson Casting: In Airport '79, Andrea Marcovicci, 30 at the time, plays a 24-year-old Russian gymnast.
  • Also in Concorde, Harrison's age is stated to be 43, meaning he was born in 1936 or late 1935. Robert Wagner was born in 1930 and was actually 49 when the movie hit theaters.
• Distanced from Current Events: The Concorde...Airport '79 was originally intended to be released in New Zealand as a Christmas attraction in December 1979. When Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into the snow-covered slopes of Mt. Erebus, Antarctica, in 28 November 1979, the New Zealand release was pushed back to Easter 1980.
• Follow the Leader: Airport '77 is essentially The Poseidon Adventure with a jumbo jet.
• Franchise Killer: Airport '79 was raked over the coals by critics (who called it one of the funniest unintentional comedies ever made) and didn't quite earn back its then-huge $14 million budget, marking the end of the line for the series.
• Hostility on the Set: Sylvia Kristel recounted the making of The Concorde...Airport '79 in her autobiography. Alain Delon felt he was not being taken seriously in Hollywood. On the first day, he demanded to switch trailers with director David Lowell Rich because his trailer wasn't large enough. At first Delon and Kristel did not get along, and he refused to get down on one knee in front of her for one scene. It wasn't until director David Lowell Rich began to treat Sylvia unkindly that Delon became more friendly toward her and they finished the production on good terms.
• Money, Dear Boy: After the disastrous response to Alex and the Gypsy, Jack Lemmon felt he might never work again and instructed his agent to accept the next high paying gig he was offered, which was Airport '77. He subsequently said it was a terrible decision.
• No Stunt Double: Christopher Lee did the "dead" stunt in Airport '77 himself, and as a result, was awarded the Stuntmen's Union's belt buckle.
• One for the Money; One for the Art: Burt Lancaster only agreed to star in Airport in order to get some non-commercial films made. His contract gave him a 10% profit participation once the movie hit $50 million, and the film grossed $45.3 million in North America alone.
• Parody Retcon: When critics panned The Concorde... Airport '79 by calling it unintentionally funny, the movie started being marketed as a comedy. This didn't help the film's box office performance.
• Playing Against Type:
  • In Airport '77, Christopher Lee, frequently cast as a suave villain, plays the selfless Martin Wallace who sacrificed his life when he tried to help rescue the other passengers.
  • One review of Airport '79 pointed out the perversity of the producers hiring three actresses with a sexpot image (Sybil Danning, Sylvia Kristel and Charo) for the film, but, when it came time to cast the role of the prostitute who has a tryst with Patroni, they gave it to Bibi Andersson, who, as The New York Times summed it up, symbolized "purity and youth, then complexity and disillusionment" in the films of Ingmar Bergman.
  • Staying with Airport '79 - Robert Wagner, usually cast suave charmers,^note in fact the film opened in the US the same month that Hart to Hart began its run plays the Big Bad.
• Real-Life Relative: When Jack Lemmon activates the radio beacon in Airport '77, the radio operator who hears the beacon is his real-life son, Chris Lemmon.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Why Gloria Swanson appeared in Airport 1975:
  I was holding out for a picture I could take my grandchildren to see, something exciting and contemporary without senseless violence.
• Unfinished Episode: According to John Wilson in "The official Razzie Movie Guide", there were plans for a FIFTH movie to be called Airport 82: UFO, a blatant attempt to cash in on the hot new wave of sci-fi cinema. Numerous contemporary news articles (which also use the name Airport 2000) describe it as a "science fact" film (well, not counting the giant alien spacecraft that engulfs the plane) that would have moved the action to 20 Minutes into the Future. George Kennedy was slated to return, naturally, and even turned down an invitation to appear in Airplane! so as not to undermine his opportunity to work for this franchise. Presumably, Airplane II: The Sequel killed this film by pre-emptively parodying it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jean Arthur is reputed to have turned down the role of Ada Quonsett in Airport.
  • Producer William Frye fantasized about adding Greta Garbo to the cast of Airport 1975, but she turned him down flat. She found it boring to play an aged actress, saying, "What could be worse than playing an old movie star?"
  • Joan Crawford was offered the role of Mrs. Devaney in Airport 1975, but refused. She was also offered the role of Emily Livingston in Airport '77, but declined, later saying:
  I wanted Joel McCrea to play opposite me, and anyway, they actually asked me to fly out there with only one week's notice. Why, that is hardly enough time for make-up tests or rehearsals, and when I asked about costume fittings, they said they wanted me to wear my own clothes.
  • Frye tried to lure Irene Dunne out of retirement to play Emily Livingston by offering her a new Rolls-Royce every year for the next ten years. Dunne loved the script but declined because, "I don't like Rolls-Royces."
• Written By Castmember: Gloria Swanson wrote all her dialogue in Airport 1975.

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