Airplane! (alternatively titled Flying High!) is a 1980 American comedy film written and directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker in their directorial debut, and produced by Jon Davison. It stars Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty and features Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Lorna Patterson, Stephen Stucker, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It is a parody of the disaster film genre, particularly the 1957 Paramount film Zero Hour!, from which it borrows the plot, central characters, and some dialogue. It also draws many elements from Airport 1975 and other films in the Airport series. It is known for using surreal humor and fast-paced slapstick comedy, including visual and verbal puns, gags, running jokes, and satirical sharp overtones.
Released by Paramount Pictures, it was a critical and commercial success, grossing $171 million worldwide against a budget of $3.5 million. The creators received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Comedy, and nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and for the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay.
Since its release, the film's reputation has grown substantially, and Airplane! is now considered one of the greatest comedy films ever made, inspiring numerous references, homages, and further parodies in popular culture. It ranked sixth on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies. In a 2007 survey by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, it was judged the second-greatest comedy of all time, behind Monty Python's Life of Brian. In 2008, it was selected by Empire magazine as one of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, and in 2012 was voted number one on the 50 Funniest Comedies Ever poll. In 2010, Airplane! was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot Ex-fighter pilot Ted Striker is a traumatized war veteran turned taxi driver. Because of his pathological fear of flying and subsequent "drinking problem"—he splashes beverages anywhere but into his mouth—Ted has been unable to hold a responsible job. His wartime girlfriend, Elaine Dickinson, now a flight attendant, breaks off her relationship with him before boarding her rostered flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Ted, having gotten home early enough to see her break-up note and catch her at the airport, abandons his taxi to buy a ticket on the same flight to try to win her back.
Once on board, however, Elaine continues to reject him. Ted tells the story of how they met to several other passengers, inadvertently driving them to suicide due to boredom as he windily reminisces. The pilots, including co-pilot Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (under the alias Roger Murdock), entertain a child in the cockpit.
After the in-flight meal is served (a choice of either steak or fish), the entire flight crew and several passengers fall ill. Passenger Dr. Rumack discovers that the fish served during meal service has caused food poisoning. With the flight crew incapacitated, Elaine contacts the Chicago control tower for help and is instructed by tower supervisor Steve McCroskey to activate the plane's autopilot, a large inflatable dummy pilot dubbed "Otto", which will get them to Chicago, but cannot land the plane. Elaine reinflates the inflatable dummy and sits next to it while ATC gives instructions.
Elaine and Rumack convince Ted to take the controls. When Steve learns Ted is piloting, he contacts Ted's former commanding officer, Rex Kramer. A young intern drives to Kramer's house to pick him up in the middle of the night and is mauled by his dog. Kramer, now serving as a commercial pilot, arrives and helps talk Ted through the landing procedure. Ted becomes uneasy when Kramer starts giving orders, and he briefly breaks down amid more wartime flashbacks. Elaine and Rumack both bolster Ted's confidence, and he manages to once again take the controls. ATC's efforts are hampered by nosy journalists printing sensationalist stories about the flight and its chances of crashing.
As the plane nears Chicago, the weather worsens, complicating the landing. Passengers are asked to take brace position for landing. With Elaine's help as co-pilot and Rex's guidance from the tower, Ted is able to land the plane safely, despite the landing gear shearing off, and the passengers suffer only minor injuries. Rescue vehicles arrive to help unload the plane. Impressed by Ted's courage, Elaine embraces and kisses him, rekindling their relationship. "Otto" restarts the plane and takes off as a female companion inflates beside him.
Cast
Production
Development and writing Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (collectively known as Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker, or ZAZ) wrote Airplane! while they were performing with the Kentucky Fried Theatre, a theatre group they had founded in 1971. To obtain material for comedy routines, they routinely recorded late-night television and reviewed the tapes later primarily to pull the commercials, a process Abrahams compared to "seining for fish". During one such taping process, they unintentionally recorded the 1957 film Zero Hour!, and while scanning the commercials, found it to be a "perfectly classically structured film" according to Jerry Zucker. Abrahams later described Zero Hour! as "the serious version of Airplane!" It was the first film script they wrote, completed around 1975, and was originally called The Late Show. The script originally stayed close to the dialog and plot of Zero Hour!, as ZAZ thought they did not have a sufficient understanding of film at the time to structure a proper script. ZAZ's script borrowed so much from Zero Hour! that they believed they needed to negotiate the rights to create the remake of the film and ensure they remain within the allowance for parody within copyright law. They were able to obtain the rights from Warner Bros. and Paramount for about $2,500 at the time. The original script contained spoofs of television commercials, but people who proofread it advised them to shorten the commercials, and they eventually removed them. When their script was finished, they were unable to sell it.
While failing to sell their script, the trio met director John Landis, who encouraged them to write a film based on their theatre sketches. They managed to put The Kentucky Fried Movie into production in the late 1970s. David Zucker said, "it was the first time we had ever been on a movie set. We learned a lot. We learned that if you really wanted a movie to come out the way you wanted it to, you had to direct. So on the next movie, Airplane!, we insisted on directing".
Eventually the Airplane! script found its way to Paramount through Michael Eisner, who had learned of the script via Susan Baerwald, another scriptwriter with United Artists, and had Jeffrey Katzenberg track down and meet with ZAZ to discuss details. Avco Embassy Pictures also expressed interest in producing the film, but ZAZ decided to go with Paramount.
Paramount insisted the film be shot in color rather than black-and-white as ZAZ wanted, and to be set aboard a jet airliner rather than propeller plane to better identify with modern filmgoers. In exchange, Paramount acquiesced to ZAZ's desire to cast serious actors for the film rather than comedy performers.
During pre-production, Universal Pictures filed a complaint against Paramount, claiming that Airplane!'s parody of the Airport film series and the similarity of their titles constituted plagiarism. After a review by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) arbitration board, Paramount agreed to retitle the film Flying High! for its international release. ZAZ also agreed not to cast their first choice Helen Reddy as the singing nun (which parodied a similar role in Airport 1975), with the understanding that Reddy playing a similar character in both films might constitute plagiarism.
Casting David Zucker explained that "the trick was to cast actors like Robert Stack, Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges. These were people who, up to that time, had never done comedy. We thought they were much funnier than the comedians of that time were".
David Zucker felt Stack was the most important actor to be cast, since he was the "linchpin" of the film's plot. Stack initially played his role in a way that was different from what the directors had in mind. They showed him a tape of impressionist John Byner impersonating Robert Stack. According to the producers, Stack was "doing an impression of John Byner doing an impression of Stack". Stack was not initially interested in the part, but ZAZ persuaded him. Bridges' children advised him to take the part. Graves rejected the script at first, considering it tasteless. During filming, ZAZ had explained to Graves that his lines spoken to a young boy, such as "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?", would "be explained later in a part that you aren't in". On the DVD commentary, Abrahams said: "I don't understand. What did he think was tasteless about pedophilia?"
For the role of Dr. Rumack, ZAZ initially suggested Dom DeLuise, Christopher Lee (who had appeared in Airport '77), Vincent Price, and Jack Webb, all of whom turned it down, before they considered Nielsen, who was "just a fish in water" in his role, according to Jerry Zucker. Nielsen's career to this point had consisted mostly of serious leading roles, but he had wanted to work in comedy and had been looking for a film to help in the transition. He was considered a "closet comedian" on set, pranking his fellow actors between shots, but immediately adopted his somber, serious persona when performing as Rumack. During filming, Nielsen used a device that made farting noises to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro". Christopher Lee would later acknowledge that turning down the role (to star in the film 1941) was a huge mistake.
The role of Ted Striker was written for David Letterman, who had auditioned for a news anchorman role in Kentucky Fried Movie. Letterman did a screen test in 1979 that ZAZ liked and they wanted him to do a second audition, but Letterman did not want to pursue the role and was not selected. Chevy Chase, Barry Manilow, Bill Murray and Fred Willard were also considered for the role. Caitlyn Jenner also read for the part. Instead, ZAZ opted for Robert Hays, co-star of ABC's situation comedy Angie. Elaine's part was auditioned for by Sigourney Weaver and Shelley Long but eventually went to Julie Hagerty, in her film debut. The directors advised the pair to play their roles straight. Hays and Hagerty developed an on-screen chemistry that worked in the film's favor; they spent time to practice and perfect the bar dance routine set to "Stayin' Alive", among other scenes.