Airplane! is a remarkably genre elevating remake and spoof of Zero Hour!, with the latter being a slightly daring and well performed, if unintentionally satirical, attempt at an airline thriller. Both films follow the same basic premise. An ex World War II fighter pilot—Ted Stryker (Dana Andrews) in the dramatic original and Ted Striker (Robert Hays) in the satirical remake—gets onto a plane headed from Los Angeles to Chicago. They get on because both their girlfriends—passenger Ellen Stryker (Linda Darnell) in the original and stewardess Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) in the spoof—are also onboard, whom the Ted pair experiences relationship near-ends with because of their inability to face the past. That past revolves around their war experiences that saw six men die from their mistakes in battle, leading to both Teds swearing off flying planes again. However, midway through their cross-country flights, many passengers and both flight captains get heavy flu-like symptoms from eating the airline’s tainted fish, landing everyone onboard in a crisis situation. With nobody else to rely on, the Teds must face their fears, adapt, and land the plane to save everyone (and maybe even their relationships, too).

It’s fascinating to see how the same idea and almost indistinguishable scripts can be vastly different from each other in quality, and it’s rare that the satirical remake is the good one. Airplane! sufficiently mirrors everything that Zero Hour! tried and failed at. The original, itself a remake of the ’56 Canadian live TV play called Flight into Danger, desperately tries to elevate itself into terror-tories without much avail. The concept is intriguing and more complex than many airplane flicks, but the script—later reused and tonally corrected for Airplane!—is simply dull as a drama, and often even laughable. While the cast is mostly damn good at their jobs, minus Darnell’s soapy monologuing as Ellen, they can’t surpass their bland lines and the film’s melodramatic points. When people talk, they throw speeches at each other, like when Dr. Baird (Geoffrey Toone) tells Ted that “… I know nothing about flying. All I know is this: you’re the only one on this plane who could possibly fly it. You’re the only chance we’ve got,” as the actor maintains a stoic presence. When something actually happen, it’s even sillier. Most of Airplane!‘s gags are actually expansions on Zero Hour!‘s melodrama, such as when the original’s stewardess, Janet (Peggy King), hollers at a freaked-out passenger to “Listen, you! Listen to me, I’m trying to help you!” before slapping her. Such disengaging hilarity and cookie-cuttered monologuing seeps through every serious moment, making most of Zero Hour! worth watching for the wrong reasons; it becomes abundantly clear with every overblown dictation and quick cut between Ted Stryker and the nevertheless well-visualized wobbling plane that viewers are supposed to be hooked into a dramatic, mid-air drama that just doesn’t fly. It’s funny, but it’s also boring. That’s where Airplane! comes in.

The third version of Flight into Danger and the remake of a remake sees this repeated plane narrative successfully turned around. With splendidly deadpan performances from all around—especially Leslie Nielsen as the seriously unserious Dr. Rumack—and a reliance on the original cartoonish script with extended gags to turn the grave tone into a lighthearted romp, Airplane! retreads the exact same narrative that Zero Hour! displays to much more appealing results. While its racist skits and uneven pace restrain it from being amusing beginning to end, its random, goofy flare makes it a memorable time in economy seating. From Dr. Rumack’s delivering a baby in the middle of the flight to seeing Ted Striker dance his heart out disco style in a dingy bar or the recreation of Zero Hour!‘s slapping scene with people lined up to slap a similarly panicked passenger, Airplane! consistently commands chuckles and giggles from viewers. The spoof’s filmmakers successfully take an already told story and turn it on its head to provide a superior and funny narrative.

There is also one solid theme that Airplane! replicates from Zero Hour! which both succeeded in transcribing: PTSD’s devastating effects. Despite the original’s melodrama, the one thread that remained slightly more profound throughout was Stryker’s PTSD from accidentally killing six of his own men. In both films, the Teds are swarmed with imagery of their past. Fighter jets roar, bombs whistle, bullets fly, and the explosions of their fallen comrades infest their minds whenever they’re under pressure, all while the phrase “You’ll have to decide” repeats in their psychological eardrums. To make matters all the worse, when forced to fly their commercial airlines, they get paired up with their on-the-ground old military boss to get directed down to land, Captain Martin Treleaven (Sterling Hayden) in the original and Captain Rex Kramer (Robert Stack) in the spoof. With their forced-upon past visions and the doubt of their former captains to guide them—”He [Stryker] was one of those men who felt too much inside…. Ate his heart out over every name on a casualty list, [and]… went all to pieces on one particular mission,” Treleaven warns flight controllers—the Teds are backed into a bad corner. While most may freak out and bail in this situation, which the Teds initially try to do, they step up to the plate and finally deal with themselves head on: “Listen, Treleaven/Kramer, I don’t care if I bend your precious airplane, I’m bringing it down now,” both Teds fiercely declare. Both men don’t just randomly decide to stand up for themselves and save everyone—they adapt to their desperate situations and, in spite of their current woes, push forward. Such change and courage is irresistible to watch unfold on screen, which feels organic in both films. In reusing the same aerial footage in Striker’s visions that Zero Hour! used for Stryker, Airplane! honors the one component the original film successfully demonstrated to give the spoof a dramatic backbone.

Thus, while Zero Hour! is an unintentionally hilarious plane drama failure, watching it after the devilishly clever Airplane! is a helluva lot of fun, and both do justice in their representations of mental illness. For plane flick fans, comedy fans, so-bad-it’s-good cinema fans, and Airplane! die-hards who never knew that it was a remake, this double feature is a delightful chuckle.

Screens Monday, 8/11, 7:15 p.m. @ Somerville Theatre
DOUBLE FEATURE w/ Zero Hour!
Part of the ongoing Double Feature repertory series: The Great Remakes

Screens Monday, 8/11, 9:00 p.m. @ Somerville Theatre
DOUBLE FEATURE w/ Airplane!
Part of the ongoing Double Feature repertory series: The Great Remakes