One Of The Best Comedy Movies Of The Eighties

The 1980 movie Airplane! is probably the best comedy ever produced Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker admit that this is a low budget movie and every precaution was taken to avoid spending too much money. It is a lampoon of practically every disaster movie ever made but it mostly intended to be a parody of the movie Zero Hour. Many of the lines in the film are directly from Zero Hour.

Brothers Jerry and David Zucker wrote the film with Jim Abrahams, who also directed a cast that included Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Barbara Billingsley and Julie Hagerty. The budget for Airplane was about US$3.5 Million

Because of the low budget the writers and directors show up in a number of cameos as do members of their family. David and Jerry Zucker appear as two ground crew members who accidentally direct a plane into a terminal. Jim Abrahams is one of the many religious zealot characters scattered throughout the film. Charlotte Zucker, who is David and Jerry's mother, is the woman attempting to apply makeup in the plane as it violently shifts while their sister, Susan Breslau, is the second ticket agent at the airport. Jim Abraham's mother is the woman initially sitting next to Dr. Rumack.

The movie starts out at Los Angeles International Airport where there are many sight and voice gags. We meet one of the stars of the show, Robert Hays, who plays an ex-fighter pilot who lost most of his squadron during a raid. He's now a cab driver who's afraid of airplanes. We also meet his girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagerty) who is a stewardess and had decided to move out of their apartment and leave Ted forever. Captain Oveur (Peter Graves) is also introduced. He is the pilot of the airplane and, as we discover later, has an unusual appreciation for little boys.

After the meal is served, many of the passengers become ill. The stewardesses search for a doctor and eventually find one in Dr. Rumack who is played by Leslie Nielsen. He diagnosis food poisoning and concludes that anyone who had the fish for dinner will eventually become violently ill. The food poisoning incapacitates the pilot, co-pilot and navigator and the only one left to fly the plane is our reluctant hero, Ted Striker.

The head of Chicago Flight Control, Steve McCroskey (played by Lloyd Bridges) calls in a veteran pilot, Rex Kramer {played by Robert Stack) to talk Ted Striker through flying the plane. It turns out that Rex Kramer was Ted Striker's commanding officer during the war and there is no love lost between the two.As a matter of fact,Rex Kramer has no faith in Stricker's ability to ever land the plane

Elaine is in the cockpit[with that famous scene with the inflatable pilot] trying to figure out what's going to happen next. Stricker somehow finds the courage to come in and take over the controls and lands the plane.

The antics and one liners that prevail throughout this film will leave you laughing in you seats. A really healthy dose of laughter makes this movie one of the best comedy movies ever.