Self-proclaimed "airline brat" Christian Bryan has an awesome YouTube account whose name says it all: Classic Airliners & Vintage Pop Culture.
With seemingly hundred, if not thousands, of videos (strangely, YouTube does not provide this information) ranging from airline promotional videos to stewardsploitation movie trailers, you can spend your whole day falling into a nostalgia rabbit hole of Pan Am bags and Cold War fighter jets just on this YouTube account.
A real gem is this 1970 promo film for LAX, written, produced, directed, and narrated by local news legend Clete Roberts. Also credited as the editor is Graeme Clifford, who has worked with Robert Altman and also directed the cult hit Gleaming The Cube, starring Christian Slater.
The video gets off to an auspicious start, as just a minute in we are treated to a jazzy score that would fight right in with any 70s cop show and the sight of a jetliner taking off to the words "1980 is TOMORROW." "Airports are downright exciting. Los Angeles airport, LAX, is perhaps the most exciting of them all," says Roberts in an enthusiastic voiceover.
Over the next fifteen minutes, Roberts discusses the growth of LAX with the target of the year 1980 in mind. LAX, he explains, must accommodate the increasing growth in passenger traffic as "superjets" like the DC-10 and Boeing 747 will "quite literally flood the world's airports." The acquisition of the Ontario and Palmdale airports by the Los Angeles World Airports agency is also discussed (Palmdale airport was handed back to the city of Palmdale at the end of last year).
And while you're on Christian Bryan's YouTube page, be sure to check out the other vintage LAX promo films he has uploaded:
