The Towering Inferno (1974)

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Big, bold, brawny, big budget, brutally effective, the disaster film never looked so good. A stellar cast, and convincing special effects photography wins the day, and an early 1970s state-of-the-art styling doesn't grate - it doesn't date the film much at all. There is no deep and lofty notion about American enterprise, but there is a simple message about caution about business economics and a chilling reminder of the potential problems with high-rise buildings; emergency services and the public suffering the repurcussions of poor decisions of vanity projects and profit. The film is to be noted for having very little melodrama within its dramatic confines, just solid, on-the-nose performances, almost as if the cast are in awe of the scale of the production itself, though that could have been the director's reputation for screaming at the cast and crew. The film's director, John Guillermin was a perfectionist with a good eye for directing big action pieces. The viewer can expect good suspense and witness the terrible, destructive power of fire. The explosions, wreckage, action all look real and there are some real jolts to the senses, and some very grisly scenes. The characters are also skilfully woven into the story. The Towering Inferno proves that escapism done very well will always prove a box-office winner because an audience will always want to exorcise their elemental fears.

Irwin Allen's 1970s disaster films followed a familiar and successful formula. First, characters and situations are introduced, with everything fine and everyone happy; second, a really bad disaster happens (ship capsizing, volcano erupting, fire in a high rise, a killer bee swarm); third, a plucky band of survivors tries to escape their predicament but usually lose several of their members to fairly gruesome deaths. "The Towering Inferno" naturally told a story about a fire in the world's tallest building. Have you ever noticed that these things never happen in two-story office buildings?The plot is, well, people stuck in a building as firefighters try to free them. There are lots of ways for people to die, including falling from great heights, being burned to death, being crushed by falling objects, dying in explosions, helicopters crashing, falling out of exterior elevators, and many others. The film has a sappy (but not happy) ending when the fire's finally out.The cast is superb, including Paul Newman as a heroic architect; Steve McQueen as a dedicated and brave fire department battalion chief; Richard Chamberlain as a slimy contractor who cuts corners on the building's electrical and fire systems; William Holden as the building's greedy developer; Susan Blakely as Holden's comely daughter; Faye Dunaway as Newman's girlfriend; Robert Vaughn as a senator; Fred Astaire as a con man; Jennifer Jones as a lonely widow; O.J. Simpson as the building's security officer; Dabney Coleman (unexpectedly) in a straight fire department role; Don Gordon as a fireman; Robert Wagner as the building's PIO, and many other familiar faces. Everyone looks pretty young now, 43 years later.The film is notable for Steve McQueen's fine performance before avoiding acting for several years. He passed away in 1980, only six years after the film was released. Newman and Holden's performances are one-dimensional but okay, and Richard Chamberlain is great as the film's despicable villain. Say what you like, but the movie's entertaining and it made lots of money. It's no great work of cinematic art, but who cares?

It has been heavy discussed over the years about the "peak" status of this movie, being the most successful production in the era of pretty silly and - in average - overambitious disaster movies between 1970-1980. The trends who invited the greatest movie companies to show us terrible ways to die, fascinates me in present days. The view of the world must have been gloomy and gray, people still wanted to be shown moderate special effects of avalanches (salt) and skyscrapers fully set on fire. (Scale models.) Some of the characters always made it to the end of the tunnel for daylight, some were brutally roasted, the "heroes" who often sacrificed themselves for the crew.The Towering Inferno of 1974 is the one disaster i can re-visit from time to time. Mostly because of the very good casting, and the non-stop action after the entering of the flames. Steve McQueen was in first to act as the architect, but changed his mind. Thank You. Anyone imagine if Newman and McQueen would have been playing the other ones part? OK, If so, we could have discuss it either other way, today, because we wouldn't know anything else. The rest of the stars in this "epic panic" are just statistics for me; Newman grabs the steering wheel from the beginning, but almost has to move over to be co-driver, when fire chief McQueen enters the screen, jumping out of his car beside the "chimney". Equal lines, equal top billing....yes you heard it all before. The great rivals of the 70's (especially McQueen) was apparently sick of ego, and didn't allow the other part to have an inch of attention, or a second more of limelight than the opponent. Today this movie is only remembered by many as a cult flick of the (first) disaster era; some will rank it the as the best, the most successful. Patterns are all there: the love stories, the struggling family relations, the other template people you get to know briefly before the tragic sets in. The bad ones who gets theirs.I still like this one pretty lot, and will pick it up again, maybe this x-mas?

One of the many disaster movies of the early 1970's, the Towering Inferno, while a bit longer than the other movies of this period, I consider probably the best because it does seem to combine character with disaster so as to make it a human situation. Indeed there are a lot of implausible moments, and after the destruction of the World Trade Center you can't help but make comparisons, but other than that it's a solid action movie.So what's the barbecue? We find ourselves in San Francisco, and it's the opening night of the Glass Tower, the world's tallest skyscraper at a height of 138 stories. As guests arrive, the architect, Doug Roberts, has doubts that the cheaply made electric system will be able to hold the intended light show, but his worries are sidelined so as not to rock the boat. Sure enough a fire does start and very soon the building is engulfed in flames, trapping hundreds of people at the top-floor restaurant.Now, the bad things. There are plenty of moments where the actions taken and the decisions made you can't help but think are insane. For example, when the initial fire is reported, the building's owner refuses to evacuate. At the same time, guiding people to the elevators when there's a fire, of course that's going to end well!At the same time, there's plenty of implausible things, such as running a Breeches Buoy between the two skyscrapers I think is a little out there, as well as the fact that there's a bit of a silly 'happy' ending that I won't give away, but will have you scratching your head in confusion. Although obviously the attacks on the Twin Towers hadn't happened yet, there are many things that are and aren't included in this movie that do seem questionable. For example, the fact that even though the best part of 100 floors are on fire, no smoke seems to be rising into the restaurant causing people to choke. Indeed in one of the original books on which this is based smoke rises into the floors causing people to wither.There are many inexplicable and random explosions within the structure which shouldn't happen since this is an electrical fire. For me, the most obvious problem is the fact that this building has been on fire for hours, and has apparently had several large explosions which are said to be near the core, yet it doesn't collapse not even partially. Of course the argument can be made that a fire in a large steel building had never happened before, but many shows and films prior to this depicting a devastating inferno in a tall building have the structure collapse or partially crumble. I know these are probably personal peeves, but they did have me confused.Other than that, there's nothing really wrong with this movie. Aside from the fact that there's some fantastic pyrotechnics, and the mixture of models and practical effects adds to the immersion in a story that back in 1974 would have been difficult to tell. One of the better parts of this movie are in fact the characters, who are all well developed, but at the same time seem human. While some of the characters make silly decisions, like why the couple in the office didn't escape when the fire was quite a way away rather than waiting for the flames to start licking at their door, or why the building wasn't evacuated the moment a fire was reported, other characters have novel little touches that make them seem much more relatable. My personal favourite moment is when Steve McQueen's character goes up in the elevator to inform the building's owner that the fire is out of control, whilst on the way he takes off his fireman's jacket and helmet so as not to cause a panic, which I found was a great touch because it shows he's a thinking and concerned Fire Chief, trying to maintain calm in such a difficult and dark situation.Overall, aside from some of the physical problems of implausibility with regard to some of the scenes, this is a very good, very entertaining action movie. Indeed the story isn't complex, simply just put out the fire without getting yourself killed, but it's the fact that it takes the time to give it a bit more a human touch than some of the other disaster movies of the time. I personally enjoy this film greatly as it manages to blend an unqualified tragic nightmare of a situation with realistic characters who you enjoy and want to see escape.