Airplane! (1980)

Surely we can’t be serious? This iconic parody is one of the most daftly influential and expertly crafted comedies of the past 50 years.

Airplane! is not only a 3-laughs-a-minute treat for film buffs (it contains 271 jokes – yes, someone counted!), but the story behind its creation is also as deranged as its deadpan comic tone. The filmmakers took the script of 1957 B movie Zero Hour! and remade the script beat for beat as a riotous comedy, lampooning not only its source but movies of all genres.

Adapted from a teleplay, and later book, by disaster-blockbuster supremo Arthur Hailey, it reshaped straight-man actor Leslie Nielsen into one of the screen’s great comic performers and inadvertently spawned a genre which is still going strong today.

Join us in a guide to the film’s origins, accompanied by in-flight drinks and safety demonstration, before setting your phones to Airplane! mode. Chris Chibnall

USA, 1980. Directors Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker. Screenplay by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker from the 1957 film Zero Hour!, the 1956 TV play Flight into Danger by Arthur Hailey, later published as the novel Runway Zero-Eight. With Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack. 87 mins. 12A

Introduced by Chris Chibnall.  

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