The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 10, 2025

David Lowell Rich's "The Concorde... Airport '79" (1979) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include new audio commentary by critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and remastered vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The hot target

If all these years later someone were to reveal that Blake Edwards had secretly conceived The Concorde… Airport ‘79 and then, while using an alias, worked closely with David Lowell Rich as production was initiated, everything would instantly begin making perfect sense. George Kennedy’s spicy jokes. Alain Delon’s tricks. Robert Wagner playing Susan Blakely like a violin. The goofy pool scene with the American reporter and the Soviet athlete. Charo smuggling a puppy and sticking out like a sore thumb. The black guy refusing to surrender his saxophone and then puffing a joint in the plane’s bathroom. The French policeman attempting to hand stacks of cash to a criminal on the run at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. C’mon, this is brilliant stuff, and the disclosure of Edwards’s secret involvement simply would have made the obvious painfully obvious.

The mayhem begins shortly after several radical environmentalists attempt to crash a massive balloon into an Air France Concorde getting ready to land at Dulles International Airport. Old pro Joe Patroni (Kennedy) and French ace Paul Metrand (Delon) reveal what the Concorde is capable of and avoid the disaster, but just hours later face a far more sophisticated foe. Dr. Kevin Harrison (Wagner), a multimillionaire and famous aerospace contractor, orders his chief engineer to reprogram his newest creation, a Buzzard Attack Drone, and destroy the Concorde because his girlfriend (Blakely) is on it with a folder full of documents revealing that he has been dealing with America’s greatest enemies. While trying to reach Paris, the Concorde not only wins the duel with the Buzzard Attack Drone, but also survives an attack from an F-4 Phantom, also linked to Harrison and his evil business partners. After the Concorde lands at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, a dirty mechanic then places a bomb in it so that it never reaches its final destination, Moscow, where the next Olympic Games will be held.

The Concorde… Airport ‘79 is an incredible film. It is loaded with witty jokes and bursts with energy of the kind that are present in legendary comedies like The Party and Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but because half of it is supposed to be taken seriously, it demands to be placed in a category of its own. It is genuinely unpredictable, producing antics that are routinely impossible to categorize, as well as character transformations that appear to have been crafted by a dozen drunken writers. It is irrelevant whether all of this was done intentionally or is simply a giant mish-mash of fumbles. It is brilliant stuff.

The special effects look predictably dated. However, they add charm to the hilarious mayhem that feels right, too. The Concorde does some incredible pirouettes to avoid its attackers and, eventually, crash-lands in a ski resort somewhere in frozen Germany. It would have been amazing if, next to the crash site, Rich had placed a fake film crew shooting a wild segment from an upcoming James Bond film.

The Concorde… Airport ‘79 ended Delon’s attempt to establish himself in Hollywood. After its disastrous performance at the box office, Delon appeared only in French and European co-productions.

The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Concorde... Airport '79 arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release introduces a new 4K restoration of the film, sourced from the original camera negative. The 4K restoration is also made available on 4K Blu-ray in this combo pack release.

I have only one other Blu-ray release of this film, which is included in this four-disc box set. I did not feel the need to do various comparisons with it because the improvements in quality I saw on my system were pretty significant. Indeed, even in the areas with notable density fluctuations, the 4K restoration produces tighter visuals with better delineation and clarity. In darker areas, different ranges of nuances are more convincing as well. Color reproduction and balance are convincing. However, in a few places, primary blue could have been a tad more prominent, as it is on the release linked above. Image stability is very good. I did not encounter any traces of problematic digital corrections. Also, I did not see any distracting surface imperfections or encoding anomalies to report in our review. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I tested both tracks in different parts of the film. They are both good lossless tracks, with the 5.1 track perhaps performing slightly better during the action material, and specifically at the end during the crash footage. However, I must mention something that you will inevitably notice, regardless of whether you choose the 2.0 or 5.1 track. On both tracks, there are a few spots where Alain Delon's lines are virtually impossible to understand, but this is how they were recorded. Delon's accent is very thick, and clarity and sharpness are average at best, so you will likely have to turn on the optional subtitles to get everything he says. Elsewhere, the dynamic intensity is pretty good for a film from the late 1970s, and the upper register is healthy.

The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. The commentators cover a lot of ground, from the production history of The Concorde... Airport '79 to is reception and impact on the careers of its stars, most notably Alain Delon. Also, there are interesting comments about the environment in which the film was made and its identity.

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered vintage trailer for The Concorde... Airport '79. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

The Concorde... Airport '79 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you avoid The Concorde... Airport '79 because of the seemingly countless bad reviews it has generated over the years, you will miss a wildly entertaining film that is full of genuine surprises. Whether international or not, its sense of humor makes it appear like a secret Blake Edwards project, and virtually all of its big stars look hooked on it. Despite its terrible reputation, which is not unjustified, I find it to be the most enjoyable of the four Airport films. Kino Lorber's combo pack introduces a new 4K restoration, completed at Universal Pictures, that looks very good onBlu-ray. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.