Airport '77 (1977)

Preceded by: Airport 1975 (1975)
Succeeded by: The Concorde ... Airport '79

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Capt. Don Gallagher	Jack Lemmon	½
Karen Wallace	Lee Grant	½
Eve Clayton	Brenda Vaccaro
Nicholas St. Downs III	Joseph Cotten
Emily Livingston	Olivia de Havilland	½
Philip Stevens	James Stewart	½
Stan Buchek	Darren McGavin
Martin Wallace	Christopher Lee
Joe Patroni	George Kennedy
Julie	Kathleen Quinlan
Steve	Tom Sullivan
Banker	Monte Markham
Frank Powers	Gil Gerard
Ralph Crawford	James Booth
Dr. Williams	M. Emmet Walsh

Review

This second sequel to Airport, after the box-office hit and critical flop Airport 1975, is less forceful – almost to the point of making excuses for itself – but at least it is a fairly credible and unpretentious flick, filled with a hall-of-fame of veteran Hollywood stars. Heading those is Jack Lemmon, who's able to be dependable in even the most unlikely of parts, such as this one, as a level-headed but remarkably heroic pilot. Around him, former Hollywood starlets are swooning and sobbing in the extremely luxurious and fashionable surroundings of a Boeing 747-100, whose fate is as doomed as the Airport series ultimately became. The film is more fascinating than fun, more tenable than tense, but at least it's never downright annoying or ludicrous. At this point in the disaster sub-genre, it seems everyone had accepted that disaster and death could (or even should) be meek, simple entertainment that didn't really leave a lasting impression. A sadly helpless James Stewart plays the owner of the airline, whose concern about his daughter and grandson on-board seems as trivial as his concern for a broken carburettor.