The Towering Inferno (1974) – Review

When I picked out The Towering Inferno as a blindspot movie for this year, I didn’t know yet that this quote from Steve McQueen at the end of the movie, more than 40 years later, still is relevant with the events in Grenfell Tower earlier this year in the back of your mind. “You know, we were lucky tonight. Body count’s less than 200. You know, one of these days, you’re gonna kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps, and I’m gonna keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies until somebody asks us… how to build them.”

When the World Trade Center was being during the seventies it inspired a number of writers (Richard Martin Stern, Thomas N. Scortia en Frank M. Robinson) to write stories about the dangers of such high buildings in case of fire. It resulted in the books “The Tower” and “The Glass Inferno”. After the success of the disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure the studios wanted to make other ones and started looking for material they could adapt. Warner Bros bought the rights for The Tower, 20th Century Fox for The Glass Inferno. This would mean both studios would be releasing their own version of basically the same story. The studios decided to negotiate though, which resulted in the first cooperation between two big studios and the movie was filled with famous actors of the time, including Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, William Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire and Richard Chamberlain.

It’s the day of the official opening of The Glass Tower, a 138-story skyscraper in San Francisco. Architect Richard Chamberlain (Paul Newman) is also present and when there is a short-circuit somewhere, he suspects that through some cost saving the electric cabling isn’t according to specifications, which could lead to dangerous situations. When the opening ceremony is finished and all the lights are turned on in the building, it means a system overload and a fire erupts on the 81st floor. Those present for the opening are partying on the 135th floor and aren’t aware of what’s happening below them. The fire department, which is led by Michael O’Halloran (McQueen), tries to fight the fire and evacuate everyone in the building.

 The Towering Inferno follows your typical disaster movie story. A short introduction of the characters after which disaster strikes and you know not everyone will survive. It might not offer too many surprises, but it is a well-made film. The fire is a constant and realistic threat (as CGI didn’t exist yet) and the various characters end up in different dangerous situations. Staircases which fail, elevators that are about to crash and exciting rescue situations. Thanks to impressive miniatures and matte paintings it all looks impressive. A well-made title which offers exactly what you’d expect. In 1974 it was the highest grossing movie and the movie earned eight Oscar-nominations and received three awards. With the recent events in Grenfell Tower in the back of your mind you do watch this movie with mixed feelings, because this has been made for entertainment. It also shows, which is still through, that once a fire breaks out in a high-rise building that the fire department can’t do much in order to get it under control.