The Towering Inferno
By Bill Warren
In 1972, "The Poseidon Adventure" was a major hit, kicking off a short-lived but go-for-broke mini-flood of what were soon termed "disaster movies." These were always expensive epics, graced with big sets and lots of special effects, and usually outfitted with "all-star" casts. These included "Earthquake," "Hindenberg," "Meteor" and others, before ending with the disastrous "When Time Ran Out..." Probably the best-as-a-movie was this one, "The Towering Inferno," the first movie ever jointly released by two major studios, Warner Bros. and 20th Century-Fox (but it looks like a Fox movie).
Disaster movies had been preceded by a few disaster novels; two of them, "The Tower" by Richard Martin Stern and "The Glass Inferno" by science fiction writers Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, were about fires running wild inside extremely tall buildings. The novels were bought by rival studios; someone, possibly Irwin Allen, suggested that Fox and Warners join forces, combine the plots and produce and release the movie jointly. To the amazement of many, this was done.
The movie does have the required all-star cast. The two biggest names, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, appear on screen simultaneously in type precisely the same size. McQueen's comes first, but Newman's is higher on the screen. This was worked by the actors' agents after a lot of verbal pushing and shoving. Today, it's probably the only really distinctive element of the movie.
The script by Stirling Silliphant apparently does include elements from both novels, including how they individually dealt with the problem of saving the last few people, trapped in the penthouse as the fire blazes upward below them. McQueen was offered the leading role of Doug Roberts, architect of this gigantic San Francisco tower, declared to be the tallest building in the world, but chose instead to play SFFD chief O'Hallorhan--a smaller but showier role. His agents or McQueen himself then insisted that twelve lines be added to O'Hallorhan's sides, so he'd have exactly the same number of lines as Paul Newman, who signed on as Roberts. It's a bit ironic, all things considered, that audiences probably remember Newman much more clearly than McQueen, partly because of sheer charisma--Newman always holds the screen, seemingly without effort--and partly because McQueen is dressed in a lot of obscuring fire department gear.
Producer Iwrin Allen handled the production, mostly because he'd done the same with "The Poseidon Adventure," He wanted to direct, but Warners wisely insisted that such an expensive movie not be entrusted to a first-time director. British John Guillermin was hired, though he didn't really have a stellar record. He went on to do the first remake of "King Kong," another in the disaster-movie derby. Allen took charge of the action sequences and produced the film; it's primarily an Irwin Allen movie.
Other stars turning up include William Holden, very good (as usual as Jim Duncan, whose company has built this skyscraper--a word used in the film), Faye Dunaway as Roberts' sweetie, Fred Astaire (of all people) as a charming con man hoping to fleece Jennifer Jones at the big opening-ceremonies party in the penthouse of the tall building. Others include Richard Chamberlain (very good as an utter swine), Robert Wagner and Robert Vaughn, both of whom come to sorry ends. Other fairly well-known names include Susan Blakely, Gregory Sierra and Dabney Coleman. O.J. Simpson has some early scenes as a security chief, who helps Newman rescue a couple of children and Jones from a burning room. Simpson then rescues Jones' cat, and disappears from the movie.
"The Towering Inferno" is primarily a showcase for 1970s-style Hollywood bigness--lots of stars, lots of sets (most of which burn up), lots of extras, lots of effects, lots of noise. Today, it's the sound and effects which are the most attractive elements of the movie. Some big-scale sights don't really make sense: it doesn't seem likely that flames would burst out the windows of a tall, glass-and-steel tower like this, then continue to blaze up the side of the building. What are they feeding on? Still, it's a spectacular shot to return to from time to time, and yep, this tower really is an inferno.
The plot is extremely simple: this is opening night of the tallest building in the world. Duncan is holding a celebrity-stuffed and glamorous party in the handsome penthouse. But architect Newman, expected to attend the party, almost immediately learns a fire has broken out on the 82nd (of 132) floor, and is burning its way up and down the building. Terror strikes.
Fire chief O'Hallorhan arrives in a flotilla of screaming fire trucks, immediately recognizes the central problem (their ladders don't reach above the 10th floor), but sends his men in anyway, and goes along himself. (Do fire chiefs ordinarily rush into burning buildings?) There's a lot of colorful panic here and there. Holden learns to his fury that the fire is due to his hated son-in-law Chamberlain's having cut corners on building material.
Most of the movie consists of watching attractive people die, or evade death by spectacular means. Not a single star goes to safety in one of the elevators, at least not while they still work properly. There's a little tiny bit of conflict between Newman, who wants to go someplace else (the extras reveal this is Montecito, but in the movie it seems like it could be Tibet), and Holden, who wants him to stay. Plus Dunaway, who isn't sure if she wants to go wherever it is Newman is going. The rest of the movie she stands around in a flimsy gray evening gown that threatens to spill her breasts into plain view. Robert Wagner, who works for Holden, sneaks off for a sexual tryst with his secretary Susan Flannery. This proves to be a bad idea.
At the time the movie was released, it received some surprisingly good reviews, mostly of the "wow is this ever spectacular" variety. Pauline Kael wisely pointed out that yes, at times this mediocre movie did achieve some excitement, because it's difficult for scenes of famous people burning alive not to be exciting in a roller-coaster way.
But Silliphant's script is weak in general. He was an interesting writer, not necessarily a great one, but a colorful guy who lived a rather adventuresome life. Here, his main task was to combine the plots of the two novels, give something for each of the expensive stars to do, and prevent the audience's attention from wandering too long. This he accomplishes by splitting off a couple of separate groups (Wagner and secretary, Newman and the people he's rescuing, all those people in the penthouse, McQueen and the fire department), bringing each story thread to a momentary climax, cutting to another thread, doing the same there, then back to the other threads. This juggling-of-internal-climaxes format served pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs very well, and does almost invariably create some suspense.
But there should be more to a movie than suspense/suspense/suspense. There should be something like characterization, and there's almost nothing like that here. The actors who fare the best--Holden, Chamberlain, Newman--are probably the best actors in the bunch, and accustomed to having to spin gold out of dross. Their dialogue is of little help; their characters are almost amazingly thinly drawn, so they have to rely on their own charisma and movie savvy. And these guys can do that. Even Astaire, who usually just had to look charming and graceful (and does that here, too; even without breaking into a dance step, he's by far the most graceful actor in the film), does the same, and got an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. (And probably for just being such a great Fred Astaire.)
The effects are--what's that overused word?--awesome, genuinely spectacular and convincing. There aren't a lot of opticals in the film; the tower is inserted into the San Francisco skyline effectively enough (and looks better on this Blu-ray disc than it did in the theater), miniatures are used throughout with great skill (mostly helicopters), and there are a few nearly flawless blue-screen shots. But mostly the effects are on-set and "real"--that is, you can't really fake fire. Stuff has to be really burning, and even though you know they used stunt personnel, those are real people running across the screen enveloped in fire.
The interior design is handsome and spectacular in a 1970s way; each room we see stretches across the Panavision screen, and is rich in colors of the period--oranges, dark yellows, earth tones, etc. The lobby of the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco, with its Things-to-Come look and glass elevators, is used for the lobby of the towering inferno, and the glass elevators become almost another set of characters.
This Blu-ray set is crammed with extras, most of which are actually worth watching. A featurette, "Inside the Tower," includes Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn, Susan Blakely, Susan Flanner, technical advisor Peter Lucarelli, production illustrator Joseph Musso and others. This is mostly about the other actors--everyone seems to have liked Holden--and is fun to watch. The short on the effects, including contemporary effects guy Mike Vezina, "Inferno" cinematographer Fred Koenkamp (who got an Oscar nomination), Musso again and, via archive footage, the late Irwin Allen, isn't very interesting, nor is the one on art direction, featuring input from what becomes the Usual Group, plus production illustrators Nikita Knatz and Dan Goozee. Another featurette, this one on Allen, includes (surprisingly) Roddy McDowall and Stella Stevens, as well as Blakely, Chamberlain, Vaughn and others again. There are also okay featurettes on the direction, "Putting Out the Fire" (technical fire stuff) and "Running on Fire" (stunts). There's a bad, boring documentary from an outside source on very tall buildings, and a very good one on Stirling Silliphant, which includes Don Kopaloff, the late Silliphant's long-time agent, fellow writer David Morell, Christopher Vogler, Stevenz, Goozee, Knatz and director Charles Matthau (son of Walter).
There's also a commentary track by critic Francis X. Feeney, and scene-specific commentary tracks on the effects and on the stunts; these, however, add very little to the information in the featurettes. Feeney is stuck with the thankless chore of talking steadily all the way through a movie that doesn't really benefit from a commentary track. One of the tracks does point out that the climax, involving the detonation of a million-gallon water tank complex above the penthouse, is almost ridiculously over-extended by the multiple repetitions of the same explosions, each time seen from the vantage point of other of other big stars, all lashed to sturdy supports. After this deluge, there's a shot of Astaire in a foot of water, temporarily pinned down by a light pole. Surely Hollywood could have found something more dignified for this icon of grace and elegance to do in one of his last movies than to just be a human prop.
You'd think that the soundtrack would be particularly spectacular, but that's not the case. It's reasonably good, but it wasn't a wowser in theaters, not is it of great interest here. Yes, the sound of the flames does wrap itself around you at times, but the interest remains on screen. And in terms of visual presentation, "The Towering Inferno" really does remain satisfyingly spectacular. No, there are really no characters; yes, most suspense scenes are obvious--but there is all that fire on all those great sets threatening all those attractive stars. And there's the big flood at the climax. All this is presented in crisp, detailed high definition, practically a showcase for Hollywood of the period. The colors are rich to the point of sumptuousness--you practically gasp when you see the vast, multi-level waiting area outside Newman's office. The colors are intense, the textures, including that orange shag carpet, are practically tactile. This is how we want great big Hollywood movies to look--like the world would be if everyone had a hell of a lot of money. As a drama, "The Towering Inferno" is of little interest; as a spectacle, it provides a satisfactory amount of pleasure.
Video quality: Very high. This was an expensive movie, and you can count the pennies spent.
Surround sound: Satisfactory but nothing special.
Actors: Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, Robert Wagner, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn.
Directors: John Guillermin, Irwin Allen
Writer: Stirling Silliphant
