TOWERING INFERNO, THE

(December 1974, U.S.)

Allow me to post what is undeniably considered the greatest of the 1970s disaster genre, THE TOWERING INFERNO, with a very personal story...

It was late November 1975, and it was the year my life underwent a dramatic change when I finally learned that my parents were not getting divorced, but actually already were divorced. Apparently, it was finalized back in September, and my younger brother and I learned about it for the first time from my father following the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. As might not be expected from a typical eight year-old child, my initial reaction was not a negative one. Realizing that my parents were constantly fighting and there was an ongoing environment of tension and hostility in the household, the only feeling I experienced was relief. I was just a child and all I could focus on, upon hearing the news, was that the fighting would end. Upon further reflection, I also realized that I'd spend my weekends with my father at his Manhattan apartment and that likely meant more fun, more leisure and more movies.

There was a small catch, however. He had a new girlfriend whom I shall call Mindy (because that's really her name). Just prior to Christmas, we arrived at his new apartment in Gramercy Park on Saturday morning to meet her for the first time. I was nervous, but going against the grain of how most children would traditionally react, I took to her almost immediately. She was pretty, fun-loving and high-spirited, which is exactly what a child needed when his own mother was experiencing her own personal feelings of bitterness following the divorce and, unfortunately, found its way into the home environment during the week with her. So as that day dragged closer to dusk and we were planning an evening of take-out food together, I stumbled upon something I’d never seen before. It was a guide, but not the traditional TV Guide I’d seen before. This was a mini booklet with a cover depicting the bright colors of red, orange and yellow. On the left side of the guide were the words ON AIR with December 1975 printed underneath it. On the right side of the guide were three letters I’d never seen before – HBO with the words Home Box Office printed underneath it. Underneath that was what really caught my attention and that was the movie title of a major blockbuster hit that was in theaters just one year before, THE TOWERING INFERNO. Here's what it looked like...

Inside the guide were numerous pictures and schedule listing of not just this movie, but many others. Wait a second – just what was this I was looking at? My father told me he was paying for an extra channel every month that showed movies without commercials, though he didn’t specifically identify his new service by the name HBO, but rather simply stated that he was paying for cable TV. HBO, cable TV, extra channel, I didn’t care what the proper name for it was. This was something new that I never knew existed before – the latest hit movies on television without commercials. My visitation weekends with my father and Mindy had just jumped up a considerable amount of points. For the first time, I was going to watch THE TOWERING INFERNO on television, uncut and uninterrupted. I'd heard of the movie a year ago simply by staring at the promo ads in the newspaper, which depicted the tall skyscraper engulfed in fire, so I didn’t need to guess what it was about. So, that evening, by the time 8 pm rolled around and the consumption of take-out fried chicken had been completed, we all sat in front of one of the most modern color televisions available at the time, ready to watch the movie.

Two and a half hours later, I was not only enlightened, but also just a little freaked out by what I’d just watched. Enlightened because this was the first disaster film I saw during an era when this particular genre gained widespread popularity with moviegoers ever since George Seaton’s film AIRPORT in 1970. It seemed I was just starting to understand what all the fuss was about because THE TOWERING INFERNO proved to be sheer excitement and intense drama for my movie tastes, limited as they still were at my age. Freaked out because watching a raging inferno in the world’s tallest building taking the lives of so many people is a frightening thing and because my father was a living in a rather tall apartment building. There was also a Christmas tree flashing in the corner of the living room. That night, I couldn’t remember if he’d unplugged the tree before retiring, but I do remember that idea of an electrical element like that running all night in an apartment building after having just watched THE TOWERING INFERNO didn’t sit right with me. I have the vaguest memory of waking up in the middle of the night and checking the living room. It would seem that childish paranoia and the power of the disaster motion picture took its toll on an eight year-old boy (thanks so much for doing that to me, Irwin Allen!).

Years later, in my high school teen years, the film actually inspired me to pursue architecture as a career because I'd convinced (actually, deluded) myself into believing that I could possibly conceive and design such a feat of construction. It also gave me a case of anxiety because as the architect of the film, Doug Roberts (played by the late, great Paul Newman) is not only an expert in his field, but in the field of every engineering department, as well, including mechanical and electrical. Geez, would I really have to know all that if I wanted to become an architect in real life? Well, speaking as one now, the answer is no. Architects know their profession, and engineers know theirs, and neither one of us are interested in becoming experts in the other's field.

All these years, THE TOWERING INFERNO continues to thrill and astound me as it did back in the '70s, as not only a technical achievement of action and dangerous thrills, but as a better story of the actual people behind the disaster. Whereas Universal Studios disaster films of that same year (EARTHQUAKE and AIRPORT 1975) featured acting performances about as shoddy and cheesy as the disasters themselves, Irwin Allen's great production provides dramatic characters with all their charms and their flaws that one can actually care about (hell, you even believe that Mike Lookinland, formerly Bobby Brady of THE BRADY BUNCH, had to potential to act beyond his infamous childhood TV role). In a way, I suppose I'm not too unlike the film itself when it comes to my memory of it...a personal story of people, as well as action. So again, thanks so much for doing that to me, Irwin Allen!

Favorite line or dialogue:

James Duncan: "We've got a fire, and if it was caused by anything you did, I'm going to hang you out to dry, and then I'm going to hang you!"