The Concorde…Airport ’79-1979
Director David Lowell Rich
Starring Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner
Scott’s Review #1,078
Reviewed November 7, 2020
Grade: B
The fourth and final installment of the popular Airport film franchise, The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979) has an appealing, sophisticated international flavor, mainly French, that may turn off some viewers seeking a more traditional, domestic offering.
The three previous installments contained a wholesome Americana quality that is lacking in this one. The rich culture is the high point for me in a film that by all accounts is not very good.
By the late 1970s, the disaster genre had all but crashed and burned, so the film was commercially unsuccessful, and the franchise was thus abandoned.
The plot is utterly ridiculous, even by disaster standards, and my hunch is that ideas for what could go wrong on an airplane were hard to come by. After all, it’s not easy to top an airliner crashing and sinking into the ocean, leaving most passengers unscathed.
This time, we experience an airplane flying upside down (more than once!), nose-diving (more than once!), and nearly doing backflips and somersaults (more than once!).
Disappointing is the limited amount of deaths that occur despite these treacheries, unless you count a shooting inside an apartment and a suicide that have little to do with the plane ride.
Back to my original point, the cultured and vibrant foreign presence, specifically Paris and its lustrous and historic offerings, is the high point of The Concorde…Airport ’79.
The City of Lights is prominently featured as a team of American Olympic athletes travels from Washington, D.C., to Moscow, with a layover at Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The heavenly site of the Eiffel Tower is an immediate identifier as French pilot, Captain Paul Metrand (Alain Delon), flies the state-of-the-art Concorde to the United States to transport its passengers to the games.
There is a strong French flavor to this film. During the Paris layover, George Kennedy’s Joe Patroni, now a pilot, befriends a gorgeous woman named Francine, with whom he bonds over dinner.
They and others embark on a fabulous French bistro experience and have the time of their lives. Who cares that she is later revealed to be a prostitute? The setting oozes with French goodness, food, and sexy accents.
One peculiarity is why the trip goes from Paris to Washington, D.C., back to Paris, and then on to Moscow. It’s a bit confusing and unnecessary.
Unintentionally funny is how the Concorde is attacked by a drone en route to Paris, and then a bomb is planted on the plane before takeoff to Moscow.
Trouble occurs in the same plane with the same passengers.
You would think anyone with half a brain would sit the second leg out, perhaps hopping on the nearest boat or train out of town.
The main story is secondary and quite superfluous. Robert Wagner plays Kevin Harrison, a corrupt arms dealer who plots the destruction of the Concorde because news reporter and girlfriend, Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely) has evidence of his weapons sales to communists.
He plans to blow up the plane, killing all the passengers, instead of hiring an assassin to kill only Maggie when she lands and before she can tell authorities.
The plot is completely story-driven.
Several celebrity cameos are added mostly for comic relief and largely go nowhere.
Jimmie Walker as the pot-smoking, saxophone-playing Boise, and Martha Raye’s bathroom-crazed Loretta are ridiculous by any standards. Charo’s one scene as Margarita, a woman who sneaks her dog onto the plane and is subsequently kicked off the flight, is a waste of time.
I would have rather witnessed another scene of Loretta needing to use the restroom or Boise getting high.
And Susan Blakely overacts throughout the film.
Despite all these hard knocks, The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979) is good entertaining fun, not to be taken seriously, and encouraged for fans of the genre.
There is much fun to be had with the guest stars, once A-list, now B or C-list, and the crash-landing finale over the snowy Alps is pretty cool.
Just know what you are getting yourself into.
