Friday, 12:05am, Channel 4
Airplane! (1980)—the film that launched a thousand gags, set Leslie Nielsen’s deadpan delivery in stone, and forever shifted the landscape of comedy cinema. Written and directed by Jim Abrahams and brothers Jerry and David Zucker, this film is often hailed as the pinnacle of parody, spoofing the disaster genre with ruthless precision. Though it takes aim squarely at the 1957 film Zero Hour! (from which it borrows much of its plot), Airplane! draws liberally from Airport(1970) and other disaster films of the era, finding ridiculousness in every solemn moment. The story follows ex-pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) as he boards an ill-fated flight to win back his ex-girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagerty), only for him to be forced into piloting the plane when the crew is incapacitated by food poisoning. As it turns out, the film’s visual and verbal gags—many absurdist to the core—are brilliantly orchestrated chaos.
One might think a film this fast-paced and chock-full of jokes would disregard its score, but composer Elmer Bernstein turned in a soundtrack that is delightfully serious. Bernstein, a veteran whose work included The Magnificent Seven and To Kill a Mockingbird, brings gravitas to a film that is, frankly, all about taking the gravitas out of serious things. The music has the grand, suspenseful feel of a true disaster epic, which only heightens the absurdity. Bernstein’s fully orchestrated score adds a sense of high-stakes drama that clashes hilariously with the visuals, amplifying the humour tenfold. Imagine a booming, suspenseful score accompanying the cockpit chaos as Nielsen’s Dr. Rumack intones, “I am serious... and don't call me Shirley”—the mismatch is glorious.
The legacy of Airplane! endures in its style: endless quotability, slapstick irreverence, and a cast that played every gag with poker faces. The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker formula would go on to inspire other comedies that play it straight while the world unravels around the characters, like The Naked Gun and Hot Shots! But there’s a kind of mad alchemy in Airplane! that hasn’t quite been recreated. Its humor draws on pure commitment to silliness, tied together with a score that gives it the veneer of classic cinema—which, in its own way, it absolutely is.
- Noel Chambers