Tnew news communicated this evening in the columns of Variety, confirmed by the son of the person concerned: Jim Abrahams, legendary co-writer and/or co-director of the comedies Is there a pilot on the plane, Top Secret et Is there a cop to save the queenhas just died at the age of 80. With his two accomplices David and Jerry Zucker, within a trio quickly dubbed “the ZAZ” in the press, Abrahams had quite simply revolutionized the genre of burlesque parody in the United States, in the wake of Mel Brooks’ fantasies. The band first got noticed by co-writing, in 1977, the script for the farce Hamburger movie sandwich by John Landis (The Kentucky Fried Movie in original version), who was then making his second feature film.
But it was in 1980 that Zucker and Abrahams dynamited the codes of parody with the incredible Airplane ! (renamed in France Is there a pilot on the plane?). Distributed by the Paramount studio, the film follows the incredible adventures of a former war pilot, called to take over the controls of an airliner in mid-flight, after its cabin crew were devastated by poisoning from rotten fish.
Supported by a stunning cast (Robert Stack, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, etc.) and a staggering rate of gags per minute, unprecedented at the time, Airplane ! then happily mocked all the clichés of the wave of aerial disaster films, which had hit the screens since the very serious Airport in 1970. More directly, the ZAZ’s fierce satire also made fun of a certain At zero hourwith an almost twin plot (but in the first degree), released in 1957.
Top Secret, his cursed masterpiece in 1984
Produced for a full $3 million, Airplane ! will make the crowds roar with laughter and break the bank, raking in no less than $158 million in revenue! In France, it will come close to 3 million admissions. A less inspired sequel, neither directed nor written by the trio, was released in 1982. In 1984, Abrahams co-signed and co-directed their masterpiece with the Zuckers: Top Secret, this time an anachronistic parody of World War II films, with a very young Val Kilmer in the lead role of a rock star invited to perform behind the Iron Curtain… Quite simply one of the funniest films of all the times, increasing the madness, the nonsense and the delirious ideas of staging (including an entirely underwater saloon brawl), Top Secret then probably goes too far for the general public: the film is a failure.
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Abrahams and the Zuckers returned to fame in 1986 with a darker comedy – Is there anyone to kill my wife? with Danny DeVito – and above all, two years later, with the brilliant Is there a cop to save the queen? (The Naked Gun in VO). Adaptation of their own (and short-lived) detective series broadcast in 1982 on ABC, which then parodied the American cathode thrillers of the 50s/60s, The Naked Gun then offers Leslie Nielsen, ZAZ’s extraordinary favorite actor who had already shone so much in Airplane !a new boulevard for a festival of gags in the shoes of the incapable and blundering detective Frank Drebin. Three more or less brilliant sequels will follow this instant classic – a new opus is expected for 2025, from the pen of Seth McFarlane.
Solo, Jim Abrahams could also boast of having achieved two other great laughter successes of the 90s: Hot Shotsparody of Top Gun with Charlie Sheen in 1991, as well as its sequel, Hot Shots, part two which, in 1993, this time made fun of the Rambo saga. The final script by Jim Abrahams will be Scary Movie 4in 2006. Posterity will probably remember more of this giant the immense comic legacy left by his Is there… et Top Secret.
