Airplane!: “Don't Call Me Shirley!” Edition

Remarkably (and quite unexpectedly), the Kentucky Fried Theatre comedy troupe—brothers David and Jerry Zucker and friend Jim Abrahams—revolutionized big-screen screen comedy with their 1980 spoof of a corny disaster movie from the Eisenhower era. Practically a scene-for-scene reworking of Zero Hour (1957), Airplane! takes us aboard an airliner that runs into trouble when the pilots and most passengers succumb to food poisoning. The only guy who might be able to land the plane safely is a discredited Vietnam-era pilot (Robert Hays) whose former girlfriend (Julie Hagerty) happens to be one of the flight attendants. You wouldn't think such a premise would make for great comedy, but the Zuckers and Abrahams, who wrote and directed, took characters that were already clichéd and enlarged them to the point of ridiculousness, giving them impossibly hokey lines and subjecting them to various indignities. What really makes the film work, however, is the presence of Hollywood stalwarts from the era being spoofed: Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, and especially Leslie Nielsen, whose deadpan portrayal of a clueless doctor literally revivified his moribund career and turned him into a comedy superstar. Airplane! unashamedly goes for cheap laughs and regularly flirts with crudity and coarseness, but it's absolutely hysterical from first frame to last. Boasting a fine transfer, this new edition also features a handful of solid extras, including audio commentary by the filmmakers, a trivia track, and a “Long Haul Version” with deleted scenes, more commentary, interviews, and clips from the spoofed film Zero Hour. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)