The Basic Plot in Five Words or Less: Big glass building's on fire.

My Basic Ramblings: This is another one of those star-filled disaster flicks, going along with The Poseidon Adventure, Airport, Earthquake, and Titanic. (Oh, did I say that?  How could I?! It was such a wonderful movie, with such a strong script!)

The movie starts almost immediately with the fire; bang pop spark and there's a fire on the 86th floor of this 135-story building, the tallest in the world.  No waiting around for two and a half hours for an iceberg to pop up; not here. It's all Richard Chamberlain's fault; he put in crappy wiring. Blame Richard Chamberlain!  That's going to be my excuse for everything in life now. ("Doug, I'm really sorry I didn't get to finish those documents for the $2 million dollar closing you had - it was Richard Chamberlain's fault." "That's okay, Whitney, I understand.")

Most of the action involves all the rich people on the Party Floor, people like Faye Dunaway and Fred Astaire and countless extras who probably were big in the 70's. But there are other people, too, like O.J. Simpson (as Chief of Wife and Waiter Stabbing -- I mean, Security) and Steve McQueen (as the Fire Chief) and Paul Newman (as the building's architect) run around and try to save all the people in the building from evil burny deaths. For the most part, they're successful (Mike  Lookinland is saved, only to go on to have DWI convictions in Arizona as an adult) but there are some spectacular failures. (Robert Wagner, the chick who was Fred Astaire's date, to name two)

Why is it that whenever you go to an elevator, there's always a big (well, not necessarily big, but it's there) sign that reads "IN CASE OF FIRE, DO NOT USE ELEVATOR! USE STAIRS!" Everyone in this movie used the elevator, and if they tried to use the stairs, there were big explosions that rocketed up and mangled the railings and all that. And no one stopped, dropped and rolled!  They kinda lay there, waiting to die, so someone could throw a jacket on them.

What Steve and Paul really want to do is land some helicopters on the roof and airlift people out to safety. Fine, fair, a good idea. They have some problems at first, because the wind at that height is really whippin' along, but evenutally it calms down enough that they decide to land.  They pull together a group of women, lead them up to the roof, where Paul tells them not to move until he says it's okay.

So what do two of them do?  They run out onto the landing area, shrieking and waving their arms.  The helicopter pilot doesn't want to hit them (because he's, well, intelligent) so he swerves out of the way, the blades hit the wall, helicopter goes boom, everyone on the helicopter dies. If I were in charge up there, if I were Paul Newman right then and there, those two hideous excuses for women would have been drop-kicked right off the top of the building. I mean, they live, and Fred Astaire's date, who saved Mike Lookinland and his sister, falls from the scenic elevator and dies. Where's the justice in that? Right there, we learn: life isn't fair.  Or, rather, death isn't fair. Fires aren't fair.  Whatever.

Anyway, this movie is another example of "Disaster Movie Wins Oscar for Best Song", for "We May Never Love Like This Again (Because We're Going to Die Horrible Burny Deaths)". Maybe, maybe, maybe, (we can hope and pray) that Titanic will follow suit, and win for Celine Dion's stunning rendition of "My Heart Will Go On (And On About How Wonderful This Movie Was Because I'm A Stereotypical 16-Year Old Girl and I Have Money To Burn and No Financial Responsibilities So I've Seen This Movie Eighteen Times and I Can Quote The Entire Script By Heart and I Wouldn't Like A Movie Like L.A. Confidential Because It's Too Complicated For My Little Brain [And Besides, I Saw The Commercial For It and The Guys in It Are So Ugly] and Leonardo DiCaprio's So Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamy)" and that's all that it will win. (Towering Inferno was nominated for Best Picture, after all.)

All Titanic-bashing aside (and some day I will outgrow it, though I can tell you right now if it wins Best Picture this entire site will go down in protest for one day), The Towering Inferno was a pretty intense movie. Something I wouldn't want to go through without a water gun.

Useless Little Trivia Bitlets: (A New Feature!)  Steve McQueen insisted that he have the same number of lines as Paul Newman.

On movie posters, they have "diagonal billing", which means that if you read the poster from top to bottom, you'd read, say, Paul Newman's name first, but if you read the poster from left to right, you'd read Steve McQueen's name first.

The movie was based on two "burning building" novels; The Glass Inferno and The Tower. Characters from both novels were incorporated into the movie, and each novel provided part of the escape process (the Wacky Burning Chair Ride and the flooding of the observation room).

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