Plaza Suite (1971)

 

Three vignettes, each set in room 719 of New York's Plaza Hotel, make up this comedy.

From memory:​ I saw this movie for the first time at the Radio City Music Hall in NYC in 1971, complete with a Rockettes performance before the screening, days before we emigrated to Germany via ship. At the time I thought this comedy was hilarious and entertaining, However, years later, I saw it again, and the comedy was rather flat, the episodes continuously less funny and relying more and more on rough slapstick moments.

Halliwell*: "A highly theatrical entertainment which was bound to seem flattened on the screen, but emerges with at least some of its laughs intact."

Maltin***: "One of Neil Simon's funniest comedies well adapted to screen. Best one is the last [episode]..." 

 

Airport (1970)

A bomber on board an airplane, an airport almost closed by snow, and various personal problems of the people involved.

The movie that started the 70s series of all-star disaster movies and one of the best; sturdily produced, old-fashioned, with multiple plotlines, suspense, melodrama and some comic relief.

Halliwell***: "Glossy, undeniably entertaining, all-star version of a popular novel, with cradboard characters skilfully deployed in Hollywood's very vest style."

Maltin***1/2: "GRAND HOTEL plot formula reaches latter-day zenith in ultraslick, old-fashioned movie that entertains in spite of itself...Plastic performances dominate, with down-to-earth Kennedy, touching Stapleton, and nervous Heflin standing out."