This is the second of four movies in the "Airport" series . It's exciting and amusing but full clichés and stereotypes with mediocre performance by all-star-cast . The movie is another jetliner epic with hero Heston . A commercial airline of the American Airlines 747 Boeing (piloted by Efrem Zimbalist Jr. , Roy Thinnes , Erik Estrada) is crashed to another smaller plane (piloted by Dana Andrews) . Then the flight attendant (Karen Black who brings conviction to her character as dedicated stewardess turned pilot ) taking on control of the dangerous travel and forcing daring rescue attempt (by Ed Flanders and Heston) . The film is detailing hectic flighty piloted by a stewardess and the relationship among passengers . All clichéd and stock roles with regurgitation of all usual stereotypical situations from disaster films , the nuns ( Helen Reddy as singing nun and Martha Scott ), an aging alcoholic woman (Myrna Loy , but Joan Crawford was firstly approached to play the character who turned down), nervous passengers , an old actress (Gloria Swanson) . Taking place on freeze skies and Rocky Mountains as background , the airplane heading to Salt Lake City . If you've seen the original ¨Airport¨ ( by George Seaton ) based on the Arthur Hailey's novel 'the daddy of them all' , you have seen them all .
The picture contains thriller, suspense , drama , moderate tension and is quite entertaining although with some flaws and gaps . Filmed at the height of the disaster genre in the 7os , this entry in the spectacular series benefits from a strong acting by Charlton Heston who spent time on a simulator in preparation for the role , bringing life to character , he also starred a similar role at ¨ Skyjacked (1972)¨ by John Guillermin . Gloria Swanson performs herself in her ending movie . Look quickly to Nancy Olson , Linda Blair , Sid Caesar, Beverly Garland , Norman Fell and Jerry Stiller , Ben Stiller's father , among others . And , of course, appears the classic character Patroni played by usual George Kennedy . The motion picture was regularly directed by Jack Smight , habitual TV director and occasionally for big screen (Midway , Harper , No way to treat a lady) . It's an inoffensive diversion but is sometimes tediously unspooled and it was parodied heavily in Airplane! (1980) by Jim Abrahams and David Zucker . The film will appeal to Charlton Heston fans and disaster genre enthusiasts .
