Airport (George Seaton, 1970)

Airport (George Seaton, 1970) is one of those films where the question of quality is moot because it occupies such a rich historical space. Of course, it's a soulless film, "mindlessly compelling" to borrow Nick Tosches' words, "the best film of 1944" to borrow Judith Crist's hilarious ones. "It will probably entertain people who no longer care very much about movies," said Vincent Canby in the NYT anticipating the repulsive amount of money it made, one of the most successful films of all time. Thus, a slew of related tensions come down on the thing - Silent Majority vs. The Counterculture, classical vs. New Hollywood, R (and X although Deep Throat feels million of miles away) vs. G, permissiveness vs. restraint, etc. You can feel those tensions most palpably in the frank but chaste discussions of abortion, extramarital affairs, and eating Jean Seberg's eggs. In short, Airport is an always welcome reminder that there was no damn Consensus in the late 1960s (or ever)!