Encyclopedia
The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster film directed by John Guillermin, adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels
The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and
The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, and starring
Steve McQueen and
Paul Newman.
History
After the success of
The Poseidon Adventure,
Warner Brothers bought the rights to film
The Tower for $390,000. Eight weeks later, Irwin Allen discovered
The Glass Inferno and bought the rights for $400,000 for
20th Century Fox. In order to avoid having two similar films produced at the same time, the productions were combined, with a budget of $14 million . Each studio paid half of the production costs. In return, Fox was given the
United States box office receipts, and Warner Brothers got the profits from the rest of the world. The movie's 57 sets and four complete camera crews established records for a single film on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. In addition, songstress
Maureen McGovern, who had sung the theme from
The Poseidon Adventure, was hired to sing the love song ; in the case of "Inferno", McGovern also made an on-screen cameo appearance.
The movie was released a year after the two
World Trade Center skyscrapers — at that time, the newest,
tallest buildings in the world — were opened in
New York City. It may have been inspired by the catastrophic fires in Andraus Building and Joelma Building in São Paulo, Brazil. Both novels upon which this movie was based were inspired by the construction of the World Trade Center towers and concerns over what would happen if a fire broke out in a large tower. Although the two disasters were not alike , following the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, the film was often referred to by the media.
The atrium of San Francisco's
Hyatt Regency Hotel was used as the lobby for the fictional Glass Tower. This hotel actually features three glass-walled elevators, identical to the glass-walled "Scenic Elevator" of the fictional Glass Tower. This lobby area and the elevators were also prominently featured in other films such as
Mel Brooks' comedy
High Anxiety, in the
Charles Bronson spy thriller
Telefon is a 1975 novel [i] by Walter Wager [i] with a mind control [i] theme. ...
, and in
Time After Time. Matching the Hyatt Regency, The Glass Tower does have three elevator tracks; in a deleted scene it is explained that cables for only one elevator had been installed at the time of the building's dedication.
The Bank of America building at 555 California Street in San Francisco was used to double for the outside facade and plaza of the Glass Tower. Utility areas of the immense
Century City complex in Los Angeles stood in for the Glass Tower's security control room and water tank area. The Glass Tower itself was a matte painting in the opening shot, and an 80-foot tall "miniature" fitted with propane gas jets for exterior fire scenes.
There are many small parts in the movie played by actors who appeared in
The Poseidon Adventure, which Irwin Allen also produced.
This was Jennifer Jones' last film; her role was originally offered to
Olivia de Havilland, who turned it down.
This is the third and final film in which both
Steve McQueen and
Robert Vaughn appear. The other two are
The Magnificent Seven and
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.
McQueen, Newman, and Holden all tried to obtain top billing. Holden was refused out of hand, as his "star power" was not considered to be in the same league as McQueen and Newman. To provide "dual" top billing and mollify McQueen, the credits were arranged diagonally, with McQueen at the lower left and Newman at the upper right. Thus, each actor appeared to have "top billing" depending on whether the poster was read from left to right or from top to bottom . Technically, McQueen has "top billing" and is mentioned first in the film's trailers; however, at the end of the movie, as the cast's names roll up from the bottom of the screen, Newman's name is visible first. This was the first time that this type of "staggered but equal" billing had been used for a movie, although the same thing had been discussed for the same two actors several years earlier when McQueen was going to play the Sundance Kid in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Today, this kind of billing is used frequently and it's become understood that whoever's name appears to the left has top billing, but this was by no means the case when
The Towering Inferno was produced and the procedure was new.
Dabney Coleman makes a brief appearance in the film as a naval officer who proposes a potentially deadly solution. Coleman's character is seen in the film's third act as he discusses this idea with
Steve McQueen.
Robert Vaughn was extremely upset over his rather low billing. In the shooting script, the part was much larger, but it was cut. Vaughn became upset, and stated that he wanted the character "killed off." Irwin Allen obliged, and Vaughn vowed never to do another movie with Allen.
In a plot device that mirrors that of Shelley Winters' death in
The Poseidon Adventure, Jennifer Jones' character, Lisolette Mueller dies after saving two young children from the fire. Her death, falling out of the scenic elevator, is perhaps, one of the most memorable scenes of the film. It is certainly the most chilling.
Primary cast
...
: Patty Simmons
...
: Lorrie
Paul Newman's son Scott, who died in 1978, played the role of the young acrophobic fireman.
Awards
Award wins
Award nominations
Plot summary
In the film, the Glass Tower, a new but poorly-constructed
San Francisco skyscraper - at 1,800 feet and 138 stories, also the world's tallest - catches fire on the night of its dedication.
Firefighters battle the flames and make many daring attempts to rescue people trapped in the building. This includes a party of 300 dignitaries who were celebrating the building's dedication and became trapped in a restaurant on the 135th floor .
Stirling Silliphant, who had won an
Oscar for his adaptation of
In the Heat of the Night, was asked to adapt
The Tower and
The Glass Inferno into a screenplay. Silliphant ultimately took seven main characters from each book and combined the plots of the two novels for the storyline. In
The Tower, a bomb in the main utility room causes a power surge, which sets a janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by
breeches buoy to the North Tower of the
World Trade Center, and is only partially successful . In
The Glass Inferno, a carelessly-discarded cigarette sets the janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by helicopter and is more successful . In
The Towering Inferno, a short-circuit during routine pre-dedication testing causes a power surge which sets a janitor's closet on the residential 81st floor on fire ; escape by helicopter fails due to high winds and a rooftop crash , but escapes by breeches buoy to the roof of a neighboring skyscraper and by an exterior "Scenic Elevator" are more successful.
Initially, the fire chief's role was relatively minor — the architect was the lead and hero — and
Ernest Borgnine was planned to be Fire Chief Mario Infantino to Steve McQueen's architect Doug Roberts. However, when McQueen signed on, he requested the fire chief's role, providing that the roles were made equal - including an equal number of lines and equal pay - and "an actor of high caliber" was signed to take the architect's role. Enter Paul Newman, who became Doug Roberts as McQueen became Fire Chief Michael O'Hallorhan.
See also
External links
-
- - features a 3D Glass Tower simulation
- at The-Trades.com
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