The Towering Inferno (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Angell]

I went over to Amazon last night and read several glowing reviews of the disc itself. Many of the reviewers were also fans of the movie, so I folded an ordered it. It was $10ish, if forget exactly.

 

[Vic Pardo]

I liked POSEIDON ADVENTURE a great deal back in the '70s. I first saw it on a double bill with THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. I don't remember when I last saw it. When I saw TITANIC in a theater in early 1998, I kept thinking back to how much better THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was.

I saw both THE TOWERING INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE when they came out and found them both ridiculous. I should probably see them again, chiefly for those great casts, but I have no idea how well they'll hold up.

I think the big difference is that POSEIDON was character-based, depending for its drama on how the characters reacted to the basic situation. The suspense was well-earned. INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE, on the other hand, were melodramas that kept upping the ante, contriving new dangers out of nowhere to artificially amp up the suspense and kill off expendable characters. I had no emotional investment in either film.

I love the old disaster movies, like SAN FRANCISCO (1936), THE GOOD EARTH (1937), THE HURRICANE (1937), IN OLD CHICAGO (1938) and THE RAINS CAME (1939), because they had detailed stories that built up to the disasters, all of which happened late in the film, so that we were invested in the characters by the time they were confronted with the disaster.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I went over to Amazon last night and read several glowing reviews of the disc itself. Many of the reviewers were also fans of the movie, so I folded an ordered it. It was $10ish, if forget exactly.

Glowing reviews of the Blu-ray? Really? I thought it was really meh!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Glowing reviews of the Blu-ray? Really? I thought it was really meh!

TBH, I never read your reviews.

 

[B-ROLL]

I liked POSEIDON ADVENTURE a great deal back in the '70s. I first saw it on a double bill with THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. I don't remember when I last saw it. When I saw TITANIC in a theater in early 1998, I kept thinking back to how much better THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was.

I saw both THE TOWERING INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE when they came out and found them both ridiculous. I should probably see them again, chiefly for those great casts, but I have no idea how well they'll hold up.

I think the big difference is that POSEIDON was character-based, depending for its drama on how the characters reacted to the basic situation. The suspense was well-earned. INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE, on the other hand, were melodramas that kept upping the ante, contriving new dangers out of nowhere to artificially amp up the suspense and kill off expendable characters. I had no emotional investment in either film.

I love the old disaster movies, like SAN FRANCISCO (1936), THE GOOD EARTH (1937), THE HURRICANE (1937), IN OLD CHICAGO (1938) and THE RAINS CAME (1939), because they had detailed stories that built up to the disasters, all of which happened late in the film, so that we were invested in the characters by the time they were confronted with the disaster.

I would add Deluge to that list...

the Kino blu-ray release is very good and I suspect will be part of their upcoming sale...

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I picked up Deluge recently - not on sale - and thought it was worth every penny. I reviewed it in more detail in my blind buy thread, but the long and short of it is that if you're a fan of disaster movies and you've never seen this one, you owe it to yourself to find a copy.

John Ford's The Hurricane, also from Kino, recently went out of print but might be available on eBay or on Amazon -- I enjoyed that one as well, and watching Deluge and The Hurricane on back-to-back nights was pretty fun.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I went over to Amazon last night and read several glowing reviews of the disc itself. Many of the reviewers were also fans of the movie, so I folded an ordered it. It was $10ish, if forget exactly.

I think the disc looked great. I need to revisit it on my OLED which I'll try to do in the near future.

 

[cinemiracle]

I liked POSEIDON ADVENTURE a great deal back in the '70s. I first saw it on a double bill with THE GREAT WHITE HOPE. I don't remember when I last saw it. When I saw TITANIC in a theater in early 1998, I kept thinking back to how much better THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was.

I saw both THE TOWERING INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE when they came out and found them both ridiculous. I should probably see them again, chiefly for those great casts, but I have no idea how well they'll hold up.

I think the big difference is that POSEIDON was character-based, depending for its drama on how the characters reacted to the basic situation. The suspense was well-earned. INFERNO and EARTHQUAKE, on the other hand, were melodramas that kept upping the ante, contriving new dangers out of nowhere to artificially amp up the suspense and kill off expendable characters. I had no emotional investment in either film.

I love the old disaster movies, like SAN FRANCISCO (1936), THE GOOD EARTH (1937), THE HURRICANE (1937), IN OLD CHICAGO (1938) and THE RAINS CAME (1939), because they had detailed stories that built up to the disasters, all of which happened late in the film, so that we were invested in the characters by the time they were confronted with the disaster.

THE GOOD EARTH a disaster movie ? Since when?

 

[Tino]

The Poseidon Adventure is my favorite of the big three. Especially since it is the first film I ever saw in a theater in 1972. Still vividly remember that screening at the State Theater in Jersey City.

Also loved seeing Earthquake in Sensurround two years later. Bad movie but lots of fun

Saw the Towering Inferno on video only and loved it. Would love to see that in a theater.

 

[Vic Pardo]

THE GOOD EARTH a disaster movie ? Since when?

A wave of locusts descends upon Paul Muni's farm and he and his family have to fight them off. It's quite spectacular.

 

[Robert Crawford]

A wave of locusts descends upon Paul Muni's farm and he and his family have to fight them off. It's quite spectacular.

Another film that reminds me of it is The Naked Jungle with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Another film that reminds me of it is The Naked Jungle with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker.

I like that movie. I remember having to tell my mother its wasn't a salacious film. "Charleton Heston is in it Ma, he doesn't make porno."

 

[Johnny Angell]

I went over to Amazon last night and read several glowing reviews of the disc itself. Many of the reviewers were also fans of the movie, so I folded an ordered it. It was $10ish, if forget exactly.

Jeez, I've got to start proofreading my posts.

 

[BarryR]

I saw it when still an impressionable 18 year old. I recall the screams as Sreve McQueen rode the top of a loosened elevator being carried by a helicopter. A fireman clinging to his hands. Everything first rate, far better than EARTHQUAKE.

 

[Bstee]

I waited for a couple of years hoping to get this on Vudu and just as I was ordering I found it was on Epix for free. I had not seen it in a couple of decades and had high hopes based on memory and it didn't let me down. It was a bit cheesy in places but it really was exactly what I wanted. It was not over the top CGI non-stop raging fire. There were more in the way of personal stories. I still remembered growing up (like other 7 years old In the theater) the scene with the white smoke under the door of the love nest and the regret for having turned off the phones. That always stuck with me.

 

[kevin_y]

In the 70s when the movie came out, I distinctly remember having seen color, Marvel-style comics that were published to promote the film. This was not some MAD comic spoof nor newspaper comic strip, but full-page, color, graphic-novel-style drawings that quite faithfully depicted scenes from the movie, such as a burning man staggering out of a burning elevator early in the movie. I was quite young then and I don't remember the length of comics, the publisher (maybe not Marvel) nor whether it was a stand-alone volume, part of another publication, nor how many volumes there were. But the odds are good that it was probably some bundled comic booklet included with some other merchandise, similar to today's video game special editions that sometimes come with comic books or what have you. Anyone remember any detail? I posted this question on IMDb a few years ago and someone did recall it and promised to look into it. But the IMDb boards shut down and I never heard from him again.

 

[kevin_y]

I waited for a couple of years hoping to get this on Vudu.

I own the Vudu version of "The Towering Inferno" and it has the wrong aspect ratio. The correct ratio is 2.55:1, but the Vudu version is cropped to 1.78:1. The Blu-ray, of course, has the correct ratio. It is not Vudu's fault because Vudu uses what the studios give them. I own hundreds of films on Vudu and there are quite a few issues like this. A lot of 1.85:1 films were cropped to 1.78:1 because the studio thought people wouldn't notice. "Fatal Attraction" was even cropped to 1.33:1 and was only recently corrected back to 1.78:1 (which isn't really correct since it should be 1.85:1). Other streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, etc., are probably filled with errors like these too. This is why Blu-ray is still the de facto standard for cinephiles. Blu-rays are for more discerning viewers so the studios must have their A game. Streaming is for the average viewers that comprise of too many people who don't know any better which studios can take advantage of. There are many sites that review Blu-ray picture and audio quality, but have you even seen one that does it for streaming videos? That's because the average viewers don't ask for that. Nobody asks because nobody cares. If the consumers care less, the studio will give them less, simple as that.

If you must have the Vudu streaming version, buy the Blu-ray first, then get the Vudu version for only $2 with its disc-to-digital service, then you have the best of both worlds. Only eligible Blu-rays are allowed. I got "Towering Inferno" on Vudu this way, so this is one of the eligible Blu-rays. In fact, most of my Vudu movies were bought this way. You can obtain the Vudu version by either scanning the UPC of the Blu-ray, or scan the Blu-ray disc with your PC's Blu-ray drive. Yes, you can rent discs from Netflix and get the Vudu versions this way too. That's why Vudu has a limit of 100 conversions per year only to prevent anyone from abusing this method.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

Fond memories of the MAD Magazine parody...

 

[kevin_y]

Hi Jonathan, the comics I saw were not the MAD spoofs, but a sort of dramatic recreation of the movie, drawn in color, and obviously quite rare, or I would have found it with Google. I just hope someone here had seen it. A popular movie like this back in those days must have lots of merchandise and memorabilia. There should be some collectors of those things.

 

[EricSchulz]

Hi Jonathan, the comics I saw were not the MAD spoofs, but a sort of dramatic recreation of the movie, drawn in color, and obviously quite rare, or I would have found it with Google. I just hope someone here had seen it. A popular movie like this back in those days must have lots of merchandise and memorabilia. There should be some collectors of those things.

Probably not what you are referring to, but a site devoted to the movie posted this (from Argentina, apparently).