Film

“Surely you can’t be serious?” “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.” In this disaster movie spoof classic, the captains of an LA-to-Chicago flight are stricken with airline food poisoning. The only hope to land the plane is passenger Ted Striker (Hays), a former fighter pilot now petrified of planes and only on board to win back his estranged girlfriend (Hagerty), a flight attendant on board. Brilliantly casting well-known dramatic characters in key roles, the Zuckers and Jim Abrahams keep the humor hilariously deadpan, a style that became their trademark. Perhaps the most inspired choice was Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Barry Rumack, a role that began one of the most dramatic late-career transformations in acting history and would lead to their casting him two years later as Lieutenant Frank Drebin in the short-lived TV series Police Squad and The Naked Gun films.