The craziest plane in the world: the most comical flight of cinema

When Airplane! Came to American theaters in 1980 , probably no one would have imagined that after four decades still that film would be considered one of the best known and most loved examples of cinematographic parody. Airplane! , for us Italians The craziest plane in the world, is in fact the good-natured mockery of a film genre particularly in vogue in the 70s: disaster movies. Genre that seems to have recently come back into vogue, from The Day after Tomorow to The Core, but which at the time had a less science fiction and much more concrete tone.

The disaster movies: meteors, shipwrecks and cursed flights

The 70s were a boon with regards to films on assorted misfortunes. From The Poseidon Adventure to Meteor, via Cassandra Crossing, every possible tragedy, maritime, railway or even space had been taken into consideration. Obviously, there was a line dedicated to the misfortunes areas, which saw the flourishing of a successful series of films, Airport, which started in 1970 spanned the whole decade and became a symbol of disaster movies.

To have made this genre was actually a film about a 1957 plane crash, Zero Hour! , written by Arthur Hailey, who would later create the successful Airport saga. In Zero Hour! an air flight is likely to crash when food poisoning affects passengers and crew. Almost unknown film in Italy, Zero Hour! it's an essential part of the myth of the craziest plane in the world.

It's Zero Hour! in fact, the film that the trio composed by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zuckers sees the evening in which the screenplay that would become the craziest plane in the world comes to life.