The Towering Inferno

Rating:
Summary: Really Smoking
Review: Really Smoking

This is everything an overblown, Hollywood disaster movie should be. More stars than a room full of generals: Supernovas Paul Newman and Steve McQueen show their grit - without really having to act too much, while white dwarves Richard Chamberlain, Robert Wagner, William Holden, Faye Dunaway and 'ole twinkletoes' Fred Astaire try to escape a fiery fate. Another enjoyable feature is the pre-CG special effects. In light of the WTC disaster, however, itfs difficult to watch this without feeling a little like a morbid voyeur. But isnft that what all disaster movies are about? They make the rest of us feel better off than the poor suckers who couldnft get into the lifeboat or chose the wrong moment to be in a high building.

Rating:
Summary: Watch it for the Special Effects!
Review: I watched this movie as a kid, saw it in a movie theater the first time I watched it and I really liked it. since watching the movie again I still like it and I think the special effects are good and that Steve McQueen and Paul Newman did some fine acing but I do think the dialogue is sometimes a little cheesy and the plot a little uneven because there are just so many characters but the good special effects make up for the uneven plot!

Rating:
Summary: Burn, Baby, Burn
Review: "The Towering Inferno" is the movie that REALLY took us into the disaster movie craze. Now, I know that "The Poseidon Adventure" predates this one, and that most people would say that was the first disaster movie. But think about it: "PA" concerned a small knot of people engaged in one coherent effort, climbing up through the bowels of the capsized ship. They had one identifiable leader, were all characters that you cared about, and they faced all the crucial scenes together--more like "Journey to the Center of the Earth". "TL", however, had the cutting to different actors trapped in different scary scenes, the lack of cohesion in solving the problem that results in things getting worse before they get better, actors who let their stupid love problems get in the way of what they're trying to accompish, and even actors that you're glad die in the fire because they deserve to. Now, THAT's a disaster movie!

Yes, "The Towering Inferno" is a disaster movie, but I like it. I hated the villains, and I cheered on the "cool" heroes. And there are stars galore from every era and genre up to that time: Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Robert Vaughn, Richard Chamberlain, Fred Astaire, Jennifer Jones, Susan Blakely, OJ Simpson, and William Holden spring to mind most quickly. So you feel right at home, seeing old ballroom dancers, former spies, and reformed motorcycle guys join up with a football star to get the monster blaze under control. What's not to like?

Rating:
Summary: Action-packed.
Review: The world's tallest building is on fire-and it's a biggie, it's hard to be fought. The people inside the building are in a panic. Fire spreads everywhere-and the firefighters must get 300 people out of the building...Smell the tension. This movie was awesome. It's so realistic, so captivating. The action seaquences were great (Okay, they aren't better than "Backdraft"'s, but they're cool). The actors were great. Great story. Great suspence. Everything. If you want to see a great disaster movie-see "The Towering Inferno". I guarentee you, it'll be a blast.

Rating:
Summary: Got a match?
Review: Faulty wiring on the 81st floor ignites an inferno that traps partygoers on the 138th floor in Irwin Allen's second disaster epic. No real story to speak of, but the real star here is the fire, and the special effects are gripping with more shattering glass than any Walter Hill movie you've ever seen. All star cast includes Paul Newman as the building's architect and Steve McQueen as the battalion chief. O.J. Simpson is suitably cast as the security guard responsible for everyone's safety. A helluva ride, with enough raging fire and rushing water to delight disaster film fans. Paul Newman's late son Scott appears as a fireman. This was the last of the great 1970's disaster films.

Rating:
Summary: DISASTER FILM DELIGHT
Review: I just recently purchased this film in its restored, widescreen version and it is everything I remember about the movie when it first came to cinemas in the early 70s. The print has been gloriously restored and the sound is clear and understandable. The special effects are sometimes gruesome and mind-boggling at the same time. This is NOT a film for children, even if accompanied by adults - they will get frightened by some of the more gorey and firey ends of some of the residents of this hubristic building.All in all, it is a great movie to view with friends on a Saturday night with popcorn and a good bottle or four of California Merlot because they don't make movies like The Towering Inferno anymore. Very highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Weak Story, but the actors make up for part of it.
Review: If you like good acting, this film has plenty of it. I think Paul Newman and Steve McQueen pretty much carry the whole film, but many did complain that this movie showed people dying very horribly in fire, and I must agree with that. It was too much.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but scenes are overlong.
Review: Director John Guillerman deserves credit for keeping this movie on the rails.It contains one of the most overlong scenes in movie history,a scene where Paul Newman and others have to escape down a broken flight of stairs.Irwin Allen showed his lack of imagination by repeating this scene in the awful movie "when time ran out",but with a bridge instead(he also repeated a TI falling scene in "the swarm").This film has a good performance by Steve Mcqueen and Paul Newman who manage to save the story with some good action scenes in between the soap-opera drama.The special effects were very good for the time and the actual "minature" of the burning building was 110 feet tall.

Rating:
Summary: If only they were kidding
Review: I had never seen THE TOWERING INFERNO, and while I knew it didn't have a very high reputation, I thought I'd give it a try. After all, quite apart from several very good actors, the film boasts a first rate cinematographer (Fred Koenekamp) whose work I've previously admired. The director, John Guillermin, has made some interesting big budget films. At his best (in something like THE BLUE MAX), he is capable of elegance and sophistication. Producer Irwin Allen is a no talent, but his presence didn't prevent THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE from entertaining in a dumb-dumb, bad movie way, and I had similar low hopes for this film.

Forget it. The movie is every bit as shoddy as its reputation suggests, proving that sometimes even received wisdom can be right. The story's moral lesson that cheap construction can have disastrous consequences was apparently lost on Allen, who should, I think, be held chiefly responsible for this amazingly clunky bit of filmmaking. Or perhaps, given that a lot was, in fact, spent on the movie (not one, but two studios pooled their resources to complete this epic) INFERNO should be seen as an object lesson in how to get less than what you paid for.

Virtually every shot seems haphazard; the performers are, to say the least, wasted; the lighting makes every interior look like the set of a sitcom; even the graphic design testifies to the small minded mentality of the production. This may be an expensive, widescreen movie, but it feels like bad television, thoroughly puny in ambition, completely lacking imagination. It's too grindingly mediocre to entertain as Camp and you can't even call it "old-fashioned." Witless stolidity has never been in fashion.

I entertained myself inventing new dialogue for it. So when the fat wife of the mayor, who is still stuck at the top of the burning building, asks Faye Dunaway to tell him that she loves him before being carted off to the hospital, I imagined Dunaway replying "I'm sure he'll take great comfort in that, dear." Or, at the end, when architect Paul Newman turns to heroic fireman Steve McQueen to apologize, I thought something like this would be appropriate: Newman: "I don't know what to say." McQueen: "Skip it. Besides, what we had to go through is nothing compared to what you face." Newman (confused): "What do you mean?" McQueen: "The lawyers." Smiles, turns away, FADE OUT

We should be so lucky.

Rating:
Summary: Hollywood's Final Great Disaster Flick (and those gowns!)
Review: In her autobiography, Faye Dunaway complains that she (and her other big Hollywood pals like "Bill" Holden...) were just used for their names on the billboard, when the real star of this pic was the fire. Well, I remember seeing this movie in the theater with my parents and sister at age 7 -- my first PG rated movie -- and I was so dazzled I couldn't sleep that night. All those fabulous stars of the past and present in fabulous 1970s gowns, falling to their deaths ablaze. Susan Blakely on that tether being scared and fabulous, Faye in her faux Halston getting it on with Paul Newman in his office (can you believe that bedroom ?). Mike "Bobby Brady" Lookinland as the child hero. OJ Simpson as the handsome black man (we wont go there) And Fred Astaire gets the Shelly Winters oscar nod. And when Steve McQueen is informed he has to go in to blow the tanks, his profane response is so macho and sexy. And don't you miss when the Glass Tower wiggles at the very beginning (good old matte photography - this was 2 years before Star Wars, folks...) I don't know -- what is NOT to love in this movie? All I can say is, it changed my life as age 7 and had a profound effect on me, much as Airport 1975, Earthquake and Airport 1977 did -- all that cheese, all that hair, all those gals in danger. But this was the best of them. (For the record, Poseidon Adventure was in a class all its own - I don't think that was campy.)