Title: The Towering Inferno

Year: 1972

Director: Irwin Allen and John Guillermin

Reviewed By: Garrett Chaffin-Quiray 

Budgeted for some $14 million, much of it devoted to pyrotechnics, miniatures modeling, stunt work and star salaries, Irwin Allen and John Guillermin�s The Towering Inferno went on to earn some $48 million in domestic US rentals from a $116 million gross.  Despite this fantastic commercial success, or maybe in light of it, there are those who would minimize the film�s impact among other disaster movies, but especially The Poseidon Adventure (1972), with one correct assessment of the film�s purpose and one mistake in judging its result.

It goes without saying such films are all about stunts, special effects and spiraling disasters that minimize other cinematic elements like plausible plots, interesting characterization and strong literary design.  Yet these effects and design-heavy films are equally imbued with reflections of their socio-cultural moment while often times being filled with moments of unexpected pleasure.  Therefore The Towering Inferno is easily dismissed out-of-hand as being silly and exploitative but these same qualities make it a remarkable glimpse into the commercial mindset of Hollywood circa 1974 as well as being a record of negative achievement with regard to spiritually uplifting movie magic.

Perhaps stemming from its all-star cast headlined by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman with the secondary contributions of William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlan, Jennifer Jones, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Gregory Sierra and Dabney Coleman, among others, The Towering Inferno is both a prestige project in the classical Hollywood style and a crassly commercial pandering to the lowest, most marketable interests of a wide viewing public.  Serious above-the-line talents are put at its center with equal attention paid to the behind-the-scenes efforts of artisans like screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, composer John Williams and movie mogul-producer-turned-director Irwin Allen.  The result of this collected talent, ability, big budget and mass appeal is a project seemingly vouchsafed from the start as a brilliant, Titanic proportioned piece of art, or so James Cameron�s more modern disaster movie from 1997 would try and convince us in light of its equally striking, though empty-headed success.

Born in the wake of The Poseidon Adventure that set an early mark for portraying death, destruction and the connections of human greed to accidents of unimaginable size, The Towering Inferno was that rare bird of a movie based on strict studio collaboration.  The facts of the case suggest a symbiotic relationship between Warner Bros. and 20^th Century Fox, each of which had purchased the rights for separate books detailing disaster in high rise buildings.  Warner�s property was the $390,000 option on Richard Martin Stern�s novel The Tower while Fox�s was Thomas Scortia�s and Frank Robinson�s $400,000 option on their novel The Glass Inferno. 

In procurement costs alone the two studios paid nearly $800,000 within eight weeks of one another for projects with a similar theme, sense of humankind�s inevitable engineering failure and untapped audience appeal.  Very soon afterwards enlightened self-interest stepped in to the save theater chains and studio financiers alike from the inevitable quandary of exhibiting identical films.  Agreeing to terms each paid half the production expenses for the finished film, produced and co-directed by Fox�s Irwin Allen, and in return Fox earned all returns from the domestic box office while Warners looked to the rest of the world to recoup its nearly $7 million investment.

Silliphant was then hired to collect the two books into one seamless plot so he took seven characters from each novel and combined their respective climaxes.  The Tower�s rooftop-to-rooftop rescue line was used to build-up the film�s tension and The Glass Inferno�s exploding water tank was used to end Allen�s film with flood of fire, brimstone and water.  Further complicating the dicey proposition of studio collaboration and big budget spending, Allen�s production was also hampered by the requirements of one of its temperamental stars. 

Having originally pursued McQueen for the part of the building architect, he refused and demanded the role of fire chief instead.  When his demands were met Newman was hired opposite him as the other male lead with each of them contracted to earn some $1 million in salary along with 7.5% of the box office take.  Taking this need for equality to an extreme, McQueen demanded, and received, an identical number of lines of dialogue as Newman from Silliphant who was asked to massage and adapt not only two different source novels but also the vanity of two different stars.

The end result was a motion picture of truly epic proportions.  Laughably so with regard to the story portrayed on screen, The Towering Inferno is still a pleasant enough ride showcasing the Watergate-era signposts of corrupt leaders abutting then-current problems like urban renewal, widespread poverty, corporate globalization and the conflicting symbol of a skyscraper built for millions of dollars for arguably unclear purposes.

Opening with a helicopter shot over San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, Doug Roberts (Newman), the architect of a 140-story tall skyscraper erected preposterously enough in the midst of California�s earthquake country, arrives atop his greatest creation to attend opening night festivities.  His builder, James Duncan (Holden), welcomes him with aggressive offers to continue working since it�s known how Roberts is ready to retire from the game of corporate engineering to pursue more personal interests, chiefly Susan Franklin (Dunaway), a magazine editor on the rise.

Given that the skyscraper is a combination of commercial and residential spaces, various people are seen moving through the structure, admiring its sleek design and reveling in its modern marvels.  Monitoring the goings-on are a crack security staff and Roberts�s cronies of lower level architects and engineers, each fretting over structural details that will help ensure the building�s success.

Complicating matters is the building�s electrical wiring purchased below spec and for a savings by Duncan�s son-in-law, Roger Simmons (Chamberlain).  Forever on the take and nowhere faithful to his marriage or employer, Simmons used substandard materials and the result is a powder keg ready to blow.

Concerned there will be a conflagration, Roberts asks Duncan to cancel the event.  Fearing disgrace, however, Duncan wants proof of the problem so the party continues as planned with various luminaries in attendance including Senator Gary Parker (Vaughn), Mayor Robert Ramsay (Jack Collins), Simmons, Duncan, Susan and sundry civilians, nearly 300 altogether, including Duncan�s staff.

When a fire breaks out on the 80^th floor, only Roberts and Chief Security Guard Harry Jernigan (Simpson) respond to the problem but it�s already too late.  Their efforts are mostly palliative until the heavy hitters of the San Francisco fire department are called in so Fire Chief Michael O�Hallorhan (McQueen) can take charge, preserve life and try to control the disaster.

Subsequently a lot of people die, a number of subsidiary stories are wrapped up in the effort to leave the building safely and heroism is coalesced in the form of Roberts and O�Hallorhan who repeatedly seek danger to defeat the problem of bad electrical wiring.  Simmons is eventually made the bad guy, fire is treated with the abject terror and respect it deserves, numerous stunts are pulled to save lives and the inferno is brought to its knees once the building�s top-floor water tanks are blown up.

Tagged with the mystery, �The tallest building in the world is on fire.  You are there with 294 other guests... There�s no way down.  There�s no way out,� The Towering Inferno is possessed of enough intelligence to ignore its implausible setting and play up its undeniably fantastic spectacle.  Gone are real efforts to develop character since the all-star cast brings to bear their collective star personae on the film, but most notably Fred Astaire who received his one Academy Award nomination for acting in one of the film�s throwaway supporting roles.

Dedicated to the selfless service of fire department personnel, the movie is quickly turned from being a showcase of greed in the face of big-time city investments and becomes a series of set pieces designed to elicit �ooohs� and �aaahs.�  Never subtle in this effort, always raising the stakes of effects work and perpetually pushing the envelope of how many burning bodies are necessary to set up the finale, The Towering Inferno was a hit, a phenomenon and a touchstone for those willing to watch it in re-release and on home video or DVD.

In 1974 four recognized classics in the history of American films were nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award.  Heading the list was Francis Ford Coppola�s eventual winner, The Godfather Part II rising just above the generated excitement of Chinatown, The Conversation and Lenny although The Towering Inferno�s nominee as the fifth film of the year is something of an anomaly, if not a travesty of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science�s pretense to artistic integrity.

Allen�s film garnered its Oscar nod as the culmination of disaster films from the 1970s but also of effects movies more generally just then coming into vogue.  It not only achieved a now inexplicable level of critical recognition, but it very clearly turned on the public with an ever-increasing tale of misery, danger, fear and disaster of truly remarkable proportions.  That this fever pitch of destruction resonated with the public is undoubtedly connectable to racial strife, growing urban paranoia, Vietnam and a development explosion in movie effects technologies.  But it�s also got something to do with the campy quality of the film stemming from its utter seriousness of tone and sense of purpose celebrating the bravery of firefighters the world over.

Watching The Towering Inferno in the light of September 11^th and the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. lends Allen�s film not just its sense of willful innocence but also its �imagination of disaster�, to borrow a phrase from Susan Sontag.  The very fact that the film envisions the world�s tallest building as a vertical coffin for unknowing partygoers is just a smidgeon too close to the mark of art anticipating life.  What future viewers will be forced to contend with isn�t simply the campy, cheesy, altogether fanciful and unemotional scenery of The Towering Inferno.  Instead they will engage the way special effects-laden movies like this enjoyable title from 1974 anticipate the many disasters of lived human experience since so much of what films are about are our own worst nightmares come true.

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