(Some Spoilers) With the heaviest snowfall hitting the Chicago area in six years Lincoln International Airport is close to being shut down but it's bull-headed manager Mel Brekersfeld, Burt Lancaster. Mel Berkerfeld is determined to keep the airport open at all costs even if it costs him his job. It's within the next 12 hours that Mel will go through a series gut wrenching crisis's that by the time that their over he'll finally have time to get away from his high pressure job leave his nagging stuck-up and socially conscious wife Cindy (Dana Wynter), who didn't seem to understand or appreciate the stress he was under, for good and drive off with his secretary and airline service & personal manager Tanya, Jean Seaberg. To have a sample of Tanya's famous and talked about scramble eggs for breakfast.
The granddaddy of all Airport/Airplane disaster movies "Airport" had millions of eager moviegoers ready to see it since the book Arthur Halley's "Airport" was published two years earlier and became one the biggest best-sellers of the 1960's. It was expected by the makers of "Airport" that the movie would follow as one of the biggest hit's coming out of the motion picture industry of the 1970's, they were right on target. Breaking all records "Airport" made some 50 million dollars in ticket sales within the first six months after it's release in March 1970. Even though it wasn't taken seriously at all by the film critics and even it's star Burt Lancaster but the public just loved it.
After clearing up the tarmac of ice and snow the Trans Global Airline flight from Chicago to Rome Italy is airborne and what at first seemed headed across he Atlantic. News coming from the control tower at Lincoln is very disturbing about one of the passengers on board. A desperate and suicidal lunatic had bought a $250,000.00 insurance policy and is planing to blow himself and the plane up when it flies over the North Atlantic. D.O Goerrero, Van Heflin, had hocked his wife's Inez, Maureen Stapleton, mother's wedding ring and with the money bought himself a plane ticket on a one way flight, for him and those on board, to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Guerrero a former mental patient and explosive expert in the US Army tells his wife that he's going to Milwaukee for a job as a building demolition man. Unknown to Inez her husband is really out of his mind and with a number of dynamite sticks that he stole from his former employer is going to end it all in order to have her collect the $250,000.00 insurance policy that he took out on himself.
Tense drama at 30,000 feet as plane Captain Vernon Demerest, Dean Martin, Mel's brother-in-law and Co-Captain Harris, Barry Nelson, attempt to steer the 100 passenger and crew 707 back to Chicago. Without letting Guerrero know that their on to him and land the plane safely in the middle of a blistering and blinding winter snowstorm.
There's also a number of side stories in the movie with both Mel & Vernon cheating on their wives and in Mel's case his wife cheating on him. There's also the lovable little old lady stowaway Mrs. Alda Quonsett, Helen Hayes,who steals not only a free ride but everyones heart. And there's the beautiful 25 year-old Jackie Bissett as stewardess Gwen Meighen who's been having an affair with the plane Captain Vernon Demerest, lucky guy, and is now pregnant by him and, together with Vernon, wants to have their baby, despite him being "happily" married to Mel's sister Shara, Barbara Hale.
Exciting final sequence as Vernon together with his co-pilot Capt. Nelson fly the 707, with it's tail section about to break off, into the ice covered airport runway as the feisty ground crew chief Joe Patroni, George Kenndey, dives a stuck in the ice and snow airliner clear of the path of the descending passenger plane. All this just before it's, the grounded plane, about to be cut to pieces by a dozen of so bulldozers in order to move it out in time.
Everyone but poor and hysterical Mrs. Inza Guerrero's husband D.O, who was killed in the bomb blast, is safe in the end with Vernon and the badly injured, from the bomb explosion, Gwen being rushed off to the hospital. As Vernon's wife Shrah rushes to the airport to see if he's safe only to find out that Vernons been doing a lot more then flying and landing planes all those long and lonely days and nights that he's been away from her.
The granddaddy of all Airport/Airplane disaster movies "Airport" had millions of eager moviegoers ready to see it since the book Arthur Halley's "Airport" was published two years earlier and became one the biggest best-sellers of the 1960's. It was expected by the makers of "Airport" that the movie would follow as one of the biggest hit's coming out of the motion picture industry of the 1970's, they were right on target. Breaking all records "Airport" made some 50 million dollars in ticket sales within the first six months after it's release in March 1970. Even though it wasn't taken seriously at all by the film critics and even it's star Burt Lancaster but the public just loved it.
After clearing up the tarmac of ice and snow the Trans Global Airline flight from Chicago to Rome Italy is airborne and what at first seemed headed across he Atlantic. News coming from the control tower at Lincoln is very disturbing about one of the passengers on board. A desperate and suicidal lunatic had bought a $250,000.00 insurance policy and is planing to blow himself and the plane up when it flies over the North Atlantic. D.O Goerrero, Van Heflin, had hocked his wife's Inez, Maureen Stapleton, mother's wedding ring and with the money bought himself a plane ticket on a one way flight, for him and those on board, to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Guerrero a former mental patient and explosive expert in the US Army tells his wife that he's going to Milwaukee for a job as a building demolition man. Unknown to Inez her husband is really out of his mind and with a number of dynamite sticks that he stole from his former employer is going to end it all in order to have her collect the $250,000.00 insurance policy that he took out on himself.
Tense drama at 30,000 feet as plane Captain Vernon Demerest, Dean Martin, Mel's brother-in-law and Co-Captain Harris, Barry Nelson, attempt to steer the 100 passenger and crew 707 back to Chicago. Without letting Guerrero know that their on to him and land the plane safely in the middle of a blistering and blinding winter snowstorm.
There's also a number of side stories in the movie with both Mel & Vernon cheating on their wives and in Mel's case his wife cheating on him. There's also the lovable little old lady stowaway Mrs. Alda Quonsett, Helen Hayes,who steals not only a free ride but everyones heart. And there's the beautiful 25 year-old Jackie Bissett as stewardess Gwen Meighen who's been having an affair with the plane Captain Vernon Demerest, lucky guy, and is now pregnant by him and, together with Vernon, wants to have their baby, despite him being "happily" married to Mel's sister Shara, Barbara Hale.
Exciting final sequence as Vernon together with his co-pilot Capt. Nelson fly the 707, with it's tail section about to break off, into the ice covered airport runway as the feisty ground crew chief Joe Patroni, George Kenndey, dives a stuck in the ice and snow airliner clear of the path of the descending passenger plane. All this just before it's, the grounded plane, about to be cut to pieces by a dozen of so bulldozers in order to move it out in time.
Everyone but poor and hysterical Mrs. Inza Guerrero's husband D.O, who was killed in the bomb blast, is safe in the end with Vernon and the badly injured, from the bomb explosion, Gwen being rushed off to the hospital. As Vernon's wife Shrah rushes to the airport to see if he's safe only to find out that Vernons been doing a lot more then flying and landing planes all those long and lonely days and nights that he's been away from her.