Airplane! | Chicago Reader

Airplane!

An old Paramount programmer, Hall Bartlett's Zero Hour (1957), remade in 1980 as a sketch comedy by writer-directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker (Top Secret!, Ruthless People). The idea is to parody the Airport pictures, which seems slightly redundant, but the film is funny in a way few of these toothless exercises are. The gags aren't exactly clever, but there are a lot of them, and the cutting finds a fast, effective tempo. Joe Biroc's witty cinematography gives the picture an authentically flat, artificial Universal look, and Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Leslie Nielsen, and Robert Stack are around for added iconographical persuasiveness.

Credits

Directors:

  • Jim Abrahams
  • David Zucker
  • Jerry Zucker

Cast:

  • Robert Hays
  • Julie Hagerty
  • Peter Graves
  • Robert Stack
  • Lloyd Bridges
  • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  • Leslie Nielsen
  • Lorna Patterson
  • Stephen Stucker

Writers:

  • Jim Abrahams
  • David Zucker
  • Jerry Zucker

Producers:

  • Jim Abrahams
  • Jon Davison
  • Howard W. Koch Jr.
  • Hunt Lowry
  • David Zucker
  • Jerry Zucker

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