Continental Airlines flight 11
I only recently learned the main plot line for this film was based on an actual tragedy that occurred in the early Sixties. Just curious to know how many readers of these postings were aware of that fact.
shareI was vaguely aware of this claim but until reading your post didn't know if it was true or what the details were. Here is a link to Wikipedia's page on the Continental flight 11 disaster of 1962:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Airlines_Flight_11
Interesting that the real mid-air explosion (as in the book, caused by a bomb planted in a lavatory by a man seeking insurance for his family) so thoroughly destroyed the Boeing 707 that the tail and a large part of the rear fuselage broke off and as the plane spun out of control a wing and both engines came off as well. The crash killed all on board (the lone survivor of the crash itself died shortly afterward in the hospital). Makes you wonder how well the plane in Airport might really have withstood such an explosion.
It fascinated me how certain events in history fade away such as the Flight 11 bombing or the world wide flu pandemic of the early twentieth century which I was unaware of, until, I think the early Nineties.
shareYes, some pieces of history somehow take hold of mankind's collective memory while others fade away. Of course, there have been many plane disasters, so there is no particular reason why Continental 11 should necessarily stay in the public mind, even with the bomb aspect. The flu pandemic of 1918, which killed 50 million -- more than the First World War just ended -- is better known but many people have little appreciation of just how widespread and deadly it was.
I actually have a very dim memory of having heard about Continental 11 when it happened (I was a kid), though I have no recollection of the airline and flight number. I learned about the flu epidemic in high school but didn't grasp its enormity at the time.
But mainly it's singular events -- the attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the attack on the World Trade Center -- that remain most vivid for people, even those not born when such events occurred.
Anyway, I give Arthur Hailey slightly lower marks for his imagination in writing Airport, since he took so much of the plot's central event from a real life incident.
Your response reminded of another protracted event in aviation history which we failed to consider: The kamikaze attacks launched by a desperate Japan.
shareI don't remember if that incident was mentioned in the original novel, but the novel did make a bigger deal of promoting the concept of airport flight insurance as an invitation to sabotage and that was also another reason for the feud between airport manager Mel Bakersfeld and pilot Vernon Demarest. Hailey wrote a scene of Demarest trying to give a presentation to the airport commissioners calling for the abolition of selling flight insurance at the airport (in that scene one of the commissioners is Mildred Ackerman, who in the film became the male Commissioner Ackerman played by Larry Gates) but Mel ended up taking the position that it was needed for airport revenue. So then at the climax, as the plane is making its way back to Chicago and the runway is still blocked, an irate Captain Demarest sends a "personal" message to Mel, "You helped make this trouble, you bastard by not listening to me about airport flight insurance."
It's quite easy to see why this subplot was discarded in the film (along with other subplots like Mel's suicidal brother, an air traffic controller) for convenience.
Which was better in your opinion, the novel or the movie?
shareYes, Eric, which do you like better? I've never read the book myself but now may be tempted to do so. Would you recommend the book?
I can see why they discarded the flight insurance angle because it puts the Bakersfeld character in a bad light and makes Demarest seem less irresponsible, which isn't the less-complex narrative the filmmakers wanted. Of course all movies made from novels make changes and omissions but this isn't always done just for convenience or streamlining the narrative. Often, as seems to be the case here, it's to alter the nature of the characters to fit a different creative conception. Movies generally demand less complexity and more straightforward characterizations in order to tell their stories.
Of course, the flight insurance aspect wasn't unique to or original with Airport, or for that matter with Continental 11. For example, in both real and reel life, Jack Graham purchased excessive insurance on his mother before blowing up her plane out of Denver in November, 1955, an event depicted in Don Whitehead's book and the film made from it, The FBI Story (1959). Nick Adams dynamiting Eleanor Audley! Shameful.
I remember those old insurance machines at the airport. Obviously they were money-makers (I didn't know the airport got a cut) but you'd think the airlines would be less than thrilled at anything that called into question their safety, or that might make for panicky or unstable passengers. Different time, I guess. But I assume they discontinued these machines because of the increased temptation to blow up planes to get someone's insurance money.
I would recommend the novel not because I think it's "better" than the film but because it offers a different kind of experience. In the novel, Hailey's first concern was giving us a wide sweeping look at how a modern airport functions and what the challenges of it are with Mel Bakersfeld, the manager (who is given a backstory of having once been in line for FAA Administrator but for the JFK assassination) as the focal point. Ultimately, the movie is more of a "Cliffs Notes" version of the novel that takes all the elements that work best for a cinematic narrative through-line and leaves out the stuff that wouldn't translate well to a film narrative. In addition to the airport flight insurance dispute between Mel and Demarest here are some of the other novel subplots that didn't make the film.
1-Mel's brother Keith is an air traffic controller at Lincoln, who is contemplating suicide that night due to constant guilt over negligence (that he escaped responsibility for) years earlier on his part that caused a mid-air collision that resulted in the death of a family on a private plane.
2-The Meadowood community and the noise issue is more prominent, as a shyster attorney represents them for the purpose of hoping to get a lawsuit settlement that would net him a fortune in retainer fees. Mel ultimately disperses the protests when he points out how their shyster has withheld from them critical details about the law that would make them lose any suit outright in court, but would still net their attorney large fees from the community for hiring him.
3-The anti-abortion tone is much more blunt. Captain Harris (who prefaces his remarks by saying he's an agnostic and his objections aren't religious) goes into a long discourse on why he never considered doing anything about the three kids he and his wife didn't plan. Demarest and Harris have a very hostile relationship in the book, with Demarest considering him an "old maid". The film fixed that by making them friends who respect each other deeply. Demarest is also haunted by the fact he got a stewardess pregnant once before and the child was given away for adoption, and he wishes he'd kept the child and raised it with his wife. The interesting thing is at the novel's end, Demarest decides he's going to stay with his wife and ask her to let them adopt Gwen's child.
4-Guerrero wasn't deceiving his wife with a cover story about a job offer in Milwaukee. He just left her a note that there'd be a surprise for her in a few days. Otherwise, the rest of his subplot is intact.
5-Tanya isn't a widow, she's a divorcee with a child at home whose father abandoned her before she was born.
6-We also get a lengthy look at Cindy's two-timing on Mel. She actually has one boyfriend who is socially prominent and can give her what Mel won't there, but he's lousy in bed (which is the only reason why she hasn't left Mel before), so she finds another man whom she decides will be her lover after she marries boyfriend #1!
7-The name of the airline in the book was "TransAmerica", not "TransGlobal". One suspects the change was done to pre-empt objections from the then-corporate owners of United Artists.
But overall, I think its the novel's broader sweep about how an airport functions at the tail end of a time when there was still a sense of fun and excitement about air travel that no longer exists today that makes it worth a read. And it's always interesting to spot the passages of dialogue that made it to the movie intact.
Great synopsis, Eric, thank you! Sounds good. As you know it's also not only typical but pretty unavoidable that a novel will contain many characters and incidents that simply can't be crammed into a film version. But it's also interesting when, apart from the inevitable omissions, they also alter some characteristics or plot lines to create some different effect in the film. Of course, not every plot line in a book is necessarily all that pertinent or interesting, so its loss isn't much felt. Mel's suicidal brother sounds like a case in point, ultimately serving no central purpose, just more plot busy-ness, and easily dispensed with in the movie.
I'm not sure I agree with you that in the film Demarest and Harris are "friends who respect each other deeply". Clearly they're friendly, there's no antagonism between them, but I always got the feeling that while they were colleagues and congenial they were not close personally, as betrayed by Demarest asking Harris how many kids he has now, and clearly not knowing much about his personal life. I think the two men have a casual friendship based on professional familiarity rather than personal contact, which I think works better than having them close pals.
Of course, since the film is in its way an extended advertisement for the airlines and airline manufacturers, showing antagonism in the cockpit wouldn't have exactly fit in with that narrative! (Though it worked well in The High and the Mighty, for one.) This also explains why the subplot about the Meadwoood residents was dropped, not only for being incidental to the main plot but because stating that the airlines and airport have an effective immunity from being sued would only come across as another example of the perpetual back-scratching favors traded between corrupt big businesses and corruptible government officials.
It's also interesting that Demarest asks his wife to adopt Gwen's child. I think this is resolved much better in the film. It's a personal tragedy either way, but I think leaving his wife (which seems to be the thing to do here) to marry Gwen is the better of two bad options, rather than taking his girlfriend's baby away...unless she doesn't want it, which in the film she does.
I'm surprised even Hailey called the airline "TransAmerica" in the book, as the corporation still existed and might have objected to the novel, not just the movie. Plus it sounds like a real airline, similar to the now-extinct TWA, for instance. "TransGlobal" sounds more fake but removes the lawsuit hazard I guess. For years I often dropped off or picked up a friend who used to do a lot of flying out of JFK Airport, and when we discussed his flight details we always joked he was taking TransGlobal.
And I love just how much of a ruthless slut Cindy sounds in the novel! They sanded her off in the film to make her more realistic and likable, or at least understandable, and probably all to the good.
Tanya isn't a widower
She's not a widower in the movie, either. She is a widow! share
I fixed my little faux paus that I blame on a sleepless night because I found I left my external drive at the public library last night! (Retrieved it thankfully).
Compared to how much Demarest and Harris clearly dislike each other in the book, the contrast is interesting in the film. The deeper part I meant more in the professional context. When Demarest kids Harris about "last time you put me down for not wearing a regulation shirt and I wanted to get even." In the book, the scene is so incredibly different. Demarest says "You're not wearing a regulation shirt" and Harris is ready to explode because Demarest has a reputation for always complaining about the quality of company regulation shirts and how his own are better.
Oh one other thing I forgot. In the book, the stuck plane on the runway is a Mexican airline and the ground crew makes an ethnic crack about how "Right now that captain is probably crying in his sombrero". The Mexican captain also gets irate and indignant when Patroni wants to take charge of driving the plane out himself.
I'm glad they changed that Mexican plane aspect. It's pretty condescending, and entirely, gratuitously pointless. What, no American pilots make mistakes? Plus it puts pilots in a bad light, making racist cracks, which again is something the movie went out of its way to avoid.
So, are you going to take it out on me because I'm always correcting you when you say "widower" instead of "widow"? Get so irate you grab the controls and crash us like a suicidal Egyptian pilot?
Oops!