Airplane! (1980, PG), the directorial debut of the writing/directing team of David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams (who apprenticed on the screenplay of Kentucky Fried Movie), has my vote for the funniest film ever made. Ostensibly a goof on the barely remembered 1957 aviation thriller Zero Hour! (note the exclamation mark) by way of […]
Douglas Sirk puts the opera back into “soap opera” in the exquisitely baroque melodrama Written on the Wind (1956). And it kicks it from the opening credits: a rushing car, a brewing storm kicking up leaves and whipping the trees, a gunshot, and a man stumbling out of the mansion before the pages of the […]
The High and the Mighty was the biggest hit of 1954 and nominated for six Academy Awards (it won for Dmitri Tiomkin’s memorable score). Seen today, this lavish aviation drama falls squarely between Stagecoach and Airport, a large ensemble drama about a mechanical crisis on a Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight where every passenger has a story […]
