I'm sure you are saying that I'm a glutton for punishment, and perhaps in this case you would be correct. I don't know what motivated me to put this in my rental queue except that I wanted to review a lot of the 70's disaster flicks and this was one of the better ones at the time.

Irwin Allen, who produced and directed the action sequences of this film, was known in the 70's as the master of disaster. For some reason these types of movies were very popular at the time and he did it better than anyone else. Classics such as The Poseidon Adventure and the original The Lost World were produced by him, along with a whole bunch of b-movies and several television shows, most hinging on some sort of disaster occurring. In all of these cases, it seemed that he uses the disaster to show the true side of people.

But do you really need that anymore when you saw it live and real? When you've seen two towers catch fire and burn?

To his credit, Allen does seem to have great appreciation for firefighters - he dedicates the movie to them in an opening dedication that's reminiscent of the sentiments we've heard over the past year or so.

The film opens with a helicopter shot as it travels along the California coast to land on the helipad atop the just completed largest glass building in the world. Now the first problem I thought of was who in their right minds would build a large glass building in San Francisco? Never mind the fire, what about one little tremor? This building seems to be treated like the "Titanic" of the modern day.

It was designed by architect Doug Roberts (portrayed by Paul Newman) and constructed by James Duncan (portrayed by William Holden). The building stands 135 stories tall, plus the helipad. It contains both office space and living space - sort of a self-contained city where you live and work. Oh, and all the offices contain beds in them. This enables the office staff to boink each other at a moment's notice.

That night is to be the gala celebration and official opening of the building although most of the tenants in the living space already seem to be moved in as well as some of the offices. About fifteen minutes into the film we see the first hint of trouble when a fuse box overloads in a custodian's closet and some rags catch fire.

This is both good and bad. On one hand, we aren't waiting a long time for the real movie to start. On the other hand, we have no time to get to really know the characters. It is hard to care about who lives or who dies when we don't know anything about them. Robert Wagner comes in a Bigelow, one of the designers and builders. He boinks his secretary in his office, then they both die. But do we really care?

And that is the problem with such an all-star cast; with so many egos to feed and the necessity of a certain amount of screen-time, we are left with little in the way of character development. Look down the cast list for a who's who of Hollywood at the time, but there are no real stand-out performances. The two I noticed most were Mike Lookinland (because I kept thinking "Isn't that Bobby Brady") and OJ Simpson (because of... well, you know).

That is the film's biggest problem before September 11th 2001. Afterwards, it has even more. The first problem was that I was haunted as I watched what was going on as people tried to scramble to get out. I wondered if this was what it was like for people above where the planes had hit and even on some of the closer floors. The other is that I kept saying "Well that's not right - it didn't happen that way." We know all too well what will happen when a building burns like this. We know not to go in the elevators.

To give Allen credit, a large part of the point he seems to be trying to get across here is that in the 70's people were intent on building these tall buildings never thinking if they should. When Fire Chief Michael O'Hallorhan (portrayed by Steve McQueen) castigates Roberts for building something like this without any regards to what they would do in the event of a fire - how it would and could be fought - it really hits home that this warning was sounded almost thirty years ago.

This film is also a slam at the corporations that seem intent on getting all the money they can from consumers at the cheapest price with little regard for the end result. In this case, Duncan ordered his son-in-law Roger Simmons (portrayed by Richard Chamberlain) to cut his budget $2 million. This resulted in substandard electrical against the design that Roberts had originally put forth. Duncan is also obstinate about shutting down his grand celebration on the 135th floor promenade when the fire first breaks out. This decision will haunt him later on.

But that is also part of the problem. We find ourselves waiting for the inevitable retribution; for Simmons to "get it". Would we ever say that anyone on September 11th deserved to "get it" other than the hijackers? The conflicting feelings it brings about now against what the climate was thirty years ago change the movie completely.

The effects in this film are tremendous, especially considering this was a time before CGI and many of the effects we have currently. It is so realistic, especially several of the scenes as we see Duncan looking out the window of the promenade at the reflection of his building burning in the windows of another nearby building.

The stunts are well-done as well. The scene where O'Hallorhan tries to save people in an elevator as well as the one where Roberts is hanging off of the bent steel of a staircase are particulary notable. But looking at it from the perspective of today, do we really need to see people falling out of burning buildings as stunts anymore? Some of us saw it happen live (in the case of my husband who could not watch this film when I had it on) and some of us saw and heard enough on television that seeing these scenes really brings to life more what happened on September 11th.

I predict that for a long time this movie will be buried, not to be seen again. It had it's faults, but it wasn't too bad. However what has happened over the last year has made it too painful for many to watch. Don't expect it on network or cable television without some grand public outcry.


Other “Disaster Flick” reviews:

Airport ~ Airport 1975 ~ Airport ‘77 ~ Armageddon ~ Dante’s Peak ~ Jaws ~ Planet of the Apes ~ Twister ~ Volcano


© 2002 Patti Aliventi


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age