The Towering Inferno.

The fire chief (Steve McQueen) fights a blaze in a high rise,
with help from the building's architect (Paul Newman).

Release Date: Dec. 14, 1974. Running Time: 164 minutes. Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant. Based on: The Tower, by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno, by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. Producer: Irwin Allen. Director: John Guillermin.


THE PLOT:

The dedication of The Glass Tower is meant to be a crowning achievement for architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman). A 138-story high rise consisting of both apartments and offices, it stands as the tallest building in the world. It should also be one of the safest, as Doug's designs called for meticulous fire prevention measures.

Except... it isn't. An electrical short reveals wiring that, while meeting city code, is far below Doug's specifications. He confronts Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain), the electrical contractor and the son-in-law of building developer James Duncan (William Holden), but he gets no answers. As Duncan hosts the dedication party on the building's top floor, Doug insists on a thorough check of all systems, with mounting anxiety.

He has reason to fear the worst. A fire has already broken out in a utility closet on the 81st floor. By the time it is detected, it has grown out of control. It falls to Fire Chief Michael O'Halloran (Steve McQueen) to find a way to save the 300 party guests. And as various cut corners lead to safety systems failing one after another, it becomes all too apparent that time is running out...

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) discovers that the wiring falls short of his specifications...

CHARACTERS:

Chief O'Halloran: Early drafts of the script had the fire chief as a supporting character.  However, when Steve McQueen was offered the role of the architect, he preferred to play the fireman... at which point the role was considerably beefed up. This is to the film's benefit. Chief O'Halloran arrives at just shy of the 45 minute mark, bringing with him a mixture of expertise and absolute authority, and from that moment he becomes the movie's anchor.

He immediately demonstrates his expertise.  First he complains to Doug about the very existence of high rises, which make his and his men's work much more difficult and dangerous. Then he asks the security officer (O. J. Simpson) for a list of tenants.  The man initially balks at providing that information, so O'Halloran calmly demonstrates why he needs it: "Any wool or silk manufacturers? In a fire, wool and silk give off cyanide gas. Any sporting good manufacturers, like table-tennis balls? They give off toxic gases. Now, do you want me to keep going?". McQueen is terrific, and his best acting is actually nonverbal, his posture and expressions allowing just enough weariness through to make the chief into a human being. There's a shot near the end in which he stares at the bodybags now holding too many of his men. He doesn't say a word, doesn't even really physically react - but for just a second, he looks about 100 years old.

Doug Roberts: Gets more screen time and more direct characterization than O'Halloran. His investigation of the faulty wiring carries the first quarter or so of the movie, and time is also devoted to detailing his relationship with Faye Dunaway's character and his plans to move away from the city after the tower's grand opening. Despite this, and a good performance by Paul Newman, by the last reel he feels very much like a supporting character. Once the fire breaks out, he's mostly left to react to events, with O'Halloran being the one delivering actual solutions - which is probably why McQueen asked for the fire chief role in the first place.

James Duncan: William Holden invests dignity and sturdy presence as the developer. When Doug lays into him for the cut corners, Duncan strikes a defiant tone. "Any decisions that were made for the use of alternate building materials were made because I, as a builder, have a right to make those decisions!" But he quietly reams out his selfish son-in-law, who was the one who actually made the fateful call, telling him that once the crisis is over he will "hang (him) out to dry."

Roger Simmons: Richard Chamberlain has a field day as the resentful, alcoholic villain of the piece. While the rest of the cast perform with stalwart earnestness, Chamberlain goes gleefully over-the-top, missing no opportunity to play up every slimy tic and smirk his role enables. Early scenes see him sneering at first Newman, then Holden, practically daring them to try to hold him accountable for his choices. When the partygoers are randomly assigned numbered cards to mark their turn for rescue, he makes a show of tearing his up, declaring that he and his friends will go next. 

Susan Franklin: Faye Dunaway is Paul Newman's love interest and the movie's de facto female lead. An early scene tells us that she's ambitious, and that a career opportunity has put her and Doug's relationship in jeopardy. Which is a massively contrived conflict, given that Doug can be semi-retired in the city as easily as the country while she pursues her own dreams. That this is barely mentioned again is actually a blessing. Dunaway, a fine actress, is dull as dishwater in a nothing part, and the movie would frankly have been a lot better off without her.

Harlee Claiborne: Somehow, The Towering Inferno ended up being Fred Astaire's only Academy Award nomination. When I read and confirmed that, I was left flabbergasted.  Not that he isn't good: He's charming in his scenes with co-star Jennifer Jones, and he also gets a nice moment of gravity when he uses his jacket to try to save a burning man and then to cover the man's body. But there's nothing remarkable about either the role or the performance. I am glad Astaire has at least the one nomination on his resume... but his career featured vastly more interesting work than this (even discounting his musicals - which would be a mistake - his supporting turn in the bleak nuclear drama On the Beach springs to mind).

Lisolette Mueller: The movie's only memorable female role, Lisolette is tutor to the children of a deaf woman and Harlee's date to the party. She recognizes that he isn't the man he pretends to be, but she enjoys his company enough to pretend to believe him. When the fire breaks out, she rushes to the elevator to rescue her client and her children, and all of them are rescued by Doug. Despite her obvious fear, she emerges as a courageous and admirable woman, and Jones - in her last theatrical film - is very good throughout.

The blaze spreads faster than the firefighters can contain it.

THOUGHTS:

The disaster films of the 1970s were big hits with audiences for a while, but they were never particularly well-received by critics. The Towering Inferno stands as the one exception to that rule. Reviews were largely positive, with critics as impressed by audiences at the large-scale practical effects used to create both the high rise and the fire. The movie was a tremendous hit, and was even nominated as Best Picture (losing, quite rightly, to The Godfather, Part II).

The movie stands the test of time quite well. Despite its length, it's better paced than most of its contemporaries. Doug's investigation into the wiring creates an effective hook for the first part of the movie, which cuts between: Doug's mounting dread over the state of his building; Duncan's preparations for his grand party; and the fire, which begins small and unnoticed in a closet and grows just a little bit bigger every time we cut back to it. If anyone had noticed it in these early stages, it would have been easily extinguished. By the time it's grown enough for smoke to visibly billow from under the doorway, it has become a monster ready to feed.

Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant clearly did his research for this project. There's real conviction to the presentation of the firefighting efforts. I have no doubt there are inaccuracies.  Still, nothing stands out as obviously ridiculous; Chief O'Halloran's orders seem reasonable at every stage, and his efforts to fight the growing conflagration while also trying to rescue Duncan and his party guests feel convincing.

Key to the film's success are the action sequences, which are uniformly excellent. When an explosion obliterates the staircase they've been descending, Doug, Lisolette, and her two young students have to navigate down the wreckage to the floor below. It's a long set piece, but a genuinely tense one. Later, Chief O'Halloran and his men have to rappel down an elevator shaft. One of the younger men, clearly at his breaking point, protests that he's sure he will fall, prompting O'Halloran to make him go first so that if he falls he won't take anyone else with him. Later, O'Halloran desperately clutches the wrists of one of his men as they descend in an outdoor elevator, trying to keep hold until they've reached safety. There's probably at least one close call too many... but since all of these scenes are so gripping, it's impossible to complain about them.

Chief O'Halloran (Steve McQueen) is overwhelmed for a moment - but only for a moment.

THE NETWORK TELEVISION VERSION:

The Towering Inferno already runs fairly close to the 3-hour mark, so the television networks did not have to resort to the convoluted shenanigans of Airport '77 or The Concorde: Airport '79 to pad it out to fill two nights. About twenty minutes of deleted scenes were re-inserted. One addition actually mitigates a flaw. In the theatrical version, co-star Robert Wagner is only briefly in the film and only barely interacts with the main leads. The television version re-inserts a scene in which he talks William Holden's Duncan out of canceling the party in response to Doug's safety concerns. This was probably removed for pacing reasons - but without it, Wagner's presence is all but inexplicable, and so it likely should have been retained.

The rest of the additions are superfluous, largely showing why they were cut in the first place: Faye Dunaway and Susan Blakely talk about the men in their lives; the city's mayor makes a speech; various existing scenes are extended a bit too far. As is usually the case, the theatrical version is preferable to the television one.  Still, at least in this case the television version is recognizable as the same movie, and the extensions at least come from footage shot at the time rather than material cobbled together for television.

Before the crisis: The Glass Tower, with all 138 floors lit up.

OVERALL:

The Towering Inferno is probably the best of the wave of 1970s disaster films. The practical effects remain convincing and effective, and the action scenes are gripping. Most of the cast is excellent, with Steve McQueen in particularly good form, lending credibility to the usual disaster film theatrics.

Probably the best thing I can say about it? The movie runs roughly 2 hours 45 minutes. After the first 30 minutes or so, I was too gripped by the action to notice the time passing.


Overall Rating: 9/10.



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