It’s been many years since I watched Airplane, that crazy comedy film from the ZAZ team of Jim Abrahams,
Jerry Zucker, and David Zucker. They mastered the art of goofball parody comedy
and made my youth more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. Airplane was the one that started it
all. It’s possible to point to John Landis and Kentucky Fried Movie, but that’s more akin to sketch comedy – a bunch
of funny ideas loosely tossed together around a larger centerpiece parody of
Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. But as
an outright genre parody, Airplane
set the bar, a bar that unfortunately has been lowered as the years have gone
on.
To a modern audience I don’t imagine the parody element
will make much sense, but it doesn’t matter because the ZAZ team use the
conventions of the disaster movie genre (popular through the 1970s) as the
skeleton on which to hang some hilarious lines, situations, sight gags, and
comments. Anyone familiar with The
Towering Inferno, Airport, or The Poseidon Adventure will recognize
the reluctant hero Ted Stryker (Robert Hays) with a haunting past; the failed
romance with Elaine (Julie Hagerty) that will be rekindled through adversity;
the team of off-site experts (Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack leading) trying to
solve the crisis; the sick little girl; the token minorities; and the very
serious and dramatic dialogue that’s painted in broad generic strokes such as, “They’ve
got only one chance” and “Hold it together!”
Sure, most of the jokes are juvenile, and more than thirty
years later, knowing most of the movie by heart, it’s a little thin. There were
some subtleties I never caught when I used to watch the movie as a kid, so
there were some mildly fresh amusements this time. What makes it continue to
work, however, is the casting of predominantly dramatic actors to deliver
turgid dialogue, dumb jokes, and react with deadpan steadfastness to the
absurdities around them. Bridges gets the most obvious and clunky laughs out of
a running gag related to various drug habits he’s trying to kick. Stack is
perfect, delivering the dialogue of the expert tactician without ever winking.
Try pulling off a gag where you dramatically remove your sunglasses only to
reveal another pair beneath. Then a couple beats later he has to do the same
move with the underlying pair. And to deliver the line, “Get that finger out of
your ear. You don’t know where that finger’s been,” without smirking is
remarkable. Stack’s technique as a comedic actor is entirely dependent on his
being a skilled dramatic actor.
But none is more adept than the great Leslie Neilsen, who
was plucked from the obscurity of B-list roles in lesser-known movies to have a
career renaissance as the comedic lead in ZAZ-inspired comedies for the next
thirty years. As the doctor on the doomed flight he has to deliver now-famous
clownish lines like, “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.” Every line he
speaks teems with hilarity precisely because he delivers them as if he has no
idea he’s in a comedy. It’s like he stepped on set from another movie, but that’s
why it works so well. Those three supporting players, as well as Peter Graves
as the pilot, give the film texture. Long after you’ve seen it, the bits you’re
likely to remember involve them and not the two leads, Hays and Hagerty, who
have the most thankless roles.
There are other great bits involving a cameo by L.A.
Lakers legend Kareem Abdul Jabar, playing the co-pilot whose true identity is
outed by a boy visiting the cockpit. Also, the only two black characters speak ‘jive’
to one another. It’s a gibberish conglomeration of nonsense that calls
attention to the distinctive speech patterns and vocabulary of black Americans.
Their subtitled dialogue is hilarious enough for the way it actually sounds so
convincing, but the icing on the cake comes when a middle-aged white woman
steps in to translate the jive talk for a stewardess.
Airplane
remains somewhat timeless because the jokes don’t depend on topical references.
The genre satire is present, but as background. Not recognizing or getting it
is unlikely to diminish your enjoyment of the richness of the comedy. This
stands in contrast to just about every parody released in the last twenty years
where every bit demands your familiarity with contemporary pop culture and
specific movies of that era. Scary Movie
is not a genre parody but a parody of the Scream
franchise. The staying power of Airplane
is directly related to its universal appeal that doesn’t depend on specialized
knowledge. It should still be hilarious for teens, and also a great little bit
of nostalgia for the rest of us. Somewhere out there is an in-the-know thirteen-year
old showing this movie to his friends. In twenty years they will still be
quoting and referencing it.
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