The Towering Inferno

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Towering Inferno

Poster for the film with McQueen and Newman at the top, and the other stars at the bottom
Directed by John Guillermin
Irwin Allen (action sequences)
Produced by Irwin Allen
Written by Novel
Richard Martin Stern
Thomas N. Scortia
Frank M. Robinson
Screenplay:
Stirling Silliphant
Starring Steve McQueen
Paul Newman
Faye Dunaway
William Holden
Music by John Williams
Cinematography Fred J. Koenekamp
Editing by Carl Kress
Harold F. Kress
Distributed by USA:
20th Century Fox
International:
Warner Bros.
Release date(s) December 10, 1974
Running time 165 min.
Country Flag of the United States United States
Language English
Budget $14,000,000
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster film starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman and directed by John Guillermin. The film was 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.

Contents

[edit] Plot Summary

In the film, the Glass Tower, a new but poorly-constructed San Francisco skyscraper - at 1,800 feet and 138 stories the world's tallest - catches fire when an electrical panel on the 81st floor short-circuits on the night of its dedication. Firefighters battle the flames and make many daring attempts to rescue people trapped in the building. This includes a party of 300 dignitaries celebrating the building's dedication and becoming trapped in a restaurant on the 135th floor called the Promenade Room.

Stirling Silliphant, who 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 took seven main characters from each book and combined the plots 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 to the adjacent 110-story North Tower of the World Trade Center, and is only partially successful (more than a hundred partygoers die when fire overtakes the restaurant). In The Glass Inferno, a discarded cigarette sets the janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by helicopter and everyone left in the restaurant escapes. In The Towering Inferno, faulty wiring throughout the building is overloaded by the building's lights, causing a small fire in a utility room. It spreads rapidly, trapping 300 people in the Promenade Room. The remainder of the film is about rescuing the guests and follows many escape attempts and deaths. Rooftop escape by helicopter is abandoned when winds cause the first attempt to crash into the roof. Escape by breeches buoy to the roof of a neighbouring skyscraper, the fictional 102-story Peerless Building, has limited success and is thwarted by panicked guests fighting their way onto the single chair and falling to their deaths when the rope breaks under the weight. Despite near-disaster, 11 guests and a fireman get down in the exterior scenic elevator after an emergency rescue by the fire chief. With the spreading fire 15 minutes from the Promenade Room, a final plan is hatched to put out the approaching flames by blowing the million-gallon water tanks at the top of the building. Some people will die in the flood, but it offers the best chance of survival. In the climax, the fire chief (Steve McQueen) agrees to be dropped by helicopter onto the roof to meet the building's architect (Paul Newman) at the water tanks to set the plastic explosives. The fire chief, trained for explosives, instructs the architect how to set the charges. The two men quickly finish and retreat to the restaurant. Everyone ties themselves down to avoid being washed away by the water rushing from the destroyed tanks. The plan succeeds and the water puts out the fire. The fire chief and the architect survive, but the torrent of water claims several casualties.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Primary cast

[edit] Other

[edit] 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 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, Maureen McGovern was hired to sing the Oscar-winning love ballad, "We May Never Love Like This Again".

The movie was released the year the Sears Tower, the world's tallest building, opened in Chicago, and a year after the two World Trade Center skyscrapers — at that time, among the newest, tallest buildings in the world — opened in New York City. The screenplay may have been inspired by catastrophic fires in the Andraus Building in 1972 and the Joelma Building 1974, both in São Paulo, Brazil (citation needed). Both novels upon which this movie was based were inspired by construction of the World Trade Center towers and concerns over what would happen if fire broke out in a highrise 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.[citation needed])

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 features three glass-walled elevators identical to the glass-walled scenic elevator of the fictional Glass Tower. This lobby and the elevators also featured in 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 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 miniature fitted with propane gas jets for exterior fire scenes.

The Westin St. Francis hotel was the third and final location used for the ride aboard the scenic elevator. That small scene in the elevator shows the cast riding the elevator towards the Promenade Room. Once the elevator clears the wall in front of the windows of the elevator, the San Francisco skyline is visible and the Bay Bridge can be seen in its entirety.

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

McQueen, Newman, and Holden all tried to obtain top billing. Holden was refused as his star power was not considered in the league of McQueen and Newman. 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 top to bottom [1]. Technically, McQueen has top billing and is mentioned first in the film's trailers; however, at the end of the movie, as the cast's names roll from the bottom of the screen, Newman's name is fully visible first, something McQueen apparently didn't catch. 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. (McQueen ultimately passed on the part and was replaced by Robert Redford, who didn't enjoy McQueen's status and took second billing to Newman.) Today, 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.

In the DVD commentary, it is pointed out that because both McQueen and Newman were promised the same pay and identical number of lines of dialog, one actor had to go back to the studio to shoot additional scenes to bring number of lines of dialog the same for both.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Award wins

[edit] Award nominations

[edit] Production details

  • 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" (McQueen's words) was signed to take the architect's role. Enter Paul Newman, who became Doug Roberts as McQueen became Fire Chief Michael O'Hallorhan.
  • McQueen was reportedly stubborn about his wardrobe. McQueen did not like the helmets that the San Francisco Fire Department wore. He ordered that his white fire chief helmet be altered so it would look more attractive.[citation needed]
  • Robert Vaughn was upset over his low billing. In the shooting script, the part was 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.[citation needed]
  • Jennifer Jones' role of Mrs Mueller was originally offered to Olivia de Havilland.[citation needed]
  • The movie's opening credits include a dedication: "To those who give their lives so that others might live, to the firefighters of the world, this picture is gratefully dedicated" which was shown with San Francisco City Hall in the background.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links