There used to be one thing that came to mind after watching Irwin Allen's production of The Towering Inferno, which was "Goddamn! Isn't that the best disaster movie ever!?!" Which, at the time, it was. It plays the disaster movie playbook step by step setting up the victims (er, characters), locations, geography and root cause in the first 45 minutes. Then all hell breaks loose, slowly at first giving the audience hope that the hero can stop it in it's tracks before it gets out of hand. But despite our desire to see the good guys win, we secretly want everything to go to shit. Tension. Spectacle and big name stars plummeting to their death. Mint.
What also works to Towering Inferno's advantage is the fact that it's protagonists are proactive, not just reactive. Megastars Paul Newman and Steve McQueen (you see modern Hollywood, THAT's what you call star power) are constantly trying to out-think and out-maneuver the expanding fireball. That gives you hope which creates tension.
These days there's another thing that comes immediately to mind while watching Towering Inferno and it's the reason the film hasn't been aired on prime time in a decade. 9/11. There's no doubt when Steve McQueen's fire chief arrives and grumbles that it's impossible to effectively fight a fire over 7 stories high, you swell up with admiration for firemen the world over. And that's when you make the connection to those men that actually had to climb dozens of floors to fight a real, impossible blaze. When Susan Flannery takes a dive out of her office window to avoid the fire that's when your memory flashes to news report images of business men plummeting over 100 floors.
There's no doubt it's a brilliant, brilliant thriller with Oscar winning effects and a John Williams score that still holds up well today, but it's not the guilt free entertainment ride it once was.
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