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 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 2:38 PM   
 By:   Gordon Reeves   (Member)



The Kinda Blockbuster Entertainment Nobody Does BETTER Than Hollywood Department:































And our all-tyme FANTASTIC favorite (with Supes a reeeeelll close second) from



The epitome of the disaster genre that remains an UNguilty pleasure we never get tired of big grin

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 3:02 PM   
 By:   Greg Bryant   (Member)

Still the best of the disaster flics in my book.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 4:00 PM   
 By:   manderley   (Member)

After 9/11, and other high-rise fires, this scenario, even in fictional movie form, is a bit too discomforting anymore, at least for me.

Years ago, I think it was in the late 1970's, my partner worked for a major talent agency which was located on an upper floor in a New York high-rise.

As my partner describes it, somehow a janitor's cart, full of collected trash, caught on fire, probably from a discarded but unextinguished cigarette, as it was sitting in the elevator lobby.

The fire soon spread to the entire lobby, blocking the elevators and the exits, which were just off this lobby.

The employees remaining on the floor, I guess about a dozen including my partner, managed to barricade themselves in a large office---which happened to be the nice one of the head of the agency. There was a bathroom, so they made wet towels and sealed up the doors with them. They called and called but no help arrived quickly.

As the doors got warmer and warmer and smoke was coming into the office, they broke out several windows with a chair and managed to get a little fresh air. Then they, deciding it was near the end, broke into the wet bar, took out all the booze and had last drinks. They could look down and see crowds gathering on the street below and over to the building next door, where news and tabloid TV cameras were set up on the roof, lenses trained to catch the first moment when jumpers would start to fall to their deaths.

This went on for a long time and as the situation got more precarious and the occupants were making final calls to their loved ones on the phones which still worked, firemen miraculously broke down the main door with hatchets.

My partner said that the firemen stood there astonished, and then broke into tears! They had expected to find only suffocated bodies by that time.

Hooray for the skills, bravery, and sensitivities of our working firemen!

Even though it was thirty years ago, my partner still talks about this day from time-to-time. I'm sure the total horror of the situation will be with him forever.

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 5:43 PM   
 By:   Eric Paddon   (Member)

This has always been my favorite disaster movie along with "The Poseidon Adventure", though I will admit there was a long period after 9/11 when I couldn't watch the film. I've overcome that now and can appreciate it again, and I think the key reason why it's possible to appreciate this film still in the post-9/11 era whereas late 90s disaster films that show the destruction of New York are now unwatchable for me is because "Inferno" gives us a showcase of great actors who are always fascinating to watch, and because the film wisely avoids some of the horrible cliches of many later disaster FX flicks.

Key to all of this is Steve McQueen as the fire chief. McQueen approaches his role with an air of Sergeant Joe Friday by-the-book professionalism (like that "Do you have any nylon or silk manufacturers?" speech to O.J. Simpson) that enables him to seem credible and real even as he's performing all of these amazing feats of rescue. And McQueen thankfully has no family member or girlfriend of his own trapped among the guests to worry about so we're just seeing the tough pro in action doing his job under the most difficult of circumstances.

Williams' score was the ultimate Holy of Holies for me among film music, and I can still remember how good it felt to be the first person at this board to post a message about how FSM was making it available.

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 6:21 PM   
 By:   Ray Faiola   (Member)

I have a 16mm print of the extended Network version with about 25 minutes extra of exposition footage. Did this footage ever make it to DVD?

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 6:28 PM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

I love this movie, I can still remember seeing it in a packed cinema; it so worked. But after 9/11 I can't see it being remade, which I think is a good thing. There's just not the star power to compete these days. It's the one FSM that I don't have & really want, maybe Lukas will do another "Omega Man" job.

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 6:49 PM   
 By:   Eric Paddon   (Member)

I have a 16mm print of the extended Network version with about 25 minutes extra of exposition footage. Did this footage ever make it to DVD?

It's included in a supplementary section. That extra footage includes Faye Dunaway's most risque moment in the entire film!

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 7:04 PM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

I have a 16mm print of the extended Network version with about 25 minutes extra of exposition footage. Did this footage ever make it to DVD?

It's included in a supplementary section. That extra footage includes Faye Dunaway's most risque moment in the entire film!



Unfortunately we only have the single disc ed. in the UK, but it is a good looking transfer. I see you lucky sods in America are getting a Blu-ray on July 14th.

 
 Posted:   Apr 19, 2009 - 8:49 PM   
 By:   Mr. Jack   (Member)

Too bad all of the additional footage culled from the expanded network TV broadcasts is in fuzzy, pan & scan VHS quality. frown

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 8:12 AM   
 By:   Gordon Reeves   (Member)



Sir M, We Understand Your Considerable Chagrin Department:

And we’re sure we’re not alone in empathizing with the horrendous travails your Partner (and his office mates) went through during their own hellacious REAL (not reel) life experience.



To those who give their lives, so that others may live - to the firefighters of the world - this picture is gratefully dedicated"

As for saluting the genuine heroics of fire-fighters, we recall when the film was first released there were considerable snickers by various critics at the above Tribute in the opening credits – even Mr. Williams’ music also slowed down, stopped and musically memorialized (which said oceans more about the their chic cynicism than the movie’s sympathetic overture).



As to that, we feel HooRaq makes a definitive point in contrasting the late 90s' lame-brained negative attempts at the genre contrasted with what Mr. Allen was about. True, after 9/11, anything of this sort would be seriously suspect but there are the exemplary Exceptions to all the contemptible generalities – and we sorta figger this cinematic suspect is wayyyyy ahead of its other culprits.



When we spent a marvelous afternoon in the garden outside his home with screenwriter Stirling Silliphant



his own examples of the demanding egoholic antics Mr. McQueen continually pulled (fer instance, making sure he had the exact amount of lines as Mr. Newman – including, you’ll note, the film’s final one) didn’t exactly endear the former to him (how’d you like it if YOUR honeymoon was gonna be interrupted ‘cause some infantile star wanted rewrites?).



Still, what always rescued him was Mr. McQueen’s unerring intuitive sense of what roles he was temperamentally right for. Although it was (during its B-list concept) originally slated for Ernest Borgnine, when the casting net started ascending toward Super-Star status, Mr. McQueen decided the Fire Chief was better suited for him rather than the Architect – and he was right.

(Personally, tho, Mr. Newman’s who we most identify with but we’ll expand on both their characters and contributions anon).



Historical Addendum to/for Sir M Department:

Given your encyclopedic photographic frame (big grin) of professional reference, we always found the fact this heavyweight production was especially notable for its triple array of acclaimed photographic peers which is memorably immortalized in the special issue American Cinematographer devoted to the filming - February 1975.

[ As writer David Hammond noted, “... the only way you could film something like THE TOWERING INFERNO short of large scale arson would be to conjure up ample potions of the Hollywood magic of old and shoot on a sound stage where absolute control can be exercised.

It was a three man cinemagraphic show. Joe Biroc, ASC headed the unique Action Unit, Fred Koenekamp, ASC was Director of Photography for the first unit, which was responsible for all of the dramatic and background filming and Bill Abbott, ASC came out of retirement to supervise the special photographic effects, which included the use of miniatures, matte paintings, and blue screen photography”. ]

You can read all about it by beaming over to www.thetoweringinferno.info/action.html.



This swingin' symposium’s just gettin’ started, we promise ya that wink

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 8:26 AM   
 By:   Overtones   (Member)

I always found it amusing that following the flooding of the massive water tank that Mr. McQueen's underarm shields were noticibly visible. A fireman's grooming necessity?

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 8:38 AM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

That's it. This Saturday it's going to be a double bill in my lounge. The Poseidon Adventure & The Towering Inferno, & a whole box of choc ices.

 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 11:01 AM   
 By:   Jim Phelps   (Member)

My grandparents loved all these disaster movies, including the one where Lorne Greene plays Ava Gardner's father! Was that Earthquake? Oh, man the folks loved seeing all their old favorites in these early-1970s epics. I guess they were clinging to the last vestiges of glamour those stars had. Not an easy thing when considering the hairstyles of the period.

I haven't watched The Towering Inferno in many, many years. Time to get reacquainted.

 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 4:54 PM   
 By:   Eric Paddon   (Member)

I wouldn't be surprised that another reason why "Inferno" did even better business than "Poseidon Adventure" is because of the success of the TV series "Emergency!" which was in the middle of its six year run at the time the film came out. The kids loved watching the fire department perform dramatic feats of rescue (fire and non-fire related) week after week and now here was a big-screen movie showing that level of action and adventure on a far grander scale so the kids who didn't know what was so special about Astaire, Jones, Holden etc. would have something that could naturally excite them based on their TV viewing preferences of the time.

 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 10:07 PM   
 By:   PhiladelphiaSon   (Member)

I love the film. Every second of it. And, though many of my big screen favorites are in it, the standout performance is Susan Flannery in a minor role. She should have become a big star. I don't know what happened?

 
 Posted:   Apr 20, 2009 - 10:31 PM   
 By:   Eric Paddon   (Member)

She became a daytime soap star on "Bold And The Beautiful" doing that show for well over 20 years I think.

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 21, 2009 - 4:40 AM   
 By:   ahem   (Member)

Does anyone else agree that, aside from the brilliant special effects, the film is one ugly eyesore? The lighting is flat and intrusively artificial while the sets look like poverty row television. John Guillerman's direction manages to lend a cinematic scale to the proceedings, but he's hardly helped by everyone else.

I think that the idea of a burning building isn't as scary in itself as that much 70s polyester going up in flames.

 
 Posted:   Apr 21, 2009 - 5:53 AM   
 By:   Ray Faiola   (Member)

You've just described the brilliant ESSENCE of every Irwin Allen production!!!

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 21, 2009 - 6:34 AM   
 By:   Miragliano   (Member)

They really DON'T make 'em like this anymore. For me, Towering Inferno was the best of the '70s disaster epics.

How much would the Towering Inferno cost to make these days with equivalent star power to McQueen and Newman? For that matter, how much did it cost back in the '70s?

 
 
 Posted:   Apr 21, 2009 - 8:18 AM   
 By:   CinemaScope   (Member)

Never mind all the tat & tack, the film just....works!

 
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