By Geno McGahee
The 1970s had the disaster movie right. We saw the disaster movies come back in the 1990s with the advent of CGI and that new toy ended up hurting the final product in the end, most of the time. The 1970s had to rely on practical effects and good writing to make a disaster movie work and we find most of the good disaster movies coming from this period. In 1974, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox, realizing that they were producing similar movies, came together for a rare co-production called “THE TOWERING INFERNO.” It would feature two of the biggest names in the game as Paul Newman and Steve McQueen took the starring roles. This was big news and the two big names were backed up by an all-star cast. It’s fair to say that this was as much an event as it was a movie.
Doug Roberts (Newman) is an architect that has created the largest skyscraper in the world and the grand unveiling is just about to happen. The money man behind the project, Jim Duncan (William Holden), is trying to lure Roberts into a multi-building deal, but he has seen enough. It’s time for the architect to take a break, but he will enjoy the big opening party that is planned for the night on the top floor of this gigantic building.
As the crew prepares for the night, an immediate electrical problem arises. Smoke flows and sparks fly and there is confusion until Roberts shows up to investigate. His specifications were not met and Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) is to blame. The son-in-law of Duncan, Simmons, took kickbacks and cut corners to turn a buck and separate himself from his father-in-law. He is greedy and ambitious and doesn’t take crap from anyone, as he noted to Doug when he showed up. Good for him. I appreciate his willingness to stick up for himself.
Unfortunately, there are more problems, leading to a small fire in a maintenance room. Jernigan (O.J. Simpson) gets the alarm, but is convinced by his co-worker that it’s a false alarm. He goes back to work and ignores the problem. In the meantime, the guests begin to arrive for the big party and Duncan is ready to impress. The guest of honor, Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn), is treated incredibly well and is initially very impressed by the spectacle and structure. When the lights are all on, the building illuminates the city and stands out in grand fashion, but the electrical needs are starting to make the situation worse.
When Roberts starts opening electrical panels, he discovers that all of the wires are piping hot. He is certain that a fire is looming and calls Duncan to move the party downstairs but he’ll have none of it. Things get really bad when a fire on the 81st floor is detected. As Roberts, Jernigan and Will Giddings (Norman Burton) go to the floor to check it out, a ball of fire bursts through the door and ignites poor Giddings. Jernigan begs Roberts to call paramedics, but he’s in shock and paces around a little. I feel bad for Giddings. (SPOILER) Giddings dies and had Roberts acted quickly, perhaps he’d still be with us. Those precious lost moments…they meant everything!
The fire department is called and is led by certified badass, Chief Mike O’Halloran (Steve McQueen). He goes into this with a genuine distain for architects that build tall buildings without consulting firefighters and what they have to contend with. He knows going in that a fire on the 81st floor is going to be a tough issue, but he has a job to do and he’s going to do it. Immediately, O’Halloran takes over and this is how the tough guys used to be in film. What happened to them? Instead of Steve McQueen, we get guys like Will Smith and Jason Statham? Come on. Both of those actors are not bad, but there was a time when the tough guys in film had this immediate presence and didn’t worry about offending anyone. Guys like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and McQueen used to be what was right in film. Those days are done.
The fire on the 81st floor starts climbing and the guests of the party are now trapped. It becomes a towering inferno and there is no way out. I felt bad for Bigelow (Robert Wagner). He’s having a fling with his secretary and when they leave the room, the majority of the apartment is up in flames. He doesn’t know what to do. So he wraps a wet towel around his head and makes a run for it, noting that he has a history in track. He doesn’t make it far and is soon engulfed in flames. His secretary, dying of smoke inhalation, breaks a window, but an explosion sends her right out and down to her death.
The bodies begin to pile up and the party has no way out. Roberts and O’Halloran team up to try to solve the problem and rescue people, but things don’t go perfectly and the crowd begins to panic. They rig up a system to send one person at a time from the tower to the building next to it and it’s working, but they are racing against the clock. Most of them will die at this rate. They draw numbers to see what order they go in but Simmons won’t have any of that and he hijacks the seat. Others jump on it with him but Simmons starts knocking them off and they fall to their death. He isn’t able to knock them all off and the overall weight causes the rope to break and we lose Simmons. It’s a shame. He was a great villain.
They devise a plan to save the day and O’Halloran and Roberts team up one last time with their lives on the line to save the day. The plan works, only 200 or so died, and the rest were saved. Roberts and Duncan learned a valuable lesson about building a skyscraper. You can’t cut corners and you have to hire well.
THE TOWERING INFERNO is about as good as it gets when it comes to a disaster movie. The film begins slowly and then increases the pace, going quicker and quicker as the moments tick by. The film is directed by John Guillermin, who also directed KING KONG (1976) and SHEENA (1984). Have I mentioned that I love SHEENA? Tanya Roberts was the babe of babes in the eighties and how that film got a PG rating is beyond me, but at 12, when I first saw it, I didn’t care. It was PG. It was fair game. Good job on that one Guillermin. I’m sure you did not regret that assignment.
I highly recommend THE TOWERING INFERNO. It was made on 14 million and brought home 120 million at the box office. McQueen steals the show but Paul Newman does a great job. You have to be great to take the screen away from Newman and McQueen was just that. This is just a tremendous film and it may be the best disaster movie of the seventies.
Rating: 8.5/10