THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974)

Directed by John Guillermin.  Written by Stirling Silliphant

Starring Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Wagner, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson
1974, 165 minutes, Color, Rated PG, 2.35:1
20th Century Fox Blu-Ray, released 2009

Background

The disaster film became a prominent genre in the 1970's, but films about disasters have been around almost since the beginning of Hollywood.  This is because the crucial elements of the disaster film naturally align with the tenets of dramatic storytelling.  Need conflict?  Tense situations can certainly bring the worst out in people.  Need spectacle?  How about scenes of mass destruction?  Need romance?  Well, you may be out of luck in a disaster film, but there is still usually the element of a loved one in peril.  They may not satisfy on all levels, but generally, you can find something to like in a typical disaster film.  Even bad disaster films are still watchable on some of the above levels.

Irwin Allen, Man Of Refined Tastes

So why did disaster movies become prominent in the 1970's?  Primarily it was due to the success of two films, THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974).  Both films were produced by Irwin Allen, a producer and director who was perhaps best known prior to the above-mentioned films for the television shows Lost In Space and Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea. He had also produced and directed a number of feature films, notably THE LOST WORLD (1960), VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1961) and FIVE WEEKS IN A BALLOON (1962). He was able to ride out the 1970's and part of the 1980's on the strength of the success of POSEIDON and INFERNO, but the quality of the films he produced after INFERNO dropped off precipitously.  Almost all of his films post-INFERNO are disaster films--and some are in fact "disasters".

Some of the other films Allen produced after INFERNO include: Adventures of the Queen (1975, TV), Flood! (1976, TV), Fire! (1977, TV), THE SWARM (1978), Hanging By A Thread (1979, TV), BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1979), WHEN TIME RAN OUT (1980), The Night The Bridge Fell Down (1983, TV) and Cave In! (1983, TV).  These titles all range from just okay to downright bad, although I must confess to being  possessing nostalgic feelings for both THE SWARM and BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

Hollywood, however, took note of the success of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and INFERNO and brought out their own disaster films.  The first big disaster movie not produced by Allen was Universal's EARTHQUAKE (1974) which followed the Allen formula by including a large cast (Charlton Heston, George Kennedy, and the incomparable Marjoe Gortner) and killing off a fair number of them.  Universal followed EARTHQUAKE up with AIRPORT 1975, AIRPORT 1977, AIRPORT 1979, as well as ROLLERCOASTER (1977), THE HINDENBURG (1975), and GRAY LADY DOWN (1978).  Other entries in the 70's disaster bonanza were METEOR (1979), THE CASSANDRA CROSSING (1977), AVALANCHE (1978), and CITY ON FIRE (1979).

The Cast

Say what you will about Allen and his films, but he was generally able to get a cast together. For casting alone it's hard to beat POSEIDON ADVENTURE--Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowall and Carol Lynley.  However, INFERNO's cast is even better, impressively including two of the biggest box office stars of the day in Paul Newman and Steve McQueen, as well as Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and a host of lesser names such as Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, and Robert Wagner.  THE SWARM had Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda and Katharine Ross, as well as a veritable sea of past their prime and b-level actors such as Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Patty Duke, Bradford Dillman, and Fred MacMurray.  BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE had Michael Caine, Sally Field, Telly Savalas, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Shirley Knight, Shirley Jones, Karl Malden, and Slim Pickens.  Even the lowly WHEN TIME RAN OUT had Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, and William Holden, with Edward Albert, Red Buttons, James Franciscus and Ernest Borgnine among the rest of the cast.  Even his television movies boasted better than average casts.  Flood! had Robert Culp, Richard Basehart, and Roddy McDowall.  Fire! had Ernest Borgnine, Vera Miles, and Patty Duke.

It's worth repeating that at the time the movie was made Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were perhaps the top two male actors in the world.  If not the world, then the United States at least. McQueen was coming off PAPILLON (1973) and THE GETAWAY (1972), Newman was coming off  THE STING (1973).  The story goes that both Newman and McQueen demanded top billing and the producers accommodated this by arranging the names in a way that gave both top billing based on how you read it.  If you read from left to right then you'd hit McQueen's name, if you read top to bottom you would see Newman's name first.

Faye Dunaway hadn't been in a big hit since BONNIE AND CLYDE but she was in CHINATOWN which opened a couple of months before INFERNO.  She would go on to win an Oscar for CHINATOWN but that didn't really help INFERNO.  From there the cast descends into familiar faces but not necessarily stars.

The Film

Warning Spoilers below!

Synopsis:
The world's tallest building is gearing up for a dedication ceremony that promises to host all of the important people of San Francisco.  During the ceremony, a small fire breaks out and despite efforts to quickly extinguish it the fire grows out of control.  Soon, the guests partying in the ballroom at the top of the building are trapped up there, and the fire department tries desperately to save them.  In the nick of time, the fire department detonates several huge water tanks at the top of the building to douse the fire.

THE TOWERING INFERNO was initially to be based on the book The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson and was to be produced at 20th Century Fox.  Warner Brothers also had a burning high rise movie in production at the same time that was based on The Tower by Richard Martin Stern.  The studios understood that there was room for only one movie about a burning high rise in the market, so in what was billed as a first at the time the two studios teamed up to produce the movie together.  The film had a budget of $15 million and this allowed Allen to gather the impressive cast as well as produce high-quality visual effects.

So is INFERNO a good movie?  As in most things in life, it depends.  In this case, it depends on what you expect to get out of a movie.  If you want realism, realistic character arcs, or meaningful interpersonal relationships...well, you probably will not enjoy INFERNO too much.  However, if you approach it as spectacle only then there is a lot to enjoy.  It LOOKS great, with big expansive sets, great widescreen photography and special effects that consistently keep things interesting.  In fact, all things considered, INFERNO probably should not work as well as it does.  The screenplay by Stirling Silliphant is comprised of one melodramatic set piece after another.  The acting is generally decent but hardly stellar (with one exception perhaps, but more on that later).  The plot overall never escapes the soap opera level, although the high budget does a decent job of disguising it.

The reasons why the film is as enjoyable as it is are not that difficult to understand.  The film is chock full of top-tier Hollywood stars and that keeps things watchable even when it shouldn't be.  The freshness inherent due to it coming early in the disaster film cycle of the 70's also helps, as the formula hadn't quite become as obvious as it would be in, say, THE SWARM.  The film creates an impressive reality with both optical and practical effects¹.   The early shots of the tower amidst the San Francisco skyline are just about perfectly realized--there is shot of the helicopter flying in front of the tower in the opening minutes of the film and you really can't tell that it is an optical effect.  Across the board, the visual effects effectively sell the setting, and this makes the human drama easier to sell as well.  Lastly, the basic premise of a building that tall being on fire is undeniably gripping, perhaps more gripping now than it was then in fact.

Perhaps INFERNO'S greatest success story-wise is the unease created by not knowing who will live or die.  This was the formula that Irwin Allen hit upon with THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and it is repeated here with more subtlety.  As the film progresses and more of the character are killed off, the audience starts to wonder if the film will be audacious enough to knock off Paul Newman or Steve McQueen.²  Of course not, but the possibility remains, and that makes the film all the more gripping.   A large part of why this aspect of the film works so well is the strength of the cast, as well as the time the movie takes to get to know the characters.   When Jennifer Jones falls to her death, it is affecting precisely because we have spent so much time with her.

It goes without saying that while certain aspects of the film are very realistic, other aspects are not.  The nuts and bolts of actually fighting a fire are covered well, the actual putting out of the fire strains credibility almost past the breaking point.  I say "almost" purely because the actual mechanics of the climax appears to have put major cast members in actual danger, and the spectacle of that helps sell what is being sold.

From a quality standpoint, INFERNO was the pinnacle of Allen's artistic success.  Never before or again would he have as good a cast to work with³, as much money at his disposal, and most importantly as good a good director to handle the non-action scenes.   Allen made no secret of his displeasure at not receiving his due recognition at having directed the action scenes in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, and for INFERNO he insisted on an opening credit as director of "action sequences".

All this said, for me, there is one reason and one reason only why I still come back to the movie, and that's Steve McQueen.  He doesn't make an appearance until well after the fire has started, but once he does the movie instantly becomes better.  It's not that he does anything exceptional from an acting standpoint--he doesn't really.  But he possesses such an impressive presence that it elevates his role as the fire chief into something larger than the movie itself.  No-nonsense and hard-working, he can't help but make the audience believe that he can fix this.  For a film that supposedly pitted McQueen and Newman against each other as leading men, McQueen won hands down.  By comparison, Newman's character seems whiny and weak next to McQueen.

The Blu-Ray transfer looks wonderful, looking very much like film.  Indeed, if there is any image manipulation going on it is handled discreetly.  There are several soundtracks on hand, from a new DTS-HD Master 5.1 track to 4.0 and 2.0 lossy tracks.  Extras include 3 commentaries, 44 minutes (roughly) of footage included in the TV version, and numerous documentaries.  It's a great package that can usually be picked up fairly cheaply.

1. Sure, one can gripe that there is no smoke to speak of as the tower burns, but in the midst of the drama, it is easy to overlook.

2. EARTHQUAKE, Universal's big entry into the disaster film sweepstakes, beat INFERNO to theaters by about a month.  It has many of the same components as INFERNO but is clearly the inferior movie.  First off, the cast of EARTHQUAKE can't hold a candle to INFERNO--once you get past Charlton Heston and George Kennedy the talent drops off dramatically and is filled in with stock Universal television actors.  Second, whereas INFERNO is contained in one contained area, EARTHQUAKE spreads it out across all of Los Angeles.  This lends itself to more expansive scenes of destruction but is less involving overall.

3. Perhaps.  On paper, THE SWARM has a good cast: Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Bradford Dillman, Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, Ben Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Olivia de Havilland, José Ferrer, Patty Duke and Cameron Mitchell.  Likewise, WHEN TIME RAN OUT also has a good cast: Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Burgess Meredith.