Tony Maietta: 
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve: 
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta: 
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

Brad Shreve: 
And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta: 
As does your self-delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Brad Shreve:
Tony, I want to start out this episode a little different than we normally do.

Tony Maietta:
Oh.

Brad Shreve:
I want to talk about reviews for the movie Airport. And first of all, I want to make a caveat. I will repeatedly accidentally say airplane during this recording. I absolutely know it. I've been doing it all week.

Tony Maietta:
You have been doing it all week?

Brad Shreve:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
How many times have I to say Brad? Airport. Airport. Not airplane. Airport.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, there's a difference.

Tony Maietta:
There's a slight difference.

Brad Shreve:
I laugh throughout Airport every time I saw a scene that reminded me of a scene from Airplane. But I want to start out by talking about some reviews that came out in 1970 about the movie Airport.

Tony Maietta:
All right, so we're talking about Airport. I think we should say that from 1970.

Brad Shreve:
1970. That was released March 5th of 1970 by Universal Pictures.

Tony Maietta:
Go ahead.

Brad Shreve:
It was a drama, suspense, disaster. It was at the time. I don't know if people would call it disaster anymore. It's more of a drama, suspense. Because considering the whole world didn't blow up, it's not really a disaster anymore.

Tony Maietta:
We gotta talk about that.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. Burt Lancaster said that the movie was the worst piece of junk he ever made.

Tony Maietta:
I know. I read that too.

Brad Shreve:
Roger Ebert said, based on the actor Heflin, who played the bomber. Van Heflin as the guy with the bomb in his briefcase, is perhaps the only person in the cast to realize how metaphysically absurd Airport basically is. The airplane already has a priest, two nuns, three doctors, a stowaway, a customs officer's niece, a pregnant stewardess, two black GIs, a loudmouth kid, a henpecked husband and Dean Martin aboard. Right. So obviously the bomber has to be typecast too.

Tony Maietta:
And Dino's on there.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, indeed. And here's the longest one. This is by Vincent Canby with the New York Times. This came out in March 1970.

Tony Maietta:
Gird your loins.

Brad Shreve:
I've not read the novel, but I'm told by those who have that Seton has managed to retain most of the characters and crisis and even, heaven help us, some of the dialogue with which Haley dramatized what was presented as an ordinary night at a large Middle Western airport. In the course of this ordinary night, airport operations are complicated by the worst blizzard of the year. A mad bomber holding a one way ticket embarks on a non stop flight for Rome. A cute little lady stowaway is captured. Mel, the airport manager, is promised a divorce that frees him to marry Tanya, head of guest relations. Vern, the married pilot, must decide what he'll do with Gwen, the stewardess carrying his Seed a plane installed on a key Runway, and a group of angry suburbanites is pitched picketing for noise abatement when they might better worry about snow removal. Seton has made all this so superficially contemporary. He uses split screens to the point when I feared I was becoming walleyed.

Tony Maietta:
Wow.

Brad Shreve:
And here's why I'm reading all these. I agree with every single one of these reviews, and it doesn't matter. I love this, Phil.

Tony Maietta:
That's so funny.

Brad Shreve:
That's just plain fun.

Tony Maietta:
It is, it is. But I got to tell you, I don't think I am quite as happy with this film as you are. When you said you wanted to do Airport, and I was like, all right, I haven't seen Airport in years. But I do know, of course, after I've seen it, I know the myths about Airport and I know it started the disaster film genre. It truly is the granddaddy of disaster films all through the 70s. And then you wait two and a half hours for the damn disaster to happen.

Brad Shreve:
One hour. Yeah, one hour is when people board the plane.

Tony Maietta:
I was being hyperbolic.

Brad Shreve:
Yes, well, it probably was. The disaster happened in an hour and a half. You're probably right.

Tony Maietta:
No, absolutely, absolutely. It's. It's insane. It's absolutely insane that it takes so long to get to the PS De resistance. And here's another thing. Here's a spoiler alert. This is your spoiler alert, people. So if you haven't seen airport from 1970, okay, only one person dies in this film, and it's Van Heflen and it's the bomber.

Tony Maietta:
So how, you know, we're so used to people be everybody. I mean, I, you know, I've seen, you know, Towering Inferno, perfect example. How many people in Towering Inferno go flying out those windows on fire? How many innocent people? Nobody in this film dies, which is wonderful, but is it a disaster movie or is it just a plain hijacked movie with one crazy lunatic with a bomb in a toilet? I ask you.

Brad Shreve:
I think today it's number exactly two. Number two, what you said. I can see why people called it a disaster movie at the time, but we have gone light years behind that, especially with CGI.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, especially.

Brad Shreve:
And because really, this is a 2 hour and 17 minute. I think that's the runtime. 2 hour and 17 minute soap opera.

Tony Maietta:
No, it is. It absolutely is. It absolutely is a soap opera. And the fact that you have so many stories happening, I just kept saying, when is this movie going to start? When is this movie going to start?

Brad Shreve:
And the phone Rings all the time. And every time the phone rings, we get split screen. Sometimes triple screen, sometimes four screen.

Tony Maietta:
I feel a little bit like Vincent Canby, a little walleye with the split screen. I love split screen. Don't get me wrong. In Thomas Crown Affair, which is the really, I believe, the very first film to start that kind of really cool model. But it fits the Thomas Crown Affair because of the music of the Thomas Crown Affair. And there's. It's just a really cool effect in this. It's just like.

Tony Maietta:
Because they've got so many freaking stories to tell at the same time, they have to do a split screen. It's insane.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. You know, I said, I love this film. It is awful. I love disaster movies. I love end of the world movies. No, even really, really bad ones. Though I am not a fan of Armageddon and I could watch them over and over again. But this one I could not.

Brad Shreve:
Because it is just, first of all, because it takes so long to get to the disaster and the stories are so cheesy. Just so cheesy. You know, he's dealing with the worst snowstorm in the world and he's dealing with his wife in the office talking about divorce. It's just absurd.

Tony Maietta:
Well, and the whole subplot about the plane on the other. You know, the reason the snow and the plane not being able to move off of the other Runway. And then you've got, you know, you bring in George Kennedy, the ever present George Kennedy. George, the only actor to be in every single one of these movies. Remember when we talked about George Kennedy and. And Death on the Nile, and you're like, you felt he was miscast and you liked him. I'm like, well, this is what George Kennedy does.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I mean, that's. George Kennedy was just this cigar chewing, yelling all the time guy, which is what George Kennedy is good at.

Tony Maietta:
It is.

Brad Shreve:
He did turn down the role in Airport. I'm sorry. He did turn down the role in Airplane. I think they wanted him play as the same character, but he did end up doing the Naked Gun. So that was kind of funny.

Tony Maietta:
That's so funny. Well, a lot of these actors did. Leslie Nielsen, who was in the Poseidon Adventure, is in. Is very famously in Airplane and the Naked Gun.

Brad Shreve:
Well, the reason Airplane works is because most of them were dramatic actors.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's funny. But this is Airport. Yes, this is Airport from Universal of 1970. Now, despite all this stuff that we're saying, it was a tremendous, tremendous success. It grossed what, $128 million and that's $1970. Okay. On a budget of $10 million. It was universal.

Tony Maietta:
It bumped Spartacus, what a thing to do to Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, bump Spartacus from the number one spot of Universal's all time hits. So it was huge. It was a huge, huge. It also got, and don't ask me how, it also got 10 Oscar nominations. 10. How many little foxes get six? This got 10 Oscar nominations and of course one win. And I do agree with this win because of course it is for the first lady of the American theater. And no, it's not Vera Charles.

Tony Maietta:
It is Helen Hayes who was the.

Brad Shreve:
Star of this film.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, she really is. I mean, for me personally, Helen Hayes and Maureen Stapleton once in a while and we'll get to. Maureen Stapleton is the reason to watch this film. I mean, I, I love Helen Hayes. She really is a lot of fun in this movie and she, for me, she saves it. But I mean, it was nominated for best picture. It was again, two supporting actresses, Maureen and Helen Hayes. Best screenplay, art direction, set decoration, cinematography, costume design, Edith Head, film editing, original score, Alfred Newman, his final score and best sound.

Tony Maietta:
I mean, it, it was. The Academy was crazy with Airport in 1970.

Brad Shreve:
And I did read one review that said it's obvious based on the rest of the script and the dialogue that Helen Hayes wrote her own.

Tony Maietta:
Well, you know, that's the wonderful thing about Helen Hayes is she, you know, I want to talk, we'll talk a little bit more about Helen Hayes in a bit when we get to this cast. But I mean, she, she's just so wonderful. She's so. For someone who is the first lady of the American theater, she slips so seamlessly into this film as a film actress. Well, you know, she was also a film actress way back in the 30s. She won an early, early Academy Award. But I think she's so wonderful in this film. And to me, again, she's the real reason.

Tony Maietta:
I love some of these people too. I know Burt Lancaster. I like Burt Lancaster. I love some of his films. I love Sweet Smell of Success, I love Elmer Gantry. He, he's right to call this a piece of crap because he has nothing to do. He has nothing to do. Dean is funny.

Tony Maietta:
Dean is Dean. I love me some Dino. I've always loved Dino. But there's not, it's, there's so nothing characters, they are all archetypes, you know, there's nothing except for Helen Hayes. Unless you're gonna have an archetype of a stowaway, elderly, elderly lady Then that's Helen Hayes. But I mean, they. There's nothing for them to do. They're basically playing the plot.

Tony Maietta:
And you have to really allow that.

Brad Shreve:
I did like Jean Seberg. Her character is a whole different story and I can't wait to talk about her. But I did like her in the role. For whatever reason, she appealed to me.

Tony Maietta:
She's wonderful. Here's the thing. I always surprise myself. I'm always a bit stunned when I remember that this is Jean Seberg. I mean, come on. It's really nothing of a role, but it's Gene Jean frickin Seberg. And for people who don't know who Jean Seberg was, she was a complete unknown when she was discovered by Otto Preminger at the age of 17 to play Joan of Arc, to play in his film Saint Joan. But she's most known as the muse of French New wave cinema.

Tony Maietta:
When Jean Luc Godard cast her in the landmark film Breathless, I mean, she's, she. Jean Seberg is incredible. We can talk more about her later. But I'm always stunned when I see Gene Seberg in this because I'm like, oh my God, that is Gene Seberg. I forget about that.

Brad Shreve:
Let's talk about what was in the news to take people back to 1970. Just real quick. Vietnam War was obviously going on, the Charles manson trial. Paul McCartney announced that he's leaving the Beatles. And this was also the year of the events. Apollo 13. Big films of the year. We'll go over the Oscars and the.

Brad Shreve:
The top grossing later. But the big films of the year were Five Easy Pieces, mash, Love Story, Woodstock, Patton and so on. Hopefully that gives you an idea where the world was at that time.

Tony Maietta:
Okay, yes, but you forgot one. The most important thing that happened in 1970. September 19, 1970, the Mary Tyler Moore show premiered. Ah, how could you forget Mayor? How could you forget Mayor? Anyway, that's.

Brad Shreve:
And you know what else? One other thing I missed when it came to the movies. There was actually a Puff and Stuff movie. And as a kid I loved HR Puff and Stuff.

Tony Maietta:
I did too. I did too. So, yeah, so it was Quite a year. 1970. A lot. A lot's happening, lots happening. And this film happened in 1970. So this film was directed by George Seaton, who was pretty much a journeyman, screenwriter, playwright.

Tony Maietta:
He was a film director. He's probably most well known for directing the original miracle on 34th Street. He also directed the Country Girl, the film that Grace Kelly won Judy's best Actress Oscar. But I do like The Country Girl. It's a good movie. But here's what's another thing. The film he did right before this is a little gem called what's so Bad About Feeling Good? Which starred none other than Mary Tyler Moore and George Siegel. It's.

Tony Maietta:
It started her whole disastrous run of films after Dick Van Dyke. Anyway, that's, that's off topic. All going about saying is, is that we have a very journeyman director here, George Seaton. I mean, he's not, he's not one of the young turks coming and revitalizing Hollywood. But I think that's what kind of interests me about, about this film. To me, because I'm, I'm, I'm watching this film, I'm like, okay, why am I, why should I be interested in this film? What I find most fascinating about this film is that it is a true amalgam of classic Hollywood and the new wave, the new age, if you will. Because first of all, you got Burt Lancaster. I mean, you can't get much more classic Hollywood than Burt Lancaster.

Tony Maietta:
Think of him and Deborah Carr, you know, being swept away in the Waves and From Here to Eternity. You can't get much more classic than that. You have George Seton, as I said, you have Ross Hunter, the producer, who I want to talk about in a bit, and you have Dino. You got Van Heflin, who was a, was a star in the, in the 40s and 50s. And then on the other side of this, you got the new kids, you got the muse of the new wave, Gene Seberg, you got Jacqueline Bessette, and you know, of course, they play the love interests of the old coots. So. Hello. Typical.

Tony Maietta:
Typical. So you really, you do have like a clash between these, the old Hollywood and the new Hollywood, because you have this old exposition, heavy storytelling of old Hollywood. And then you have this hot new genre of the action disaster film. So I find that one of the most fascinating things about watching this film.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. If you look at the cast, not just the stars, look at the full cast. You have so many people speaking roles or strong enough that they get credit. It's just huge.

Tony Maietta:
It's a huge cast. I mean, you see the template here for the Poseidon Adventure, for Towering Inferno, for all the, all the airport movies that come after this. You know, you get all these international cast, all star casts. This people don't realize that we're so used to it today. And we talked about this a bit with Death in the Nile, all star casts were not that usual. You know, it happened occasionally, but it wasn't like you went to a movie and saw all these. You would see this frequently. This is fairly rare occurrence until I would say about 1970.

Tony Maietta:
And airport started this and then you put them all together in some disaster and that's what Airport did.

Brad Shreve:
What is it with the 70s that all of a sudden you had big stars doing these schlocky films and things like the Love Boat. Love Boat is one of those that actors had been on the highlight for some time, but you had big stars in these bad films in seven. Maybe they had no, no other choice. In the 70s, most of the year, most of the decade.

Tony Maietta:
You think about that for a minute. You didn't have big stars. You had stars on the way down. You didn't have Jack Nicholson.

Brad Shreve:
You are correct.

Tony Maietta:
You didn't have Barbra Streisand. You didn't have Robert Redford. You know what I mean? You didn't. You had your Burt Lancasters, you had your Dean Martins. You had. Now, you did have Paul Newman in Tower inferno and Steve McQueen, but that was a big deal, believe me. You also had Jennifer Jones and Fred Astaire. I mean, so it was more.

Tony Maietta:
It was more this. And same thing with the Love Boat template. You know, you had stars who were kind of on their way down. It's kind of like Ryan Murphy does now. Ryan Murphy takes an actress, usually actresses, or maybe an actor who's had a big career but who seems to be on the other side of it, and he brings them to the forefront and uses them and suddenly they're hot again. So, yeah, so Burt Lancaster had been making films since the early 50s and. And he won his Oscar for ELMER Gantry in 1960. And, you know, you think about films like From Here to Eternity, Judgment at Nuremberg, Come Back, Little Sheba, the Rose Tattoo, but his probably his greatest contribution was.

Tony Maietta:
Was as a producer because alongside screenwriter Ben Hecht, he formed first Norma Productions and later Hecht Lancaster and later Hecht Lancaster Hill Productions. And they were one of the really first big independent companies to chicken, to chip away at the big studios. And they produced some major films. So. And they were a real force in Hollywood in the 50s and 60s. So Lancaster was a giant, but he wasn't a giant like he was in 1970. You see what I mean?

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Same thing with Dean. Dean's big movie era was late 50s, 60s. By this time he was doing his variety show and he's like, oh, here he is in this film. Which, by the way, I love him because I'll always love Dean. And you have Gene. Gene Seberg, who, again, Breathless, was in the early 60s. So it's these. These people are really.

Tony Maietta:
And of course, you have the first lady of American theater. You have Helen Hayes, you know, who won an Oscar in 1931. So these aren't hot, hot, hot people. No, but they are good actors, good characters and very competent actors.

Brad Shreve:
So talking about all these stars, Jacqueline Passette, she was only 25 when she made this film. She was half the age of her boyfriend, Dean Martin, and beautiful, beautiful. Oh, she was gorgeous.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
I don't remember anything else before this. Was she in anything?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, yeah. Well, she started her film career in. In 65. What should we say? She was in Bullet. She was in the Detective. This was pretty new in her film career, though. She'd only been making films for five years, so. And she certainly went on to a bigger.

Tony Maietta:
A bigger career after this. Or do we want to talk about what the movie's about? You kind of gave a synopsis when you were doing your reviews, but can we just, like, can you wrap it up in a bow for people? Because.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, it's really easy. This is an easy one.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Okay. This is the Lincoln, I guess, international airport because they flew to Rome. It's a fictional airport in Chicago during a snowstorm.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Brad Shreve:
And you can tell it's Chicago because Chicago had a snowstorm a few years before this. And they have an issue with people being upset about the sound of the planes that live nearby. And I knew that was a big issue during. In Chicago during that time. But anyway, moving forward. The fictional Lincoln Airport in Chicago during a snowstorm. The personnel at the airport deal with keeping the airport operational as well as dealing with their dramatic personal lives. It is about a trans global airline, Boeing 707.

Brad Shreve:
There is one stuck in the snow on the major Runway. And that's where George Kennedy comes in. They spend the whole movie trying to dig this thing out.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I know, right? And I'm like, what does this have to do with the bomb? What does this have to do with the bomb?

Brad Shreve:
Well, it builds that suspense. At the end, maybe the plane will crash and everybody will die. You know, I thought for sure that might happen.

Tony Maietta:
If you say so.

Brad Shreve:
While that is going on, TGA Flight 45, which leaves maybe five minutes before the movie ends on its way to Rome, has a bomb go off from a man that set it off so his wife can collect life insurance. It explodes, puts a hole in the plane. So they turn back to Lincoln airport and Runway 29, which is the one where that 707 is stuck in the snow is the one they need. Land Flight 45, 29er. 29er, 29er.

Tony Maietta:
Did you know this was kind of Arthur Haley's 1968 best selling novel Airport was based on a real incident of domestic terrorism? Did you know that?

Brad Shreve:
I did. I don't know the details. I only saw that it was based on a real event.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it was a six 1962 Continental Airlines Flight 11 from O' Hare to Kansas City and it crashed, killing all 45 passengers and crew aboard. And it was a suicide bomber. It was this guy who had taken out a $150,000 life insurance policy plus $150,000 in supplemental coverage, which is what Van Hef in this film. Isn't it crazy that they took out life insurance in the airport? Did you know?

Brad Shreve:
I remember those.

Tony Maietta:
Do you really? I don't remember that. I don't remember.

Brad Shreve:
I was wondering if they're still there. I think they are still there in machines now. I don't know that for a fact. I think they still have machines.

Tony Maietta:
The fact that there was a life. And there was a life insurance kiosk.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if they're still there. I wouldn't notice if they.

Tony Maietta:
They're not still there. They're not still there, but it's just so funny. So anyway, the claim ends up being denied as the claim will be in an airport because it's suicide, because he's. He's exploding dynamite, detonating it in a toilet. So it's kind of interesting. And it's also, as you said it was based on. There was a 1967 snowstorm in Chicago with 23 inches of snow. So, yeah, it is, it is based on.

Tony Maietta:
It's suggested by this real act of domestic terrorism which happened. But all these other related stories that ain't based on anything real. That's just a whole lot of exposition if you ask me.

Brad Shreve:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
So anyway, as we said, George Seaton, he wrote the screenplay for this as well as directing it. And I just want to talk briefly about Ross Hunter because Ross Hunter produced this and it's. I would love to do an episode sometime on Ross Hunter because I'm just going to throw some titles at you. Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life, Tammy and the Bachelor, Pillow Talk. These are all Ross Hunter movies. Ross Hunter, he began as an actor and he eventually made his way to becoming a staff producer at Universal. He was arguably the most prolific director of the 50s and 60s and he did these fabulous big glossy melodramas that I just mentioned with Rock Hudson usually. And then he segued over to the Hudson day comedies to Pillow Talk, to Lever Come Back.

Tony Maietta:
He was so prolific and. And what's really interesting about Ross Hunter is he is one of the very, very few openly gay executives working in the film industry at this time. He and his long. He was a longtime partner with Jacques Mopp who was an art director and producer. And everybody knew them, everybody knew they were a couple. And I think that's really fascinating about Ross Hunter. He was quite a character and we can talk about him sometime if we ever talk about one of these incredible films that he produced. But this was really his last big film after this.

Tony Maietta:
Sadly, his film after this was the ill fated musical production of Lost Horizon. And if you want to see a bad movie, wow, watch that one. And that was his last.

Brad Shreve:
I didn't know it ever existed.

Tony Maietta:
Oh God, it's painful. It's painful. Especially since the original is such a classic. But yeah. So Ross Hunter brought all these people together and basically created this entire genre of a disaster film which just, you know, ran rampant in the 1970s. As I said, there were four more airports alone after this film and they all made money. That's what's amazing. They were kind of diminishing returns, but they all turned a profit.

Tony Maietta:
People loved seeing old movie stars getting killed in disasters. It's so true. Planes burning buildings, ships turned upside down, swarms of killer bees, earthquakes. I mean, you know, let's throw Libby de Havilland and Jack Lemmon and Robert Wagner and Gloria Swanson and let's turn them upside down. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a hysterically funny, campy genre. And although this film isn't campy, this is where it started. This is where it started.

Brad Shreve:
And what's really scary, of the four airport movies, this one is by far the best. It continued to get worse every few years afterwards.

Tony Maietta:
There were three sequels to this and there's Airport 75, which is the one with Karen Black. I'm always talking about Karen Black flying a plane. That's the one with Karen Black and Gloria Swanson. So I mean, that is by far the campiest because anything with Karen Black is going to be campy. And then you're going to throw in Gloria Swanson. Then you had 77 with. That's the one with Olivia de Havilland and Jack Lemmon and the plane disappears into the Bermuda Triangle.

Brad Shreve:
Oh my God, I didn't even know Jack Lemmon was in that.

Tony Maietta:
So funny. And Then you have Concord 79 Airport 1979, which has Robert Wagner, Alan DeLong and Brad. Martha Ray. You can't escape her this season.

Brad Shreve:
No, no, I can't.

Tony Maietta:
And that one has a missile headed toward them and they land them playing on the side of an alpine. So think about these plots. This one is pretty damn tame. One guy dies and they land safely in Chicago. They return to Chicago.

Brad Shreve:
Martha Ray, was she in the control tower hamming it up?

Tony Maietta:
She probably was. That's what caused the distraction. She was in there singing. So anyway, so this. About this, about this movie in this humongous cast. I think some of the interesting tidbits. I got a couple interesting tidbits about this movie. So we talked about Maureen Stapleton.

Tony Maietta:
I love Maureen Stapleton. Maureen Stapleton, if you're going to have. Let's call her the second first lady of American theater because she was a wonderful stage actress. And she was also deathly afraid of flying. So it's kind of ironic that she would be in the first airport film. So was Dean Martin, by the way. Dean Martin was. Also did not enjoy flying.

Tony Maietta:
And sadly, Dean Martin's son, Dean Martin Jr. Died in a plane crash much later than this. So that's. That's kind of a very sad caveat to that. Most of the filming of this at Lincoln International Airport was actually filmed in. Do you know, Brad, where it was actually filmed?

Brad Shreve:
Minneapolis St. Paul.

Tony Maietta:
That's right. That's right. Isn't that because they could count on snow in Minneapolis except it was having a record breaking warm spell?

Brad Shreve:
Yes, of course.

Tony Maietta:
Okay. And here's something else interesting and kind of sad. The plane they used in this film actually crashed in 1989. 322 people on the ground died when the plane crashed into their houses.

Brad Shreve:
Oh my God.

Tony Maietta:
Terrible. This is.

Brad Shreve:
That's tragic.

Tony Maietta:
Horrible.

Brad Shreve:
I want to talk about Gene Seberg.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, please do, please do.

Brad Shreve:
Her character, Tanya Livingston, I hope she made a lot of money because she had the busiest job on earth. She was the woman that did public relations for the airline tga, yet she seemed to run the entire airport. She dealt with customs, she dealt with the stowaway. She went out on the airfield with Burt Lancaster to look at the planes when there was a problem with it being stuck. At one point she's a character was narrated and she's typing up the letter. This woman did everything she did and was beautiful in the process.

Tony Maietta:
She was. She was. Well, you know, the sad thing about. The sad thing about Jean Seberg is that not about this time was when she was famously targeted by the FBI for her leftist politics, particularly her support of the Black Panthers. I mean, this woman was harassed, she was slandered by the FBI, and she was pretty much blacklisted. And after she committed suicide in 1979, the FBI admitted that they did this to her. They planted false rumors in the media that she was pregnant by a Black Panther as opposed to her husband. And this happened about the same time as airport.

Tony Maietta:
It's disgusting what they did to this woman. And there's wonderful documentaries on Jean Seberg. There was just a film called Seberg which spells it all out. So it's. I just think it's so funny when I see her in this. And I remember, you know, how important she is in other eras of filmmaking. The fact that she, you know, is kind of the muse, as I said, for. For this French New Wave.

Tony Maietta:
To see her with Dean Martin, you know, in the airport is always very stunning to me. But she's wonderful. Helen Hayes, you know, I think Helen Hayes is really. She's so charming in this because she's so conniving. She's so duplicitous. You think she plays the lady card so brilliantly, and yet she manages. What she does is she stows away on planes. It's her hobby.

Tony Maietta:
She says she's going to see her daughter in New York, and she can't afford to take plane trips to go see her daughter in New York. She lives in Los Angeles. But you kind of get the feeling she just does it for fun. Yeah, because she really, really enjoys it. Because when she's finally given a real ticket at the end of the film, because she's also helped thwart this. This saboteur on the plane, she's like, it's more fun the other way. And you believe her. She's so charming.

Tony Maietta:
She's so wonderful. She absolutely deserved to win that Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Brad Shreve:
Well, and when she's sitting in that room with Burt Lancaster and Jean Seberg and she's just casually talking about all the ways that she is able to stow away. And I thought this was one scene that I thought was really cute because Gene Seberg, based in her role, was just furious or disgusted by this, whereas Burt Lancaster thought she was adorable and funny. And I. I kind of liked that. It's one of the few scenes that actually I thought was well done.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, well, yeah, she's. She's. She's the heart of this film. She's the heart of this film. This film would really be anything without. Without Her. So, anyway, I guess I want to say. What I want to say is, as we said at the beginning, you know, this.

Tony Maietta:
When this was released in. In March of 1970, Universal didn't really believe in it. They didn't think they really had anything here. And so they opened it very wide. And as I said, it was the biggest hit in Universal's history, replacing Spartacus. And it started off this entire genre of disaster films and also one spoof in particular, which Bradza was calling this film. It was a. You know, it was the genesis of Airplane, and Airplane's based on all of these airport movies.

Tony Maietta:
But you can definitely. One of the delicious things about watching Airport is seeing is remembering the parts of Airplane which call it out.

Brad Shreve:
I could not stop giggling because it kept reminding me of scenes and sometimes verbatim. And I'll tell you the one that just the music and the score in this film, it was so dramatic.

Tony Maietta:
It's so dramatic.

Brad Shreve:
And even the opening, when you're seeing the little model plane, you do everything but see the strings for it when it comes out of the cloud, just like at the beginning of Airplane, I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't realize it was so identical to it. Almost identical.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to watch this after watching Airplane, you know.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah. Watch Airplane first if you want a fun evening, I think watch Airplane first and then this. I don't think it would be fun the other way. Before we go, I want to bring somebody back up that we talked about, and that is Maureen Stapleton. What did you think of her acting?

Tony Maietta:
I love Maureen Stapleton. As I said, she's the second first lady in the American theater. She's okay. Well, the part that she plays, she plays Inez Guerrero. She plays Van Heflin's wife who's figuring out that he's actually going to do this suicide bombing on this plane. And, yeah, I mean, she's basically an emotional heap for most of the film. She's running around pulling her hair, and nobody does that better than Maureen Stapleton. Nobody is an emotional wreck for 90 minutes better than Maureen Stapleton.

Tony Maietta:
So I love Maureen Stapleton. She got a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. And I think she's. I think she's wonderful. What do you think?

Brad Shreve:
There's two emotions I had in this film. Well, three. One is boredom. One is I laughed a lot with Helen Hayes. And the other, I was almost in tears with Maureen Stapleton when she found out that her husband was on the plane to Rome and She's looking out that window and the way she acted with just her face. And obviously she must have thought her husband was leaving her. She didn't know all the rest of the story. She just.

Brad Shreve:
Her husband flew to Rome and she's so distraught. And I just was. It hit me in the stomach. And then after the plane lands and she knows that he blew up the bomb.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
And her in tears and running to the passengers and telling them I'm sorry. It. It was one of the few emotions that I had while watching this film. I was entertained. I shouldn't say I was bored. I was entertained. But it's not a very good film.

Tony Maietta:
Well, here's what I love about Maureen Stapleton. So you see Maureen Stapleton in a part like this and most of her film, she plays very, very sympathetic women. Women who are going through crisis, women who are at the, the end of their rope. And she was quite abroad, Maureen Stapleton, nothing like this. First of all, she was best friends with Marlon Brando, which is something wonderful. But, you know, she was a real crazy, crazy lady in the best sense. I think it was Dick Van Dyke. Dick Van Dyke talks about going to his first Hollywood party and she was there and she was.

Tony Maietta:
He had just done Bye Bye Birdie with her. The film version, she plays his mother. So it was the cast party and the Bye Bye Birdie. And apparently at one point in the evening, she's naked in the pool urging people to come on. She was a body broad from day one, but she. She specialized in playing these incredibly sympathetic women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And that's what I love about her, because she's a real life force, Maureen Stapleton. She is, yeah, she's a real, real force.

Tony Maietta:
And she's a force in this film. She really is wonderful.

Brad Shreve:
She really. She really was. So before we go, let me just do the stats on the film as far as how it did compared to others. Just a quick rundown for Oscar nominees. It was nominated, Patton won, and the other films were Five Easy Pieces, Love Story and MASH, the top grossing films of 1970. The only reason I can figure out why this was the top is because the incredibly handsome and delicious Ryan O' Neill, and that is Love Story made $106 million, probably on a much smaller budget, I would guess.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, much smaller. Well, Love Story was the movie to end all movies in 1970. I mean, truly. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Next we had Airport, the next one we had was mash, then Patton. And the number five was Woodstock.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, really? Interesting, interesting.

Brad Shreve:
I Doubt many people watch Woodstock these days.

Tony Maietta:
No, I don't think so.

Brad Shreve:
And Rotten Tomatoes, this was the big surprise to me. Rotten Tomatoes. The critics score averaged out to 72%. The audience score, 54%. Now, usually you have the critics ahead by 20% in a movie that is like a very serious drama or an art film. It's very rare that this type of film, especially after what I read, would do better with the critics in the audience. And I'm guessing that that audience score is probably people that watched it more in recent years.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I agree with you. Because as we. As we said at the beginning, this is not. You're waiting an hour and a half for the disaster to happen. And this is a disaster film. So it's, you know, it's a different way of filming. It's a different way of experiencing film. It's a different time.

Tony Maietta:
I kind of like the fact that they're a little more conservative with the disasters. You know, when they. When there's disaster from like 10 minutes and you're like, oh, you know, you kind of blow your Wad when you're 10 minutes in. They're very conservative in their. In their doling out maybe a little too much of the story and letting the disaster happen. Very, very. And I like the fact that only one person died and it was the person who was responsible. I don't like to see Jennifer Jones going.

Tony Maietta:
Flying out of an elevator on fire. I mean, I. I don't like innocent people getting killed. Yes. So I. I actually kind of like that. Even though I agree with you. They take.

Tony Maietta:
And the audience, they take way too long to get to the main. Till that plane takes off. You're like, come on. What is. Let's get going, people. Yeah.

Brad Shreve:
Should we tell them what's coming up next week?

Tony Maietta:
Well, we have twin disasters for you, ladies and gentlemen. So airport is our first, and we have a second one coming up. I don't think we should tell them. I think they should. I think they should tune in next week and see what we're going to talk about. I guarantee you it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. This movie is important historically, because the fact that it was the first, but this next one is just a hell of a lot of fun.

Brad Shreve:
Yes. Yes, indeed. So, listener, if this is your first time listening or one of the first few times and you're not really ready to make a decision whether you like the show or not, at least subscribe so you'll know when the next episodes are coming. Up. And if you've been listening to us for a while, we ask that you please rate and review this show. It's been a while since we've had one, so.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, that'd be great.

Brad Shreve:
We've been getting ratings, but not reviews, so type one out.

Tony Maietta:
Only takes a minute to say, it is very good. They are very good. That's all you gotta say.

Brad Shreve:
Doesn't need much, just say, good, good.

Tony Maietta:
Good. Well, Brad, I know I only have one thing left to say, but I don't want to say it. So let's not say goodbye. Let's say, stop him. He has a bomb. He's going in the bathroom.

Brad Shreve:
Yeah, we better say goodbye.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, goodbye, everybody.