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Airport (1970, George Seaton)

Posted on 14 December 2011 | Leave a comment

While it did start the seventies disaster genre, Airport barely qualifies. The first hour of the film is excruciating soap opera melodrama—airport chief Burt Lancaster is stuck in a loveless marriage with harpy Dana Wynter, so he’s got a flirtation going with widowed Jean Seberg. His sister, played by Barbara Hale, is stuck in a loveless marriage with pilot Dean Martin, who’s carrying on with stewardess Jacqueline Bisset.

Lancaster is only stepping out on Wynter because she’s awful to him… Hale’s great to Martin, but she’s barren, so it’s tacitly agreed he’s expected to step out. Seaton’s script is really direct about that point—it’s Hale’s fault.

Casting Martin as a megalomaniac pilot is an interesting choice. His performance is awful, but it’s appropriate. Once the disaster kicks in, however, he gets a little better.

Lancaster looks disinterested and bored with the film; Seberg is okay, though her role is seriously underwritten. The first half of the film belongs to Helen Hayes, playing a stowaway. She’s the best thing in the film.

Maureen Stapleton’s good (though the script fails her); Whit Bissell probably gives film’s second best performance.

The second half, the disaster part… is actually somewhat worse. It moves faster, but it’s less competent as Seaton make Martin into an angel.

Seaton’s direction is awful. Though the film clearly has a budget, he shoots the interiors like he doesn’t. His Panavision composition is shockingly inept.

Combined with Alfred Newman’s truly atrocious score, Airport is a miserable viewing experience.

CREDITS

Directed by George Seaton; screenplay by Seaton, based on the novel by Arthur Hailey; director of photography, Ernest Laszlo; edited by Stuart Gilmore; music by Alfred Newman; produced by Ross Hunter; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Burt Lancaster (Mel Bakersfeld), Dean Martin (Capt. Vernon Demerest), Jean Seberg (Tanya Livingston), Jacqueline Bisset (Gwen Meighen), George Kennedy (Joe Patroni), Helen Hayes (Ada Quonsett), Van Heflin (D.O. Guerrero), Maureen Stapleton (Inez Guerrero), Barry Nelson (Capt. Anson Harris), Dana Wynter (Cindy Bakersfeld), Lloyd Nolan (Harry Standish), Barbara Hale (Sarah Bakersfeld Demerest), Gary Collins (Cy Jordan), John Findlater (Peter Coakley), Jessie Royce Landis (Mrs. Harriet DuBarry Mossman), Larry Gates (Commissioner Ackerman), Peter Turgeon (Marcus Rathbone), Whit Bissell (Mr. Davidson), Virginia Grey (Mrs. Schultz), Eileen Wesson (Judy Barton) and Paul Picerni (Dr. Compagno).

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Posted in 1970, Color, Drama, English, Italian, Thriller, Universal Pictures, USA

Tagged Alfred Newman, Arthur Hailey, Barbara Hale, Barry Nelson, Burt Lancaster, Dana Wynter, Dean Martin, Eileen Wesson, Ernest Laszlo, Gary Collins, George Kennedy, George Seaton, Helen Hayes, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, Jessie Royce Landis, John Findlater, Larry Gates, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen Stapleton, Paul Picerni, Peter Turgeon, Ross Hunter, Stuart Gilmore, Van Heflin, Virginia Grey, Whit Bissell

36 Hours (1965, George Seaton)

Posted on 20 March 2006 | Leave a comment

George Seaton is a perfectly capable director and he’s got a lot of talent as a writer, but 36 Hours is fairly light. It’s set just before D-Day–and we all know D-Day happened, so the Germans aren’t going to win the big kahuna, which leaves only the little ones. Again, James Garner probably isn’t going to die, neither is Eva Marie Saint. There’s little suspense to the conclusion of 36 Hours and a thriller needs suspense….

The film is about the Germans getting ahold of a D-Day planner right before the invasion and setting him up in a fake U.S. hospital run by Rod Taylor, where everyone speaks English and they try to convince him (Garner) he’s had amnesia for six years. The first hour of the film doesn’t even rightly belong to Garner. It’s mostly Taylor and his dealings with the SS and so on. Taylor, of course, is a sympathetic Nazi, a doctor dedicated to relieving post-traumic stress. Taylor’s really good too, better than Garner, who’s on autopilot for most of the film–his character is incredibly shallow–except the few scenes between Taylor and Garner. Seaton started as a playwright (I think), but I do remember from The Big Lift, he really knows how to write male friendships. 36 Hours has one of those good friendships, or at least the foundation for one.

Unfortunately, the friendship is not the focus of the film… actually, 36 Hours doesn’t really have a focus. It takes place over a few days–much longer than 36 hours, those 36 hours are actually used up by the half-way point–and there’s uneventful chase scenes and McGuffins everywhere. There is a wonderful sequence at the beginning, set entirely to café music. I wonder if Seaton thought of it himself or if he knew what Welles wanted for the beginning of Touch of Evil, since the two are almost identical. The music in general, by Dimitri Tiomkin, is excellent. He never goes too heavy with it and the music helps bring out some of the more amusing elements to the story. It’s also got a good love theme, and since Eva Marie Saint is really bad, those scenes need all the help they can get.

To some degree, 36 Hours just came a little too late… It was released in 1965 and it just feels too much like an attempt to capitalize on The Great Escape. Seaton’s earlier World War II work had some revealing insight into Germany, but 20 years after the war ended, most of that insight is gone. Instead, he does it for light humor. A more serious tone wouldn’t have fixed 36 Hours, but it would have helped.

CREDITS

Directed by George Seaton; screenplay by Seaton, from a story by Carl K. Hittleman and Luis H. Vance, based on a short story by Roald Dahl; director of photography, Philip H. Lathrop; edited by Adrienne Fazan; music by Dimitri Tiomkin; produced by William Perlberg; released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Starring James Garner (Maj. Jefferson F. Pike), Eva Marie Saint (Anna Hedler), Rod Taylor (Maj. Walter Gerber), Werner Peters (Otto Schack), John Banner (Sgt. Ernst), Russell Thorson (Gen. Allison), Alan Napier (Col. Peter MacLean), Oscar Beregi Jr. (Lt. Col. Karl Ostermann), Ed Gilbert (Capt. Abbott) and Sig Ruman (German Guard).