A World Without Lesley Nielson - Surely You Jest

Fans of Airplane will get my tribute in the title of this post. The line is adopted from a bit used in the movie Airplane:



Leslie Nielson will probably be best remembered for his role as Lt. Frank Drebin in Police Squad/The Naked Gun:




But what is often forgotten is that he started out as a serious actor with roles that included Sci-Fi classic Forbidden Planet where he played the space ship commander J.J. Adams. Many say that his best dramatic role was as the captain of the overturned ocean liner in the 1972 disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure. & he appeared in many TV shows, drama as well as comedy, over the years.

I will grant that many of the jokes in his later movies were scatalogical & often crossed the line when they didn't need to. & most of his recent movies didn't appeal to me for that reason. But there is still plenty of things he did that are worth seeing, esp the earlier movies I mentioned.