Although the origins of the disaster movie, like many other film genres, trace back to the earliest days of cinema itself — via movies like In Night and Ice (Germany, 1912), The End of the World (Denmark, 1916), Deluge (U.S., 1935), and the proto-airline thriller The High and the Mighty (U.S., 1954) — the modern disaster movie as we know it came of age in 1970 with Airport, released 55 years ago this week.
Based on a best-selling 1968 novel by Arthur Hailey, Airport solidified the template for the disaster genre by featuring an all-star cast, a slick, high-gloss production (the film was adapted and directed by George Seaton, best known for the 1947 Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street), and a narrative that intertwined the lives and problems of its many characters with a calamity that directly affects all of them. The screen ensemble was a literal cavalcade of then-stars, including Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Helen Hayes, Jean Seberg, Van Heflin, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Barry Nelson, and Lloyd Nolan.
