Elmer Bernstein -- "Airplane!" Soundtrack Excerpts

 

Last week, I got to see the teaser for the remake of "The Naked Gun", this time starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the hilariously famous Frank Drebin played by the late Leslie Nielsen. So, of course, all the zany humour in this new version can go back to the original movie from 1988 and that movie can go all the way back to the 1982 short-lived series "Police Squad!".

Nielsen cemented his newfound status as a comic actor late in his long entertainment career in "Police Squad!" but it had been discovered a few years earlier in 1980 on "Airplane!" which had him playing straight-talking Dr. Rumack. 

In recent months, a lot of the younger generation and their YouTube reaction channels have also been discovering the humour onslaught loaded like bullets in a machine gun in "Airplane!". One of my cinematic regrets is that I never got to see any of the 1970s Mel Brooks movies such as "Blazing Saddles" at the theatre (probably wouldn't have been allowed to get into the cinema anyways at my age), but all that was countered when my brother and I got to see "Airplane!" in its first run when it was released at the end of June 1980. I don't think I've ever had that much fun at a movie...before and since. Laughter was ranging from loud to absolutely screaming.

David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams were the geniuses at overdoing Brooks' humour in terms of quantity and speed, and as I mentioned in the "Police Squad!" ROY article last year, one of the big factors in the success of "Airplane!" was casting familiar straight dramatic actors from television and movies as some of the characters such as Peter Graves from "Mission: Impossible", Robert Stack from "The Untouchables" and Nielsen himself who had been in all sorts of serious roles ranging from starship captain to corrupt corporate executive.

The actors themselves were initially skeptical about whether they could actually pull this off and say these lines like "Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?", so they needed some reassuring from the Zucker Brothers and Abrahams. However, one person involved in the production got it right away apparently, and that was movie composer Elmer Bernstein. This is the same man behind the epic soundtracks for "The Ten Commandments" and "The Magnificent Seven", and he was asked by the guys to not come up with anything epic, but something befitting a B-movie suspense movie...something corny and overdone.

And yet, when Bernstein completed his work, the "Airplane!" soundtrack not only fulfilled the producers' requests but it was still epic. I can hear any part of this soundtrack in a "Name That Tune" situation and I'd still recognize it more than forty years later. Of course, it all starts with the main title with a goodly nod to John Williams and a certain shark, before everything kicks in. At 4:38, "Lisa/Farewell/Take Off/Another Meeting" expresses the situation about the sick girl needing that heart operation but it also goes into one of my favourite scenes when a young couple sadly separates as if the lad were getting on a train rather than a plane.

I also wanted to show the scene as well as the music accompanying it if I can. At 8:48 on the soundtrack above is the Bee Gees' classic "Stayin' Alive" which of course provided the music for the flashback disco scene right here. The video doesn't show it but there was also the aftermath with Ted and Elaine sharing that cheek-to-cheek dance as they danced to the nighty-night jazz of "Love Theme from Airplane!" (13:31), a theme that gets picked up all throughout the movie in various versions.

At 23:38 is "Thar She Blows" which is a very appropriately titled track considering the scene that it accompanies. I wasn't sure whether Bernstein and the orchestra were trying to stifle laughter while recording that one. All I can say is that I had never heard of a pilot joining the Mile High Club until this movie.

27:27 is "Punch-Up/Kramer" which contains another one of my favourite scenes where Robert Stack's no-nonsense Rex Kramer shows in no uncertain terms how he feels about religious groups asking for donations at airports. At the time I saw "Airplane!", I recognized Stack's face, probably from guest roles on dramas but I hadn't known that he was the first TV Eliot Ness from "The Untouchables".

Finally at 39:47 is the song that had Ted regain his mojo and save everybody by the end. I hadn't known it at the time but that was the "Notre Dame Victory March". It also showed up at the end credits (always loved Stephen Stucker as Air Traffic Controller Johnny...he pretty much stole the show). 

Considering that "Airplane!" was released in the Toronto/Buffalo area on June 27th 1980, let's see what was on top of Oricon. I've got the first three here from June 30th.

1. Monta & Brothers -- Dancing All Night

2. Shinji Tanimura -- Subaru （昴）

3. Tatsuro Yamashita -- Ride On Time