The Towering Inferno

[quote] We just don't talk about it enough.

From November.

From August.

The film seems endless. Dunaway and Newman have no chemistry whatsoever in the opening scenes and it takes about 45 minutes for the action to actually get started.

From April 2023. 411 posts.

July 2021 thread. 602 posts.

Part 2 of the July 2021 thread.

To be tired of discussing this movie would be to be tired of life, the Thread Nazi notwithstanding.

Susan Flannery caught dead with a man.

Only in the movies kids.

Irwin Allen loved nasty gruesome deaths for his women. Susan Flannery and Jennifer Jones in Inferno...Stella Stevens in Poseidon...

And, Olivia Olivia de Havilland's acting reputation permanently destroyed in The Swarm.

Glossy disaster at its best. Amusing to recall the UN-type negotiations about billing status between McQueen and Newman.

It was a 4 way nightmare because Holden and Dunaway had over the title billing, too.

I love this poster...all the women are billed by their character's relationship to men...

"The Girlfriend"

"The Wife"

"The Widow"

Is that Orenthal James?

Why did Faye get head demoted?

[quote]We just don't talk about it enough.

I was going to comment on how often this movie is discussed but then I saw R1, R2, R4, R5, R6 had beaten me to it! And good.

YEEOUCH!

It's a long boring movie.

I am too, but I grew up at a time when things were “interesting” too, riots, wars that caused domestic strife. A corrupt president

It was a fun film-Fire-Faye and Shelia Matthew’s.

Flannery was willing to do anything to be in a moving picture-Even Robert Wagner.

The way they had Jennifer Jones bouncing and twirling off of the wall of the building after she fell out of the outside. elevator was so wrong.😂

^ That would be Susan Flannery, the biggest butchiest bull dyke in Hollywood.

Susan Blakely was an attractive woman and had a successful career as a fashion model. But, next to Faye Dunaway, she was chopped liver.

[quote]Or the fact that it was adapted two books

That has indeed been discussed, OP.

[quote]That would be Susan Flannery, the biggest butchiest bull dyke in Hollywood.

But Susan didn't look like a butch bull dyke in 1975. She does now, but in 1975, she was svelte.

Lots of handsome men in this movie, but Robert Wagner was the hottest to me.

[quote] The way they had Jennifer Jones bouncing and twirling off of the wall of the building after she fell out of the outside. elevator was so wrong.😂

They apparently weren't expecting that when they set up the model shot, but it was so expensive they didn't want to repeat doing it again.

It is the most memorable part if the entire movie.

I only cared that the CAT, Fred and Paul survived the inferno.

I LOVE the actress who did her audition for the Fame movie by doing "OJ Simpson waiting for the elevator" in The Towering Inferno.

Bobby Brady’s attempt to move into movies.

The dialogue sparkled!

James Duncan: Just how bad is it? Chief O'Hallorhan: It's a fire. All fires are bad.

Doug Roberts: Hey Dunc, if that fire was caused by kooky wiring, we could have fires breaking out everywhere.

Dan Bigelow: I'll be back, with the whole fire department.

SCTV takes on The Towering Inferno in a very special Movie of the Week.

Inferno does start to drag towards the end but there's stuff to like. McQueen is great here...he really anchors the film. Jennifer Jones is adorable; I wish she had done some more (and better) films in her Golden Years. I like the Mayor and his wife (Sheila Allen). Richard Chamberlain was fun as the cunty villain.

My favorite bad scene: the two stupid women who run towards the helicopter on the roof which somehow causes the helicopter to explode. And, the hardened cement blocking one of the fire doors that no one apparently noticed.

Oh, and my favorite line: McQueen asking if there are any ping pong ball factories in the building!

And, they really needed to punish William Holden more. They should have let him survive but killed his daughter. That, or had a deranged survivor shoot him for building such a deathtrap building. Maybe Fred Astaire could have pulled the trigger in revenge for the death of Lieslotte.

R24 But even back then Susan Flannery was still totally butch. It was ridiculous when they had JR Ewing chasing after this dyke.

Richard Chamberlain's eyebrows were given an evil shape.

I thought Susan looked lovely in Dallas.

R35 But Susan had a butch, domineering presence on Dallas too. Yes, she was attractive but JR always went for the girly types so I just wasn't buying him having the hots for her.

R26, I didn’t know that.

I thought Fred still was very good and gave a performance that was worthy of his best supporting actor nomination, especially in the scene when he found out about his girlfriend's death.

Why was the office a maze of stairs going upstairs and then downstairs and then upstairs again!?

With security guards like OK, who needs friends.

Because it's a real downer. They died in a towering inferno.

R36. What is your fascination with Sue Flannery's orientation?

Not Without My Ciggies!

Hot, young firemen -What's not to like?

I forgot Bobby Brady was in this!

I will say the special effects for this film hold up very well for it being created during 1974.

I loved those disaster movies when I was a kid. Posiden Adventure, Towering Inferno, Earthquake. Earthquake was the cheesiest of them all, but what people who were not around back then don't know is that they brought in huge concert speakers into every theater that it was showing at tied to the quake scenes so the seats actually rumbled with the low base sound. Some theaters even reported minor cosmetic damage.

Some of those old theaters had to close for structural repairs. Later reopened with drywall where the plaster frescoes and murals used to be,

In the early years of Bold and Beautiful, Susan was absolutely STUNNING and did not give off dyke vibes at all. She looks so much less attractive in The Towering Inferno. But around 2003 or so- Susan went into full bulldyke mode 2.0 and became Constance Ford meets The Rock meets NJ Teamster.

R48, you missed her on Days of Our Lives. Bold and the Beautiful came much later.

Butch? Dyke? You fellas just don't appreciate true femininity.

It's a shame that Joan Crawford finished her film career with Trog and just missed being in one of these films. I think she'd have loved doing it, loved being in a great big hit again, and would have delivered in the style required in the acting department.

This one and Airport are my two favorites of the 70s disaster genre. Airport and Inferno were actually nominated for Best Picture!

Did Paul Newman do all his own stunts? Because he was an agile climber if so.

R51, Joan was asked to be in Airport '77, but she declined. She hadn't been seen in public since 1974, and was probably not in the best of health. She died 2 months after the film's release. The part went to Olivia de Havilland.

Joan on Airport '77: "I wanted Joel McCrea to play opposite me, and anyway, they actually asked me to fly out there with only one week's notice. Why, that is hardly enough time for make-up tests or rehearsals, and when I asked about costume fittings, they said they wanted me to wear my own clothes."

I saw Airport as a boy at Radio City near the beginning of its run. I loved it. Little did I know it would become a monster hit that would become one of the most influential films of all time. Like Breathless. Only Breathless did not have Miss Helen Hayes. But it did have Jean Seberg!

There were relatively few special effects, R45. Those were the days of practical effects -sets were really set on fire. Actors donned special flame suits and got lit on fire. I miss those days. Acting in front of a green screen just isn't the same thing...

Wasn't Airport the one with the line where the Pilot asks a young boy if he's "ever seen a grown man naked?" You could never get away with that in a movie now a days.

Also great during that era where movies that showed male nudity more than woman like Porky's.

The film required yards and yards of pink chiffon in order to costume Sheila Matthews.

That movie made me want to live in a high-rise tower when I grew up. Now I actually do live in one, not that high of course. Every time we have our yearly fire drill, that movie runs through my head like clockwork. Don't take the elevators!! And don't go to the roof even though our has a helipad on top.

I thought it was pretty good, but it could have used a few throat slitting scenes.

Even in 1974, you would think any idiot would know not to take an elevator during a fire, R59.

Don’t ask me why but I think Faye looks just like JLo in the pic posted by OP.

As the twin towers burned, I was convinced this movie was running on CNN!

R56 That was Airplane! The spoof of the Airport movies. Starred Robert Hays, Julie Haggerty and Leslie Nielsen among others. Peter Graves plays the pilot who says the line to the little boy.

"Even in 1974, you would think any idiot would know not to take an elevator during a fire, "

Actually, back then it wasn't widely known, R61. Firefighters praised the film for pointing this out to people. Even today a lot of people still aren't clear on this.

Olivia de Havilland was offered the part of Lisolette, but she had prior personal commitments and declined. When TTI became a box office hit and nabbed Jennifer Jones a Golden Globe nomination and was a contender for an Oscar nom (but alas didn't get one), Miss de Havilland wondered if she had made a mistake. When the part in "Airport '77" came her way a few years later, she jumped on it like a duck on a june bug.

I wonder how our Olivia would've handled Miss Faye's tardiness.

One of my favorite movies. Allen outdid himself with this movie.