I remember seeing these with my folks on a Friday night when the base movie theatre was always full. People would laugh at the jokes and stand to cheer when something heroic happened. It felt like being a part of an event. I remember The Towering Inferno, King Kong and The Poseidon Adventure being experienced this way. Does anyone remember when movies where actual events?
You never saw films like these ones unless you went to the theatre or the drive-in. Today I just called it up on an Internet page and was watching it seconds later. It was easy to see why the film was so ground breaking in terms of special effect that always make it look like the actors are in physical danger.
I forgot how much balloon juice c-grade soap drama that one must get through before all the burning and rescuing and burning begins. Any character you spend more than ten minutes with is gonna die, I know that. It's the universal signal. Robert Vaughn can't burst into flames soon enough for me though.
At the end the movie becomes some kind of weird plea for not building building so high that nothing can be done in the case of fire. I am sure this film was directly responsible for actual real world fire safety regulations.
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6 comments:
Years ago I met Frank M. Robinson, the author of THE GLASS INFERNO, the book on which the movie was based. He is also an SF writer and was a really good guy to hang out with.
Was he a bit of a firebug?
I did see that youtube had this, but despite my love for the cast, the two and a half hour has me a bit put off since. I fear excessive padding and I don't know if a film like this can really hold up all these years for that long.
I remember when a movie audience would clap at the end of a particularly good movie. They don't do that anymore. I tried to get a round of applause going at the end of The Hobbit, but no dice. People today are unappreciative bastards.
Did you give them a dirty look when they didn't respond to you like Pavlov's dogs?
You bet.
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