Black Box Film Festival

            There are many news stories about post-Covid air travel. Particularly about unruly passengers punching the flight crew for having the temerity to tell them to buckle their seat belt or wear a face mask. Jean-Paul Sartre was right: “Hell is other people.”

            The night before you have to go to the airport to catch a flight, what should you remember? Tickets? Passport? Travelers checks? Flight insurance. Your vaccination proof? Please! Chances are the plane you’re on is so old that it’ll explode in the air before the flight attendant can point to the exits. I make it a point to always watch an air disaster video the night before a trip. No, not the jokey Airplane! but the original films. They have all the cliches but are played without irony and are a lot funnier. I’ve put together a list of my favorite movies to stream the night before and to reflect on while your plane is plummeting into the ocean and an ugly stranger is frantically cutting his toenails beside you. (I’m not suggesting United 93 for God’s sake). So, light a votive candle next to your framed John Denver photo and buckle up for laughs.

            AirportI (1970) The granddaddy of them all- an all-star Ross Hunter produced flying soap opera starring Burt Lancaster as the harried airport manager dealing with a blizzard, a hateful wife (Dana Wynter), a devoted assistant (Jean Seberg), and a plane heading toward Rome with a deranged passenger (Van Heflin) carrying a bomb in his briefcase. Helen Hayes amazingly won an Oscar as an annoying old biddie stowaway. Dean Martin is astonishingly cast as the resourceful pilot and gets to crack the best line when a flight attendant (Jacqueline Bisset) rebuffs his advances: “You get me up to full throttle, then throw me into reverse- you could damage my engine!”  

            Airport 1975 (1974) Screamingly funny film about a mid-air collision between a 747 and private plane whose pilot (Dana Andrews) suffers a heart attack. It’s up to the jet’s cross-eyed stewardess (Karen Black) to fly the plane until help arrives. Every gag in Airplane! is here- the singing nun (Helen Reddy); the plucky girl (Linda Blair) in need of a kidney transplant; the passenger with a taste for boilermakers (Myrna Loy); the glamorous movie star (Gloria Swanson); and macho hero Murdoch (Charlton Heston) who saves the day by being lowered into the cockpit by helicopter. George Kennedy (who shows up in every one of these films) is consulted for his expertise.

            Airport ‘77 (1976) A botched robbery aboard the private jet of a millionaire (Jimmy Stewart) forces the plane and its wealthy passengers to crash below the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. With Jack Lemmon as the heroic pilot, Brenda Vacarro as the stewardess, as well as Olivia De Havilland, Joseph Cotten and a nasty Lee Grant as a rich bitch drunk who holds up a mini martini and gestures to her husband (Christopher Lee): “Just your size….”  And yes, with George Kennedy reprising his role as aircraft expert Joe Patroni. 

            The Concorde: Airport ‘79 (1979) “Your hair is like French fries” says pilot Alain Delon to girlfriend, stewardess Sylvia Kristel in this all-star howler about an ill-fated good will trip to the Moscow Olympics. Bad guy Robert Wagner sends missiles to blow the Concorde out of the sky because a TV reporter (Susan Blakely) is carrying incriminating documents about his illegal arms deals. On board is Cicely Tyson (transporting a heart in a jar to her son in Paris), an incontinent Martha Raye and a pot-smoking saxophone player (Jimmy Walker). George Kennedy again plays his role as Joe Patroni, but gets to fly this time and even leans out the window of the plane to fires a flare gun! Charo shows up briefly to mangle the English language: “Don’t miscon-screw me.”

            There have been many films about plane crashes and their survivors from Five Came Back (1939) (A young Lucille Ball and cannibals). Lost Horizon (1937) (Finding a hidden city called Shangrila in the Tibetan mountains where you never grow old) Lost Horizon (1973) (A ghastly, hilarious musical version where you have to consider it might be preferable to die in a plane crash than listen to Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann sing). And then there’s the excruciating Six Days Seven Nights (1999) starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche or Cast Away with Tom Hanks stranded on an island with a stupid basketball as his only friend.

            But the best crash sequence and cutest cast has got to be Alive! (1993) based on the true story of a rugby team that survived 72 days in the Andes Mountains. Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano, Josh Hamilton create almost Comme des Garcon outfits out of the debris and even resort to cannibalism to survive. 

            Some movies involving plane mishaps are too earnest for real laughs. Like Island in the Sky (1953) John Wayne on a plane! Crash Landing (1958), No Highway in the Sky (1951), Phone Call from A Stanger (1952) and The Crowded Sky (1960). But then there’s Zero Hour! (1957) which is where Airplane! (1980) lifted the entire plot, characters and plenty of the actual dialogue. Dana Andrews plays Ted Stryker, an ex-World War II pilot suffering PTSD who boards a plan headed for Vancouver with his wife (Linda Darnell) and son. Many on the flight come down with food poisoning from eating the halibut, including the pilot and co-pilot (even Ted’s own son), so it’s up to Stryker to fly the plane. “You’re the only chance we’ve got!” Sterling Hayden plays the gruff Captain trying to talk Stryker down over the intercom (Robert Stack played that part in Airplane!). Stryker’s son even visits the pilot in the cockpit, but he’s nowhere near as hilarious as Peter Graves. Watching this is sometimes funnier than Airplane! when you realize it was done seriously. Sterling Hayden even closes with, “Ted, that was probably the lousiest landing in the history of this airport. But there’s some of us here, particularly me, who’d like to buy you a drink and shake your hand!” 

            Julie (1956) Doris Day plays poor, terrified Julie Benton, married to a psychotically jealous husband- Lyle (Louis Jourdon). In the first scene, Lyle “flys” off the handle when she threatens to leave him while driving, causing him to press his foot down on top of Julie’s on the gas pedal as they are hurtling down a twisty, perilous, ocean-side road. He is a pianist, whose music, Julie muses in a voice-over, has “a savage fury that is almost frightening.” When she discovers Lyle actually bumped off her first husband she flees in fear and gets her job back as an air hostess. But crazy Lyle boards her flight from San Francisco, shoots the pilot and co-pilot and it’s up to Julie to land the plane. In other words, she has to “wing it” in this riotous thriller.

            The hilarious meta-comedy Airplane! pretty much killed off the airline disaster series- except for using planes as backdrops for action fare like Passenger 57 (1992) and Air Force One (1997). The best of these is Turbulence (1996) about a psychotic killer (a fiendishly over-the-top Ray Liotta) loose on a 747 on Christmas Eve, and the spunky stewardess who battles him (Lauren Holly). Holly fits perfectly into the firmament of flight attendants forced to fly a plane to safety, who include Doris Day, Karen Black and Lucille Ball on the Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour). With her permanently startled expression Holly looks like she’s been hit on the back of the head with a shovel throughout this riotous bomb.

            One of my favorite memories from childhood was watching the The Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner sees a malevolent gremlin on the wing on the plane and no one will believe him. That episode- Nightmare at 20,000 Feet was rebooted in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). The segment was directed by George Miller (Mad Max) and starred John Lithgow. Other supernatural occurrences on airplanes include the mini-series The Langoliers (1985), based on a Stephen King novella where suddenly 10 people on a plane discover that the rest of the passengers and crew have disappeared mid-air and when they finally land the plane in Maine they discover a seemingly uninhabited airport; a breezeless sky and a malevolent force heading their way. Horror at 37, 000 Feet (1973) was a TV movies starring William Shatner about a demon in the cargo hold of their plane. Shatner publically called this one of the worst films he ever made, and that’s saying something. 407 Dark Flight 3D (2012) is a Thai movie about ghosts on a plane. Flight 7500 (2014) is directed by Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on: The Grudge) and is about a plane possessed by a supernatural force and starring cute True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten. A rookie pilot and her teen friends battle the supernatural in the movie Altitude (2010). An ancient evil Chinese spirit inhabits passengers on the ill-fated transatlantic flight in Airborne (2012).

            The idea of emotional support animals on a plane has been abused to death with nervous nellie fliers boarding with their pet dogs, cats, pigs, chickens and warthogs. That takes me to Snakes on a Plane (2006), with Samuel L. Jackson transporting a material witness aboard a plane full of slithering deadly snakes incensed by pheromone sprays. I watched it again recently and forgot how much fun and kind of scary it is. When one of the most hateful passengers get swallowed whole by an anaconda it still leaves me speechless. In the ludicrous Tail Sting (2001) a bunch of genetically engineered scorpions escape from the cargo hold and start growing gigantic. And I never got around to Destination: Infestation (2007) about a flight over-run by poisonous ants. Quite frankly, it’s “plane” to see humans are actually scarier.

            Skyjacked (1971). A crazed Vietnam vet (James Brolin) hijacks a plane first to Anchorage and then on to Russia in this low-rent howler. Charlton Heston is the stalwart pilot, musclebound Mike “Tarzan” Henry is co-pilot, Leslie Uggams and Yvette Mimieux are stewardesses. Walter Pidgeon is a US Senator, Rosey Grier a jazz musician; Susan Dey plays a hippie flying first class and Mariette Hartly gives birth mid-air between Alaska and Moscow. Josh Brolin is a hoot as the psycho bomber with bugged-out eyes fantasizing a full military tribute and holding a grenade in one hand and a bomb-triggering device in the other.

            Women-in-peril-on-a-plane movies include Non-Stop (2014) with Julianne Moore aboard a flight where an air marshal (Liam Neeson) gets texts from a crazed extortionist threatening to kill off a passenger every 20 minutes. In Flightplan (2005), Jodie Foster plays a grieving mother traveling with her six-year-old daughter and her husband’s coffin on a non-stop flight from Berlin to America. Her daughter goes missing and everyone denies that there was a little girl onboard. In Red Eye (2005), Rachel McAdams plays a woman held hostage during a flight by a charming villain (Cillian Murphy) who threatens her father’s life unless she plays a part in a political assassination. Maybe you too can meet a cute psychopath on your next flight.

            Some might consider it too soon after suffering through Covid-19 to enjoy watching mysterious virus outbreaks on planes like in Quarantine 2 (2011) or Nightmare City (1980). I remember being slightly astonished how many friends were ghoulishly watching Contagion (2011) once we were all in full shut-down mode. I guess it depends on your taste for movies about “terminal” Illness.

            But then there’s: Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal (2000) This howler is about a live Web telecast of a rock concert aboard a 747 by heavy-metal god Slade Craven (John Mann). Terrorists tie up the real Craven and substitute a fake with a long black wig and painted face, who shoots people and holds the plane hostage in midair. It’s up to a computer hacker (Craig Sheffer) and a cool but sexy F.B.I. gal (Gabrielle Anwar) to help the real rock legend overtake the bad guys and land the plane safely. The sight of a Marilyn Manson look-alike landing a 747 full of screaming punked-out fans is almost as good as seeing a cross-eyed Karen Black in Airport 1975.

            Or: Con Air (1997) There is a bizarre, darkly comic buoyancy to this action-packed tale of a bunch of convicts who overtake a cargo plane transporting them to a new maximum-security prison. Nicholas Cage is Cameron Poe, a military man who is in jail for murder. He’s been looking forward to finally getting to see his daughter and it is his misfortune to be caught up in an aircraft full of bloodthirsty convicts. John Cusack battles on the ground to rescue the good guys, while the prisoners (which include John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Nick Chinlund, etc.) wreak havoc in the skies. Steve Buscemi is hilarious as a creepy serial-killer with a profound sense of irony. By the time they get to Las Vegas the audience has already seen one action sequence too many.

            Final Destination (2000) The first in a popular horror franchise is about Alex (Devan Sawa) leaving with his entire high school class on a fabulous airline trip to France. “Live it up Alex, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” cheers his father. Well, maybe not. Spooked by a scary vision of a plane crash, Alex freaks out and is removed from the aircraft with a few other classmates. But then there is a crash. And because they were fated to die and didn’t, death comes for each in unexpected, horrible ways. The vision of the crash itself is pretty spectacular- explosions of electric fire; sections of the plane ripping off and seats filled with screaming teenagers sucked out of the plane- it may not be on par with the legendary car crash at the beginning of Final Destination 2, but it’s still pretty gnarly. 

            The Green Inferno (2013) Horror maestro Eli Roth’s (Hostel) loving, witty, enjoyably bloodthirsty tribute to the grindhouse Italian cannibal films of the 1980s. Justine (a terrific Lorenza Izzo) plays a New York college student who joins up with an eco-activist group and travels to Peru to prevent construction crews from tearing down the rain forest. Unfortunately, their plane crashes and they are captured by a ferocious tribe of cannibals. Roth understands the genre intrinsically but brings a post-modern spin and keeps the roller-coaster ride of a films on track and roaring fun. A sequence involving a bag of pot and a roasting victim is inspired lunacy.

            Blood Red Sky (Netflix) is about some nasty criminals who hijack a plane, planning to make it look like it was taken down by Islamic terrorists. A mother is traveling with her young son and is injecting drugs to keep her malady at bay- but the situation causes her to unleash her true vampire self on the bad guys and eventually it turns into a feeding frenzy. Sure, it’s “Vampires on a Plane,” but it’s better than a lot of other crap on Netflix.

            Oh, fuck it- take the train.