Airport Free
- Genres: Action, Drama, Thriller
- Rating IMDb: 66
- Year: 1970
- Duration: 2:17
Summaries
A bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.
This precursor to later "epic" 70's disaster films illustrates 12 hours in the lives of the personnel and passengers at the "Lincoln Airport." Endless problems, professional and personal, are thrown at the various personnel responsible for the safe and proper administration of air traffic, airline management and aviation at a major US airport. Take one severe snowstorm, add multiple schedules gone awry, one elderly Trans Global Airlines stowaway, shortages, an aging, meretricious pilot, unreasonable, peevish spouses, manpower issues, fuel problems, frozen runways and equipment malfunctions and you get just a sample of the obstacles faced by weary, disgruntled personnel and passengers at the Lincoln Airport. Toss in one long-suffering pilot's wife, several stubborn men, office politics and romance and one passenger with a bomb and you have the film "Airport" from 1970.
Mel Bakersfeld, the general manager of a Chicago-area airport, must contend with a massive snowstorm and other issues, both work-related and personal, while the troubled D.O. Guerrero threatens to blow up an airliner. As pilot Vernon Demerest attempts to calm Guerrero down and dissuade him from setting off explosives on the plane, tensions increase in the air and on the ground, and danger is imminent.
Mel Bakersfeld is the hard-charging manager of Lincoln International Airport, trying to keep his airport open despite a raging Midwestern snowstorm and an angry wife. Meanwhile, his antagonistic brother-in-law, Vernon Demerest, may have his plans for a placid layover in Italy disturbed by unexpected news from Gwen Meighen, and by the plans of D.O. Guerrero, the loose cannon on board.
Arthur Haley's bestselling novel brought to the screen. A midwestern U.S. hub airport struggles to remain open despite the worst snowstorm in 25 years, angry homeowners from a nearby housing tract and pilots refusing to obey noise abatement rules during the storm. Mel Bakersfield is the airport manager who must not only fight the weather and the home owners but his pilot/playboy brother-in-law, his divorce seeking wife, a deranged man with a bomb, a plane stuck in the mud and blocking the main runway, a little old lady stowaway and the airport commissioners. A very accurate, for its time, depiction of the day-to-day goings on at a busy airport-- with some extra high drama thrown in for seasoning.
