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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 Year: 1979 Rating: ***1/2 |
A year before Italian auteur Ruggero Deodato invented the found-footage horror-genre with CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, he directed the mainstream CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79, a slight-of-hand effort deliberately mirroring THE CONCORD: AIRPORT '79, the last AIRPORT outing before the blockbuster spoof AIRPLANE killed the franchise by spoofing it...
Both are basically crime-thrillers combining the usual airline disaster melodrama... but Deodato's Italian import spends the entire first two acts hardly involving the record-breaking passenger-jet-plane: other than an opening scene where it crashes into the ocean...
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
Co-starring American actress turned European-cinema scream-queen Mimsy Farmer (somewhat aged, resembling more of a hot young aunt than a gorgeous young ingenue): she's the lone stewardess during that doomed passenger-less test flight... not shown facially during the studio-shot crash landing (obviously using a double), and, having survived, she's kidnapped by a motley group of Italian thugs...
Here's where much of the espionage-driven story takes place: not with Farmer but another American import in handsome James Franciscus, a roving journalist given a tip to search the ocean for the missing jet that, it turns out, is being hidden by mogul Joseph Cotten, whose corporation wanted the Concorde to seem dangerous to create their own fast-moving vehicle...
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| Joseph Cotten in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
The expository scenes occur in stuffy offices that resemble any low-budget Italian effort, combining American actors with Italian while all are pretty badly dubbed... but Franciscus's oceanic diving mission matters most, despite the underwater sequences often dragging...
But the plot and overall pacing ignites tremendously once the two leads get together: Franciscus finally rescues Mimsy Farmer (who the thugs are using to blackmail Cotten since she survived the first rigged crash), leading to a kind of NORTH BY NORTHWEST style run-and-dodge-bullets action flick, occurring concurrently with what the American AIRPORT/CONCORDE vehicle does for the entire 90-minute ride...
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
Providing the titular plane full of eclectic passengers, here piloted by American veteran actor Van Johnson... and Mimsy Farmer finally means more than just a tattered damsel since, as a witness, she may hold the clue to how the rudimentary crash occurred: to keep the second disaster from happening...
How CONCORD AFFAIRE really works is putting the literally grounded characters in more palpable danger than the passengers above, combining a fast-paced spy adventure with the inevitable last minute airline thriller that, backed by TENTACLES composer Stelvio Cipriani's signature techno-score-as-if-played-inside-a-jazzy-guitar-nightclub, is even more fulfilling than the big budget vehicle it clones: more proof that the once financially successful AIRPORT franchise was on its very last... wings at this point.
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Van Johnson in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| From CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Alessandra Stordy in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| From CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Maria D'Incoronato in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Maria D'Incoronato in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Venantino Venantini and Edmund Purdom in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer and James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Maria D'Incoronato in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| Mimsy Farmer in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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| James Franciscus in CONCORDE AFFAIRE '79 |
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