The Towering Inferno

The Towering Inferno is a 1974 American disaster film produced by Irwin Allen[4] featuring an ensemble cast led by Paul Newman[5][6][7] and Steve McQueen.[8] Directed by John Guillermin,[4] the film is a co-production between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., the first to be a joint venture by two major Hollywood studios. It was adapted by Stirling Silliphant[4] from a pair of novels, The Tower (1973) by Richard Martin Stern[9][10][11][12][13] and The Glass Inferno (1974) by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson.[10][11][12][13][14]

This article is about the film. For the band, see Towering Inferno (band). For the 1982 video game, see Towering Inferno (video game). For real life cases of fire in tall buildings, see Skyscraper fire.

The Towering Inferno
Theatrical release poster by John Berkey[1]
Directed byJohn Guillermin
Produced byIrwin Allen
Screenplay byStirling Silliphant
Based onThe Tower
by Richard Martin Stern
The Glass Inferno
by Thomas N. Scortia
& Frank M. Robinson
Starring
Music byJohn Williams
Cinematography
Edited byCarl Kress
Harold F. Kress
Production
company
Irwin Allen Productions
Distributed by20th Century Fox
(United States)
Warner Bros.
(International)
Release date
  • December 14, 1974 (1974-12-14)
Running time
165 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$14 million[2]
Box office$203.3 million[3]

The film earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture and was the highest-grossing film of 1974. The picture was nominated for eight Oscars in all, winning three. In addition to McQueen and Newman, the cast includes William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O. J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, Dabney Coleman and in her final role, Jennifer Jones.[4][10]

Plot

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for developer James Duncan (William Holden). The tower, 1,688 feet (515 m) tall and 138 stories, is the world's tallest building. During testing, an electrical short starts an undetected fire on the 81st floor just after another such short occurs in the main utility room. Upon learning this Roberts sees the wiring is inadequate and suspects that Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain), the electrical subcontractor and Duncan's son-in-law, cut corners. Roberts confronts Simmons, who feigns innocence.

During the dedication ceremony, chief of Public Relations Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) turns on all the tower's lights, but Roberts orders them shut off to reduce the load on the electrical system. Smoke is seen on the 81st floor, and the San Francisco Fire Department is summoned. Roberts and engineer Will Giddings (Norman Burton) go to the 81st floor, where Giddings is fatally burned pushing a guard away from the fire. Roberts reports the fire to Duncan, who is courting Senator Gary Parker (Robert Vaughn) for an urban renewal contract and refuses to order an evacuation.

SFFD Chief Michael O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) arrives and forces Duncan to evacuate the guests from the Promenade Room on the 135th floor. Simmons admits to Duncan that he cut corners to bring the project back under budget and suggests other subcontractors did likewise. Fire overtakes the express elevators, killing a group whose elevator stops on the engulfed 81st floor. Bigelow and his mistress Lorrie (Susan Flannery) are killed when fire traps them in the Duncan Enterprises offices on the 65th floor. Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones), a guest being wooed by con man Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire) rushes to the 87th floor to check on a deaf mother and her two children. Security Chief Jernigan (OJ Simpson) rescues the mother, but a ruptured gas line explodes and prevents Doug and the rest of the group from following. The explosion destroys the emergency stairs which they must traverse to reach an exit door leading to a service elevator which can take them to the 134th floor, below the Promenade Room. They await firemen sent to blow up hardened cement blocking access to it.

As firemen begin to bring the fire under control on floor 65 the electrical system fails, deactivating the passenger elevators; O'Hallorhan must rappel down the elevator shaft to safety.

An attempt at a helicopter rescue fails when high winds cause it to crash and set the roof ablaze. A Navy rescue team attach a breeches buoy between the Promenade Room and the roof of the adjacent 102 story Peerless Building, and rescue a number of guests, including Patty Simmons (Susan Blakely), Duncan's daughter. Roberts rigs a gravity brake on the scenic elevator, allowing one trip down for twelve people, including Roberts' fiancee Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway), Lisolette and the children saved earlier by her and Robert's efforts in the stairwell. An explosion near the 110th floor throws Lisolette from the elevator to her death and leaves the elevator hanging by a single cable, but O'Hallorhan rescues the elevator with a Navy helicopter.

As fire reaches the Promenade Room, a group of men led by Simmons attempts to commandeer the breeches buoy which is subsequently destroyed in an explosion, killing Simmons, Senator Parker and several other men. In a last-ditch strategy, O'Hallorhan and Roberts blow up water tanks atop the Tower with plastic explosives. Most of the remaining party-goers appear to survive as water rushes through the ruined building, extinguishing the flames, though it is clear many are not so lucky.

Harlee Claiborne, in shock upon hearing of Lisolette's death, is given her cat by Jernigan. Duncan consoles his grieving daughter and promises that such a tragic disaster will never happen again. Roberts accepts O'Hallorhan's offer of guidance on how to build a fire-safe skyscraper. O'Hallorhan drives away, exhausted.

Cast

Development

The books

In April 1973 it was announced that Warner Bros, whose then production chief was John Calley, paid $350,000 for the rights to Stern's The Tower, prior to that book's publication.[16][17] This amount was larger than originally reported - the book had been the subject of a bidding war between Warners, Fox and Columbia; Columbia dropped out when the price reached $200,000 and Warners offered $390,000. Irwin Allen, who just had a big success with a disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure was at Fox and persuaded that studio to make a higher offer when the book was sold to Warners.[18]

Eight weeks later Fox was submitted a novel The Glass Inferno which Allen says had "the same sort of characters, the same locale, the same story, the same conclusion." They bought the novel for a reported fee of $400,000.[18]

Irwin Allen was concerned that two films about a tall building on fire might cannibalize each other, remembering what happened in the 1960s when rival biopics about Jean Harlow and Oscar Wilde were released.[18] He convinced executives at both studios to join forces to make a single film on the subject. The studios issued a joint press release announcing the single film collaboration in October, 1973.[19] Stirling Sillphant, who had written The Poseidon Adventure, would write the script and Allen would produce.[20] It was decided to split costs equally between the studios, but the film would be made at Fox, where Allen was based. Fox would distribute in the US and Canada, and Warners outside those territories and have foreign and domestic television distribution rights. Incidents and character names were taken from both novels.[18]

The total cost for the film was US$14,300,000. [21]

Casting

Several actors who appeared in small roles, including John Crawford, Erik Nelson, Elizabeth Rogers, Ernie Orsatti, and Sheila Matthews, had previously appeared in The Poseidon Adventure, which Irwin Allen also produced. (Allen and Matthews were husband and wife.) Paul Newman's son Scott played the acrophobic fireman afraid to rappel down the elevator shaft.

McQueen and Newman

McQueen, Newman, and William Holden all wanted top billing. Holden was refused, his long-term standing as a box office draw having been eclipsed by both McQueen and Newman. To provide dual top billing, the credits were arranged diagonally, with McQueen lower left and Newman upper right. Thus, each appeared to have "first" billing depending on whether the credit was read left-to-right or top-to-bottom.[22] This was the first time this "staggered but equal" billing was used in a movie although it had been considered earlier for the same two actors regarding Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid until McQueen turned the Sundance Kid role down. McQueen is mentioned first in the film's trailers. In the cast list rolling from top to bottom at the film's end, however, McQueen and Newman's names were arranged diagonally as at the beginning; as a consequence, Newman's name is fully visible first there.

Both Newman and McQueen were paid $1 million.[23]

Fred Astaire

Although famed for his dancing and singing in musical movies, Fred Astaire received his only Oscar nomination for this film.[24] He also won both a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award for his performance.[25]

Shooting

Principal photography took place over 14 weeks. Guillermin says that Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were very good to work with and added a lot to their roles. [26]

Music

The score was composed and conducted by John Williams, orchestrated by Herbert W. Spencer and Al Woodbury, and recorded at the 20th Century Fox scoring stage on October 31 and November 4, 7 and 11, 1974. The original recording engineer was Ted Keep.

Source music in portions of the film includes instrumental versions of "Again" by Lionel Newman and Dorcas Cochran, "You Make Me Feel So Young" by Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon, and "The More I See You" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon.[27]

A snippet of a cue from Williams’ score to Cinderella Liberty titled 'Maggie Shoots Pool' is heard in a scene when William Holden's character converses on the phone with Paul Newman's character. It is not the recording on the soundtrack album but a newer arrangement recorded for The Towering Inferno. An extended version is heard, ostensibly as source music in a deleted theatrical scene sometimes shown as part of a longer scene from the TV broadcast version.

One of the most sought-after unreleased music cues from the film is the one where Williams provides low-key lounge music during a party prior to the announcement of a fire. O'Hallorhan orders Duncan to evacuate the party; the music becomes louder as Lisolette and Harlee are seen dancing and Duncan lectures son-in-law Roger. Titled "The Promenade Room" on the conductor's cue sheet, the track features a ragged ending as Duncan asks the house band to stop playing. Because of this, Film Score Monthly did not add this cue to the expanded soundtrack album.

The Academy Award-winning song "We May Never Love Like This Again" was composed by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn and performed by Maureen McGovern, who appears in a cameo as a lounge singer and on the score's soundtrack album, which features the film recording plus the commercially released single version. Additionally, the theme tune is interpolated into the film's underscore by Williams. The song's writers collaborated on "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure, an Oscar-winning song which was also recorded by McGovern, although hers was not the vocal used in that film.

The first release of portions of the score from The Towering Inferno was on Warner Bros. Records early in 1975 (Catalog No. BS-2840)

  1. "Main Title" (5:00)
  2. "An Architect's Dream" (3:28)
  3. "Lisolette And Harlee" (2:34)
  4. "Something For Susan" (2:42)
  5. "Trapped Lovers" (4:28)
  6. "We May Never Love Like This Again" – Kasha/Hirschhorn, performed by Maureen McGovern (2:11)
  7. "Susan And Doug" (2:30)
  8. "The Helicopter Explosion" (2:50)
  9. "Planting The Charges – And Finale" (10:17)

A near-complete release came on the Film Score Monthly label (FSM) on April 1, 2001 and was produced by Lukas Kendall and Nick Redman. FSM's was an almost completely expanded version remixed from album masters at Warner Bros. archives and the multi-track 35mm magnetic film stems at 20th Century Fox. Placed into chronological order and restoring action cues, it became one of the company's biggest sellers; only 4000 copies were pressed and it is now out of print.

Reports that this soundtrack and that of the film Earthquake (also composed by Williams) borrowed cues from each other are inaccurate. The version of "Main Title" on the FSM disc is the film version. It differs from the original soundtrack album version. There is a different balance of instruments in two spots, and in particular the snare drum is more prominent than the album version which also features additional cymbal work. Although the album was not a re-recording, the original LP tracks were recorded during the same sessions and several cues were combined. The film version sound was reportedly better than the quarter-inch WB two-track album master. Although some minor incidental cues were lost, some sonically 'damaged' cues – so called due to a deterioration of the surviving audio elements – are placed at the end of the disc's program time following the track "An Architect's Dream" which is used over the end credits sequence.[28]

  1. "Main Title" (5:01)
  2. "Something For Susan" (2:42)
  3. "Lisolette and Harlee" (2:35)
  4. "The Flame Ignites" (1:01)
  5. "More For Susan" (1:55)
  6. "Harlee Dressing" (1:37)
  7. "Let There Be Light" (:37)
  8. "Alone At Last" (:51)
  9. "We May Never Love Like This Again (Film Version)" – Maureen McGovern (2:04)
  10. "The First Victims" (3:24)
  11. "Not A Cigarette" (1:18)
  12. "Trapped Lovers" (4:44)
  13. "Doug's Fall/Piggy Back Ride" (2:18)
  14. "Lisolette's Descent" (3:07)
  15. "Down The Pipes/The Door Opens" (2:59)
  16. "Couples" (3:38)
  17. "Short Goodbyes" (2:26)
  18. "Helicopter Rescue" (3:07)
  19. "Passing The Word" (1:12)
  20. "Planting The Charges" (9:04)
  21. "Finale" (3:57)
  22. "An Architect's Dream" (3:28)
  23. "We May Never Love Like This Again (Album Version)" – Maureen McGovern (2:13)
  24. "The Morning After (Instrumental)" (2:07)
  25. "Susan And Doug (Album Track)" (2:33)
  26. "Departmental Pride and The Cat (Damaged)" (2:34)
  27. "Helicopter Explosion (Damaged)" (2:34)
  28. "Waking Up (Damaged)" (2:39)

Release

The Towering Inferno was released in theatres on December 14, 1974.

Home media

The film was initially released on DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on April 15, 2003, with a special edition released on May 9, 2006.[29]

Reception

Critical response

The Towering Inferno received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike upon its release, the film has an approval rating of 69% based on 32 reviews with an average rating of 6.62/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, The site's consensus states: "Although it is not consistently engaging enough to fully justify its towering runtime, The Towering Inferno is a blustery spectacle that executes its disaster premise with flair."[30] Metacritic gave the film a score of 69 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[31]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars and praised it as "the best of the mid-1970s wave of disaster films".[32] Variety praised the film as "one of the greatest disaster pictures made, a personal and professional triumph for producer Irwin Allen. The $14 million cost has yielded a truly magnificent production which complements but does not at all overwhelm a thoughtful personal drama."[33] Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film is "overwrought and silly in its personal drama, but the visual spectacle is first rate. You may not come out of the theater with any important ideas about American architecture or enterprise, but you will have had a vivid, completely safe nightmare."[34] Pauline Kael, writing for The New Yorker, panned the writing and characters as retreads from The Poseidon Adventure, and further wrote "What was left out this time was the hokey fun. When a picture has any kind of entertainment in it, viewers don't much care about credibility, but when it isn't entertaining we do. And when a turkey bores us and insults our intelligence for close to three hours, it shouldn't preen itself on its own morality."[35]

Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "a stunt and not a story. It's a technical achievement more concerned with special effects than with people. That's why our attitude toward the film's cardboard characters is: let 'em burn."[36]

Filmink called it "brilliant fun".[37]

Box office

The film was one of the biggest grossing films of 1975 with theatrical rentals of $48,838,000 in the United States and Canada.[38] In January 1976, it was claimed that the film had attained the highest foreign film rental for any film in its initial release with $43 million[39] and went on to earn $56 million.[40] When combined with the rentals from the United States and Canada, the worldwide rental is $104,838,000.

The film grossed $116 million in the United States and Canada[41] and $203 million worldwide.[3]

Awards and nominations
Award Category Recipient Result Ref.
Academy Awards Best Supporting Actor Fred Astaire Nominated [42][43]
Best Art Direction William J. Creber, Ward Preston, and Raphaël Bretton Nominated [42][43]
Best Original Song Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn for "We May Never Love Like This Again" Won [42][43]
Best Original Score John Williams Nominated [42][43]
Best Film Editing Carl Kress and Harold F. Kress Won [42][43]
Best Sound Theodore Soderberg and Herman Lewis Nominated [42][43]
Best Cinematography Fred J. Koenekamp & Joseph Biroc Won [42][43]
Best Picture Irwin Allen Nominated [42][43]
ACE Eddie Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic Carl Kress and Harold F. Kress Nominated [44]
BAFTA Best Music John Williams Won [45]
Best Production Design William J. Creber, Ward Preston, and Raphaël Bretton Nominated [46]
Best Cinematography Fred J. Koenekamp Nominated [47]
Best Supporting Actor Fred Astaire Won [48]
Golden Globe Award Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Fred Astaire Won [49]
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Jennifer Jones Nominated [49]
New Star of the Year – Actress Susan Flannery Won [49]
Best Screenplay Stirling Silliphant Nominated [49]
Best Original Song Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn for "We May Never Love Like This Again" Nominated [49]

See also

References
  1. "The Towering Inferno Movie Poster (#1 of 3)". www.impawards.com. Archived from the original on October 20, 2018. Retrieved October 20, 2018.
  2. "The Towering Inferno". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved August 28, 2011.
  3. "It Towers $203,336,412 (advertisement)". Variety. June 2, 1976. pp. 8–9.
  4. "The Towering Inferno". Turner Classic Movies. Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner). Archived from the original on November 22, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  5. Schleier 2009, p. 273.
  6. Mell 2005, p. 244.
  7. Itzkoff 2014, p. 82.
  8. Zimmerman, Dwight (2015). Steve McQueen: Full-Throttle Cool. Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International Publishers & Wholesalers. ISBN 978-0760347454.
  9. Stern, Richard Martin (1973). The Tower. Philadelphia: David McKay Publications. ISBN 978-0679503637.
  10. Green 2011, p. 190.
  11. Pollock 2013, p. 199.
  12. Santas et al. 2014, p. 522.
  13. Seger 1992, p. 88.
  14. Scortia, Thomas N.; Robinson, Frank M. (1974). The Glass Inferno (1st ed.). New York City: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385051477.
  15. "The Towering Inferno cast pictures". The Irwin Allen News Network. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
  16. Son of 'Seagull'?: Son of 'Seagull'? AFTER "GODSPELL" SELECTED SHORTS I DISMEMBER MAMA? By A. H. WEILER. New York Times 1 Apr 1973: 163.
  17. Movies Vie, in 6 Figures, for Best Sellers: A Homespun Pair Time-Proven Subjects By ERIC PACE. New York Times 11 July 1973: 47.
  18. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fire By ALJEAN HARMETZ. New York Times 18 Nov 1973: 157.
  19. Collins, Andrew (January 1, 2000). "The Towering Inferno". Empire. Archived from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved March 23, 2019.
  20. Major Firms Will Produce Film Jointly Los Angeles Times 10 Oct 1973: f15.
  21. "production". www.thetoweringinferno.info. Archived from the original on May 31, 2012. Retrieved May 30, 2017.
  22. "Art.com - Posters, Art Prints, Framed Art, and Wall Art Collection". www.art.com. Archived from the original on December 28, 2004. Retrieved November 26, 2004.
  23. Crisis King Casts Another Peril: Movies King of the Crises Casts Another Peril Warga, Wayne. Los Angeles Times 21 July 1974: t1.
  24. Higgins, Bill (July 12, 2018). "Hollywood Flashback: The Biggest Stars Battled a 'Towering Inferno' in 1974". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on March 28, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
  25. Levinson, Peter (2015). Puttin' On the Ritz: Fred Astaire and the Fine Art of Panache, A Biography. St. Martin's Press. pp. 371–372. ISBN 9781250091499.
  26. Goldman, Lowell (November 1990). "Lord of Disaster". Starlog. p. 60.
  27. Eldridge & Williams 2001, p. 13.
  28. Additional notes by Geoff Brown – Melbourne, Australia.
  29. The Towering Inferno. New York City: 20th Century Fox. ASIN 6305280762.
  30. "The Towering Inferno (1974)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on December 12, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  31. "The Towering Inferno Reviews". Metacritic.
  32. Ebert, Roger (January 1, 1974). "The Towering Inferno". RogerEbert.com. Chicago: Ebert Digit LLC. Archived from the original on February 11, 2017. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  33. Variety Staff (December 18, 1974). "Review: 'The Towering Inferno'". Variety. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
  34. Canby, Vincent (December 20, 1974). "'The Towering Inferno' First‐Rate Visual Spectacle". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
  35. Kael, Pauline (December 30, 1974). "A Magnetic Blur". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 3, 2018.
  36. Siskel, Gene (December 23, 1974). "'Towering Inferno': Campfire of the '70s?" Chicago Tribune. Section 3, p. 11.
  37. Vagg, Stephen (November 17, 2020). "John Guillermin: Action Man". Filmink.
  38. "All-Time Top Film Rentals". Variety. October 7, 1999. Archived from the original on October 7, 1999.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  39. "Advertisement in The Hollywood Reporter". The Hollywood Reporter. January 27, 1976.
  40. Pollock, Dale (May 9, 1979). "WB Adds To Its Record Collection". Daily Variety. p. 1.
  41. "The Towering Inferno". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on October 14, 2019. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
  42. "The 47th Academy Awards (1975) Nominees and Winners". Academy Awards. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  43. "The Official Academy Awards® Database". Academy Awards. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  44. Franks 2004, p. 242.
  45. "John Williams' BAFTA wins and nominations". British Academy Film Awards. (BAFTA)Piccadilly: British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Archived from the original on November 24, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  46. "BAFTA 1976: British Academy Film Awards (Movies from 1975)". FilmAffinity. Madrid. Archived from the original on November 24, 2016. Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  47. Derry 2009, p. 378.
  48. Levinson 2009, pp. 371–372.
  49. "Golden Globe Winners for the year 1974 held in 1975". Golden Globe Award. United States: Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2016.
  50. "DeepSoul: The Trammps - "Disco Inferno"". DeepSoul.com. Archived from the original on March 27, 2012. Retrieved June 3, 2012.

Sources
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