Blu-ray Release: Airport: The Complete Collection

Blu-ray Release Date: June 14, 2016
Price: Blu-ray $34.98
Studio: Universal


In the words of Universal Studios Home Video’s press release, “Prepare to take off on a nonstop, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride with four suspense-filled adventures in Airport: The Complete Collection.

That’s right—Universal is issuing a Blu-ray collection featuring all four films in the venerable Airport series, which took off with 1970’s Airport, the box office smash that was nominated for 10 Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and subsequently launched the popular 1970s disaster film genre.

Here’s a breakdown of the quartet of Airport entries:

Airport (1970)
Combining a gripping story, intense action and ground-breaking special effects, Airport paved the way for a whole new style of disaster film and became a trend-setting box office blockbuster. The tension filled adventure stars Burt Lancaster (The Killers) as the manager of an international airport who must juggle personal crises with professional responsibilities as he attempts to keep his blizzard-torn facility open to rescue a bomb-damaged jetliner. Featuring a stellar ensemble cast that also include Dean Martin (The Young Lions), Jacqueline Bisset (The Detective), George Kennedy (Thunderbolt and Lightfoot), and Helen Hayes (My Son John), this unforgettable film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture and remains a suspense-filled trip from take-off to dramatic landing.

Airport75_optAirport 1975 (1974)
En route from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, Columbia Airlines Flight 409 is struck by a small plane, leaving its pilot, Capt. Stacy, blinded and its co-pilot dead. Can chief stewardess Nancy Pryor (Karen Black, Nashville) keep the giant aircraft aloft while her lover, former jet pilot Alan Murdock (Charlton Heston, Earthquake), is lowered by helicopter through the gaping hole in its nose?

Airport ’77  (1977)
Full of VIP’s and art treasures owned by a millionaire (James Stewart, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation), it goes down during a hijack attempt, and courageous Captain Gallagher (Jack Lemmon, The Odd Couple) must keep the passengers alive until they are rescued.

The Concorde… Airport ’79 (1979)
Journalist Maggie Whelan (Susan Blakely, TV’s Rich Man, Poor Man) discovers that her married boyfriend, Kevin Harrison (Robert Wagner, Broken Lance), heads a company that is involved in illegal arms sales. To stop her from going public, Harrison decides to kill her by bringing down the Concorde she is taking from Paris and Moscow. It is up to pilots Paul Metrand (Alain Delon, Purple Noon) and Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) to keep the plane aloft and intact in the face of repeated missile attacks from jets sent by Harrison.

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.