Thirty Years Of Airplane!

July 22, 2010
    
Doctor Rumack : Captain, how soon can you land?
Captain Oever : I can’t tell.
Rumack : You can tell me, I’m a doctor.
Oever : NO, I mean I’m just not sure.
Rumack : Well, can’t you take a guess?
Oever : Well, not for another 2 hours.
Rumack : You can’t take a guess for another 2 hours?
Oever : No, no, no. I mean we can’t land for another 2 hours. Fog has closed down everything this side of the mountains. We’ve got to get through to Chicago.

That memorable exchange of dialogue, delivered with deadpan seriousness by actors Leslie Nielsen and Peter Graves, respectively, comes from the 1980 film, “Airplane.” It is but one of the many brilliant exchanges of dialogue from a film that permanently altered the course of movie comedy, not to mention influencing such television comedies as the animated trio of “The Simpsons,“ “Family Guy,“ and “South Park.”  

“Airplane” was a film that its studio, Paramount Pictures, had little to no hope in. It was a modestly budgeted affair-$3.5 million-with no name actors in the leading roles, released with little to no fanfare in July 1980. Though the film did feature a few mildly known actors in supporting roles, such as the aforementioned Peter Graves and Leslie Nielsen, the name actors who did appear in the film were hardly what one might consider movie marquee worthy and the studio hoped to simply recoup the production costs of the film at the most.

Photo: Leslie Neilson & Peter Graves in the brilliant Airplane!

If only they had known. “Airplane” quickly became one of the biggest grossing comedies in the history of film and, as previously mentioned, has left a lasting imprint on much of what has come in the way of comedy in the last thirty years.

It’s interesting to note that many of the veteran character actors who appear in the film were actually worried that the film might tarnish their reputation. The film’s co-director Jerry Zucker revealed in a recent NY Times interview that Peter Graves, who at the time of the film’s production was mostly known for the television series, “Mission: Impossible,” read the script and thought it was ‘tasteless trash.’ Perhaps the fact that the character he would eventually play in the film was a pedophile who makes advances to a boy visiting the cockpit had something to do with it.

The origins of the film are interesting to note as well. The Zucker brothers, Jerry and David, along with their lifelong friend, Jim Abrahams, wrote the film over half a decade before it was actually filmed. As it turns out, the Zucker brothers had begun their career writing and performing in sketch comedy for a theater troupe called the “Kentucky Fried Theater.” On a nightly basis they would tape local television programming throughout the night in an effort to find material to spoof in their ongoing ‘Kentucky Fried Theater.” One night they happened to tape the 1957 film, “Zero Hour.” That film details a disastrous plane flight and what happens after the pilots are felled by ptomaine poisoning. When the Zuckers and Abrahams watched their tape they realized they had struck gold. They immediately inquired about purchasing the rights to the film and used the film’s story as the basis for the “Airplane” script. In fact, some scenes in the latter film are exact duplicates from scenes in “Zero Hour,” although they are exaggerated for comedic effect.

In the meantime, before “Airplane” was given the go ahead, the writing trio were urged on by their friend, director John Landis, to write a script based on some of their “Kentucky Fried Theater” sketches. The result was the aptly titled, “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” and during its production the men were able to step onto a movie set for the first time. David Zucker explained it this way: “[...] It was the first time we had ever been on a movie set. We learned a lot. We learned that if you really wanted a movie to come out the way you wanted it to, you had to direct. So on the next movie, Airplane!, we insisted on directing.”

And direct they did. Based on the financial success of “Kentucky Friend Movie,” the trio were able to secure a deal with Paramount pictures to finance and distribute “Airplane.” Filming took 34 days, mostly during August 1979 and on the Universal back lot. The plane used throughout the film is a TWA Boeing 707 model. As an interesting side note, the ambient noise of the plane is not that of a jet but a propeller driven plane (possibly piston engines); it was taken from the soundtrack of Zero Hour!, making it the longest running gag in the film.

And so ‘Airplane’ went on to gross a hefty $85 million dollars during its release making it not only one of the most influential comedies of all time but also one of the most profitable. Hard to believe it has been thirty years since this film first graced movie screens but good to know that it’s hardly been forgotten.

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