Earthquake (1974)

The Age of Commercialism

Purely Joyful Movie!

Admirable film.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In the Golden era of Disaster movies, this film makes you care about the characters because of the excellent acting performances of the characters. Especially Charlton Heston and Genevieve Bujold.In 1974 the era of dazzling special effects were about to make their mark. This film for 1974 had some great special effects. I really connected with some of the characters in the movie. Especially the characters of Charlton Heston, Genevieve Bujold and her son, Ava Gardner,Lorne Green, George Kennedy and Richard Roundtree. One thing we see of movies from this era is the very realistic and engaging acting performances of actors and actresses of this era. You really feel the pain shock and grief at the end of Genevieve Bujold. After Heston survives all that. and then **** Contains Spoler **** When Heston decides to rather die with his wife than climb up to a new life and a new family with Genevive Bujold and his son.That ending is what makes this movie so special and moving. It showed the true tragedy of this film. The tremendous loss and what could have been. If the Earthquake didn't intervene. This movie also gives a glimpse of Los Angeles in 1974. Like at the end as the Dr said to George Kennedy if not for the damn earthquake. Los Angeles might actually be a very exciting and quite a nice place to live in. With its high standard of living,nice affluent suburbs for families (Charlton Heston and his wife were resident of in the movie) and very nice sunny California weather all swept away one day by one terrible earthquake as shown in the film.This movie also does what excellent disaster movies do. It questions is your life as stable and safe as you think it is when some disaster could strike at any moment and take it all away including your loved ones life and your life. I think the message we need to take away from Earthquake is that don't take your life however mundane for granted. Cherish every moment you have with your loved ones. We saw the meaning of that in Genevieve Bujold's face at the end. Top film with top acting performances albeit dealing with grim subject matter as is the case in the disaster movie genre. They certainly don't make movies like this anymore.

Earthquake (1974) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Highly entertaining but brain-numbing stupid disaster picture has the "big one" hitting L.A. where a wide group of strangers must try to survive not only the disaster but its aftermath.EARTHQUAKE, in regards to its story, is downright awful from start to finish with one of the laziest and dumbest screenplays that the genre ever gave us. Thankfully, there's an all-star cast and some dazzling special effects that save it and in the end there's no doubt that it's worth watching if you're a fan of the genre. After all, the special effects won a special Oscar and I don't think anyone could argue that the effects are mighty impressive.The special effects are certainly the main reason to watch the film as we get to see a giant city fall thanks to not only an earthquake but there are also tall buildings on fire as well as a large amount of water from a dam that bursts. All of the special effects are quite impressive even to this day with the one exception being the blood splat during an elevator scene. The most impressive stuff deals with the actual earthquake as we get to see the ground crack in front of our eyes and buildings get ripped apart in seconds. The miniatures used are extremely believable and there's no doubt that the effects make you feel as if you're really witnessing an earthquake.As with any 70s disaster picture, this one here features a terrific cast with Charlton Heston leading the way as a man dating a younger woman (Genevieve Bujold) while trying to break away from his alcoholic wife (Ava Gardner). None of the three are Oscar worthy but they're entertaining enough. We've also got the "King of the Disasters" George Kennedy offering up a good performance. The supporting cast also includes Richard Roundtree, Lorne Greene, Victoria Principal and Marjoe Gortner. Walter Matthau also appears in an awful performance and role as a drunk.Speaking of the last two actors mentioned. There's a subplot dealing Gortner's character who we first see doing a nice act then seeing him getting picked on and then a really bizarre finale. I'm not sure why this character snaps but it's a really bad and somewhat embarrassing moment. Even the stuff with the Matthau character just seems to be from another film and looks awful here. The entire melodrama is pretty useless from start to finish and it's clear these stereotypes were just thrown together to be heroes or to die.EARTHQUAKE isn't a horrible movie thanks to the cast and there's no question that the special effects makes it a must see.

Disaster movies were all the rage during the 1970's and one of the biggest hits of the genre was 1974's Earthquake, whose self-explanatory title lets you know what you're in for, but unlike similar fare like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, only about a third of the film really works.As with most films of the genre, the film opens with silly exposition scenes introducing a group of disparate characters that have no connection to each other and provide no reason for us to care about them. The primary players include an architect named Stewart Graff (Charlton Heston) trapped in a marriage to a grasping and desperate woman named Remy (Ava Gardner), who is the daughter of Stewart's boss (Lorne Greene). We also learn that Graff is having an affair with a struggling actress named Denise (Genvieve Bujold) who has a young son. We also meet a motorcycle daredevil (Richard Roundtree), his assistant (Victoria Principal) and an ex-marine turned sex deviate who works in a grocery store (Marjoe Gortner), not to mention a recently fired police officer played by George Kennedy, who I think, by law, appeared in all disaster films made in the 70's. The scenes when the earthquake actually hits and destroys Los Angeles are pretty effective, but the final third of the film involving the actual rescue efforts is dull and extremely hard to get through. The performances range from shrill to annoying and some of the casting is really hard to swallow (Ava Gardner as Lorne Greene's daughter? Seriously?), but I guess if you're really, really, bored, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. BTW, Walter Matthau makes a cameo appearance as a drunk in a bar and is billed under his real name, Walter Matuschanskayasky.

"Earthquake" belongs to that wave of disaster films that shook up the world of filmmaking in the early 70's. It all started with the surprisingly Best Picture nominated "Airport" that set up the pattern of a series of movies where natural elements terrified an audience hungry for new sensations. As if watching characters drowning in "The Poseidon Adventure", burning alive of jumping out of buildings in "Towering Inferno" or getting tons of concrete on their heads in "Earthquake" exorcised people's inner fears by turning them into a form of sadistic escapism and entertainment.Or maybe this is too much thinking of Hollywood and it's fair to assume that through the success of the disaster sub-genre, just like the vigilante movies, they have literally struck the Mother Lode, then a film about the 'Big One' was inevitable. This is not meant to diminish at all the value of such premise; after all, "The Towering Inferno" did exactly the same thing and met with the same fate than "Airport", being nominated for Best Picture along with "Chinatown" and "The Godfather Part II". But "Earthquake" doesn't play on the same league at all. The 1990 version was thousand miles better and more spectacular, 16 years later maybe but it was made for TV!The main difference between "Inferno" and "Earthquake", released the same year, lies on their psychological approach. While "Inferno" exploits the natural fear of fire and pushes it to the most extreme situations, in "Earthquake", the characters mostly deal with the aftermath, getting out a bridge, descending a building literally cut in two, digging a tunnel and even deal with those who 'snapped' and revealed the darkest side of their nature after enlisting in the National Reserve. So apart from a spectacular 10-minute sequence where most of Los Angeles is destroyed, the rest of the film could as well be set in dystopia.But the earthquake part is overall satisfying, buildings and bridges collapse, people are buried alive under rock or earth, glasses get shattered, electricity and water become redoubtable killers, elevators are lethal traps where either you die suffocating, drowning or in pieces … the film doesn't spare its imagination, and you got it for your money. The special effects vary from extremely convincing to disastrously laughable -I guess if I mention the two words: blood and elevator- you'd get it. But in these times were CGI were not even in its infancy, I concede that the images must have been quite a kill for the 70's.The problem with the film is that it doesn't try to dig deeper in the many possibilities it offers. Fear must be the very ingredient of disastrous films, and you can get more thrills for moments of pure expectations. Apart from a few tremors that take you in a mild surprise, "Earthquake" doesn't capture that horrific vibe that you get when you have the feeling that earth is shaking, something most viewers can relate to. At the end, it's just an exercise in grandiose filmmaking and mass destruction that doesn't leave much to root our imagination and basic feelings into. Our eyes are hooked, but there is something in the story that leaves both heart and mind in a state of unfulfilled hunger. And maybe characterization is to blame.The irony is that despite its A-casting, the film doesn't get rid of its B-movie feel. Charlton Heston is an engineer married to Ava Gardner, she's like a fifty-something version of Martha from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", although she looks much older and makes her casting as the daughter of a 6O-year old Lorne Greene comical if it wasn't so ridiculous. But Gardner wasn't the most miscast character, believe it or not, she did bring the most reliable emotions in the film, the rest of the cast includes Genevieve Bujold as Heston's mistress, the widow of a former colleague. Heston takes care of her out of guilt, but his reluctance to play a cheating husband shows and sweeps off every ounce of chemistry with Bujold. However, George Kennedy is perfect as a the tough, bulky but well-meaning cop, naturally suspended because of violent behavior, and Victoria Principal, unbelievably beautiful and desperately unharmed despite all the hell she went through. The all-star cast seems like consisting to throw away big names and pretend we would care for them, but it all depends on the performances, and they are unequal. Bujold does her best to save her little boy before the providential rescue of Richard Roundtree as a stunt driver, but the kid was so dull and bland I almost regretted he wasn't the typical smart-ass. It didn't even help that the film featured many actors at the peak of their careers but whose appeal can hardly translate to today's audience.However, I've got to hand it to the film; it has one hell of an ending. Notorious for his straight-laced opinions, Heston demanded that his character would die rather than surviving his wife. He suggested the idea of having his character being killed while trying to desperately rescue his wife from drowning, abandoning the chance of happiness in the name of his marital vows. He plunged himself to a certain death but that transcended the tragedy of his character and create an even more shocking impact, had he survived like any typical hero. His death echoes the heroic demise of Frank Scott in "The Poseidon Adventure" but it allows the film to end in the kind of depressing, yet satisfying note, characters arc-wise.It was the perfect idea to let the last word for George Kennedy, who, despite his physical and manly strength can hardly prevent himself for crying while realizing what Los Angeles has become. It's true some flaws can easily be redeemed by a powerful ending; the last minute of "Earthquake", with all its nihilistic material drowns the technical and written imperfection as effectively as the Manhattan Den sends the water down L.A. sewers.