MartinHafer Growing up, I was often subjected to Irwin Allen films because my father loved them. So, I was one of MANY people back in 1974 who saw this film in the theater. I didn't remember it all too well today (I was only 10 when I first saw it) but found it in a 4 pack of movies someone bought me....so I thought, what the heck...why not? However, I must tell you that most of the Irwin Allen films I've seen recently I didn't like...and I was expecting the same for "The Towering Inferno". Why do I say I am not a huge Irwin Allen film fan? Well, a few things he was known for I don't care for in movies....explosions and mayhem as well as many, many 'guest starring roles'...you know, when the film's budget seems to mostly be on getting as many big stars and has-beens to appear in it. This is why I am not a huge fan of "Airport" and its sequels as well as "Midway"...too many guests and not enough money spent on writing. "The Towering Inferno" has all of this...so it's definitely going to be a tough sell for me.The plot to the film is pretty simple. The world's tallest building is being dedicated but what the chief architect (Paul Newman) does not realize is that the boss' pusillanimous son-in-law (Richard Chamberlain) is a weasel but substituted the wiring in the specs with much cheaper wiring that makes the place a giant tinderbox. Only after a big gala party begins on the rooftop do they realize that the place is ablaze and a lotta folks are gonna die.For what it was, this film actually surprised me. Sure, there are some of the usual one-dimensional Irwin Allen characters but a few were pretty interesting and the film seemed to make the most out of the disaster genre. I especially appreciate its take on human nature, as many of the folks are simply selfish idiots! My only complaint is that MOST of the women in the film are simply there to scream and cry! Now I am NOT saying it's a great film...but if you have to watch a disaster flick, this is much better than most.

aaronhusar This was my favorite movie as a kid and will always be one of my all time favorites. Burning elevators, tall building, fire fighting. As entertaining as the movie is, the ending is always somber every time. The only thing I would've done different was have that greedy irresponsible Duncan die instead of conflicted scapegoat Roger Simmons. If he had to die it should've been during his attempt to climb the stairs, at least he wouldn't have been punched and almost thrown off 135 stories. I agree that a giant watertower on top was very unrealistic. That final explosion didn't collapse or even knock the roof off of the skyscraper.

mrb1980 Irwin Allen's 1970s disaster films followed a familiar and successful formula. First, characters and situations are introduced, with everything fine and everyone happy; second, a really bad disaster happens (ship capsizing, volcano erupting, fire in a high rise, a killer bee swarm); third, a plucky band of survivors tries to escape their predicament but usually lose several of their members to fairly gruesome deaths. "The Towering Inferno" naturally told a story about a fire in the world's tallest building. Have you ever noticed that these things never happen in two-story office buildings?The plot is, well, people stuck in a building as firefighters try to free them. There are lots of ways for people to die, including falling from great heights, being burned to death, being crushed by falling objects, dying in explosions, helicopters crashing, falling out of exterior elevators, and many others. The film has a sappy (but not happy) ending when the fire's finally out.The cast is superb, including Paul Newman as a heroic architect; Steve McQueen as a dedicated and brave fire department battalion chief; Richard Chamberlain as a slimy contractor who cuts corners on the building's electrical and fire systems; William Holden as the building's greedy developer; Susan Blakely as Holden's comely daughter; Faye Dunaway as Newman's girlfriend; Robert Vaughn as a senator; Fred Astaire as a con man; Jennifer Jones as a lonely widow; O.J. Simpson as the building's security officer; Dabney Coleman (unexpectedly) in a straight fire department role; Don Gordon as a fireman; Robert Wagner as the building's PIO, and many other familiar faces. Everyone looks pretty young now, 43 years later.The film is notable for Steve McQueen's fine performance before avoiding acting for several years. He passed away in 1980, only six years after the film was released. Newman and Holden's performances are one-dimensional but okay, and Richard Chamberlain is great as the film's despicable villain. Say what you like, but the movie's entertaining and it made lots of money. It's no great work of cinematic art, but who cares?

pyrocitor "They don't make 'em like they used to," the pundits grumble, but in case of The Towering Inferno, Hollywood would probably breathe a sigh of relief. In a completely obtuse feat of life-imitates-art, everything about the picture, like its titular tower, insisted on such grandiose proportions it threatened collapse. Too big for one studio to produce (for a sense of how unprecedented the Fox/WB co-production and merger of disaster yarns was, think how jaw-dropping the recent Sony/Marvel Studios sharing of Spider-Man was), the twin financiers pitted their smorgasbord of feuding stars against a bevy of life-threatening practical disaster effects throughout a running time so voluminous it's closer to Lawrence of Arabia than The Poseidon Adventure. And the ensuing picture? Well, it's hardly a neorealist account of architectural instability, but it's also impressively grounded in its fun for a film renowned for sounding so silly, and holds up as a film beneath its infamy. If ever there was a poignant reminder of the profound differences between contemporary blockbusters and those of the 1970s, The Towering Inferno is it. First, and inescapably, the film is looooooong, with a running time and pace sure to boggle contemporary attention spans. Still, while the film's running time may be bloated, the proceedings are anything but flabby, with each scene employed towards meticulous character and tension building, with ominous side comments regarding shirked safety standards stacking up until the inevitable blaze. And while the film's editing may not hammer home urgency to the extent we'd now expect, its careful cross-cutting does keep impressive track of the film's laundry list of subplots, with romances, trysts, and feuds brewing amidst the colourful cast desperately stewing inside their colossal firetrap. Could we had easily snipped out one to three of these vignettes, giving bladders worldwide a reprieve, and without anyone the wiser or even missing them? Sure, but part of the film's charm is the tender fastidiousness it lends each of its subjects, from guilt execs to flustered debutantes, to grim firefighters at work (and after the conditions they're subjected to here, the film's lavish dedication to working firefighters rings very true). Even a side character's cat, glimpsed in one scene, is given its due screen time, courtesy of O.J. Simpson's uber-professional head of security. We may only have limited time with each of our cast of characters, but the film's investment in their hopes and dreams does land us unexpectedly invested in their wellbeing, superficially or not. But how could the film's initial selling point as an effects extravaganza possibly hold up? Well, fairly well, actually. The set design is spectacular, concocting a gleaming behemoth of a building that feels simultaneously dauntingly vast and claustrophobic (you can imagine Die Hard's designers furiously scribbling notes throughout) - and doubly so when set on fire. It's here that the film's insistence on practical fire effects pays off - as the actors sweat and singe, we can practically feel the scorching heat radiating from the screen, as the catastrophic blaze is hugely convincing through being controlled, but hardly staged. And, granted, the film's stunts may pale in comparison to contemporary decades of ante-upping, but their smallness, combined with Irwin Allen's airtight direction, lends an air of verisimilitude. Instead of spectacle- for-spectacle's sake, our central set-pieces involve the minutiae of evacuation procedures and fire safety checklists to an almost procedural profiling extent, which is not only impressively engrossing (yes, really), but all the more liable to get viewers hooked by less audacious acrobatics. If anything, the inauspiciousness of the stunts makes them feel all the more uncomfortably believable - you would get stuck suspending yourself from a hanging pipe, hesitating before a five foot drop for fifteen minutes - which helps keep things sizzling with tension. Sure, a lot of the dialogue lays critical exposition on a bit thick ("We were supposed to have fire drills! But we never did!!"), and the rampant 1970s suspicion and scorn towards high-rises is simultaneously amusing and sobering, but the ineffable John Williams' sparkly score keeps things as a brisk and breezy adventure caper throughout, even as the stakes raise, and lives are lost(!) throughout. Fox and WB were wise to invest in their cabal of stars, as the almost incomparable cast employ their star personas towards instant characterization and audience investment, working wonders with skeletal build up. Paul Newman and Steve McQueen's respective craggy charisma work wonders in complimenting one another as guilt-ridden architect and cool, unflappable fire chief, and both work wonders in keeping a level-headed emotional centre amidst the flurry of characters and flames. William Holden's loquacious wit provides a welcomely sympathetic twist on the 'Mayor from Jaws/John Hammond from Jurassic Park' archetype, and while Faye Dunaway may be fairly underused as an anxious bystander for the most part, she sizzles in her few key scenes, particularly when exchanging adorably flirty banter with Newman. Richard Chamberlain is delightfully seedy as the resentful son-in-law contractor whose cut corners let to the fire, and Chamberlain carefully allows his character's pettiness to simmer without descending into moustache-twirling. Finally, Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones' bashful courting may occupy one of the film's more extraneous asides, but they're so effervescently lovable they're easily worth the extra sitting. In short (unlike anything else in the picture), The Towering Inferno's archaic indulgences may not live up to the self-important epics of old it styles itself after, particularly in never quite pushing the envelope cinematically enough for its looming disaster to instil more than cursory breathlessness. And yet, the charm holds. Tautly directed, superbly cast, and with indisputably quality set and effects, it's more adventure jaunt than disaster crisis, but worth it as such. This fire burns out quickly, but is sure to leave embers of affection glowing softly for years to come. -7/10