The Towering Inferno (film)

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The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster movie directed by John Guillermin, adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, and starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

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History

After the success of The Poseidon Adventure, Warner Brothers bought the rights to film The Tower for $390,000. Eight weeks later, Irwin Allen discovered The Glass Inferno and bought the rights for $400,000 for 20th Century Fox. In order to avoid having two similar films produced at the same time, the productions were combined, with a budget of $14 million (over $58 million adjusted for inflation 1974-2005). Each studio paid half of the production costs. In return, Fox was given the United States box office receipts, and Warner Brothers got the profits from the rest of the world. The movie's 57 sets and four complete camera crews established records for a single film on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. In addition, songstress Maureen McGovern, who had sung the theme from The Poseidon Adventure, was hired to sing the love song (both won Academy Awards); in the case of "Inferno", McGovern also made an on-screen cameo appearance.

The movie was released a year after the two World Trade Center skyscrapers—at that time, the newest, tallest buildings in the world—were opened in New York City. Both novels upon which this movie was based were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Center towers and concerns over what would happen if a fire broke out in a large tower. Although the two disasters were not alike (in particular, the fictional Glass Tower did not collapse), following the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, the film was often referred to by the media. (Coincidentally, principal photography on The Towering Inferno was completed on September 11, 1974.)

The atrium of San Francisco's Hyatt Regency Hotel (at 5 Embarcadero Center) was used as the lobby for the fictional Glass Tower. This hotel actually features three glass-walled elevators, identical to the glass-walled "Scenic Elevator" of the fictional Glass Tower. This lobby area and the elevators were also prominently featured in other films such as Mel Brooks' comedy High Anxiety, in the Charles Bronson spy thriller Telefon, and in Time After Time). Matching the Hyatt Regency, The Glass Tower does have three elevator tracks; in a deleted scene it is explained that cables for only one elevator had been installed at the time of the building's dedication.

The Bank of America building at 555 California Street in San Francisco was used to double for the outside facade and plaza of the Glass Tower. Utility areas of the immense Century City complex in Los Angeles (adjacent to the Twentieth Century Fox studios) stood in for the Glass Tower's security control room and water tank area. The Glass Tower itself was a matte painting in the opening shot, and an 80-foot tall "miniature" fitted with propane gas jets for exterior fire scenes.

There are many small parts in the movie played by actors who appeared in The Poseidon Adventure, which Irwin Allen also produced.

This was Jennifer Jones's last film; her role was originally offered to Olivia de Havilland, who turned it down.

This is the third and final film in which both Steve McQueen (Chief Michael O'Hallorhan) and Robert Vaughn (Senator Gary Parker) appear. The other two are The Magnificent Seven and Bullitt.

McQueen, Newman, and Holden all tried to obtain top billing; Holden was refused out of hand. However, to provide "dual" top billing and mollify McQueen, the credits were arranged diagonally, with McQueen at the lower left and Newman at the upper right. Thus, each actor appeared to have "top billing" depending on whether the poster was read from left to right or from top to bottom [1], though technically McQueen has "top billing," and he was mentioned first in the film's trailers, but at the end of the movie, the cast's names roll up from the bottom of the screen, with Newman's name appearing before McQueen's since the words are emerging from top to bottom. This was the first time that this type of "staggered but equal" billing had been used for a movie, although the same thing had been discussed for the same two actors several years earlier when McQueen was going to play the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but McQueen ultimately passed on the part and was replaced by Robert Redford, who didn't enjoy McQueen's status and would naturally take second billing to Newman. Today, this kind of billing is used frequently and it's become understood that whoever's name appears to the left has top billing, but this was by no means the case when The Towering Inferno was produced and the procedure was new.

Robert Vaughn was extremely upset over his rather low billing. In the shooting script, the part was much larger, but it was cut. Vaughn became upset, and stated that he wanted the character "killed off." Irwin Allen obliged, and Vaughn vowed never to do another movie with Allen.

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Primary cast

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Awards

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Award wins

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Award nominations

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the film, a new but poorly-constructed office / residential skyscraper called the Glass Tower in San Francisco — at 138 stories, the world's tallest — catches fire. Firefighters battle the flames and make many daring attempts to rescue people trapped in the building. This includes a party of 300 dignitaries who were celebrating the building's opening and become trapped in a restaurant on the 135th floor (called the Promenade Room).

Stirling Silliphant, who had won an Oscar for his adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, was asked to adapt The Tower and The Glass Inferno into a screenplay. Silliphant ultimately took seven main characters from each book and combined the plots of the two novels for the storyline. In The Tower, a bomb in the main utility room causes a power surge, which sets a janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by breeches buoy, and is only partially successful (more than a hundred partygoers die when fire overtakes the restaurant). In The Glass Inferno, a carelessly-discarded cigarette sets the janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by helicopter and is more successful (everyone left in the restaurant escapes by helicopter). In The Towering Inferno, a short-circuit during routine pre-dedication testing causes a power surge which sets a janitor's closet on the residential 81st floor on fire (a scenario closer to that of The Tower); escape by helicopter fails due to high winds and a rooftop crash, but escapes by breeches buoy to the roof of a neighboring 100-floor skyscraper — the fictional Peerless Building — and an exterior "Scenic Elevator" are more successful.

Initially, the fire chief's role was relatively minor — the architect was the lead and hero — and Ernest Borgnine (Detective Rogo in Allen's The Poseidon Adventure) was planned to be Fire Chief Mario Infantino to Steve McQueen's architect Doug Roberts. However, when McQueen signed on, he requested the fire chief's role, providing that the roles were made equal (including an equal number of lines and equal pay) and an actor of high caliber was signed to take the architect's role. Enter Paul Newman, who became Doug Roberts as McQueen became Fire Chief Michael O'Hallorhan.

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See also

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External links

ja:タワーリング・インフェルノ ru:Ад в поднебесье (фильм)

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