Rating: 2/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2017 | 13/52 | 70s Disaster
Stewart is a former college football player and engineer. His wife hates him so much she fakes suicide. He brings a signed football to a 10-year-old named Corry because Stewart put Corry’s dad on a project that got him killed. Corry’s mom, Denise, got a bit part in a movie, so Stewart runs lines with her and looks at her like fresh meat. He’s clearly cheating on his wife with this woman 20 years his junior.
A slight tremor in LA comes and goes, but it somehow affected the Mulholland Dam, as one of the caretakers drowned in an elevator shaft. The California Seismological Institute doesn’t see anything to be alarmed about, but a junior seismologist named Walter thinks otherwise. He believes LA is two days away from a major quake but wants confirmation on his numbers.
We also meet Officer Lew Slade, who the captain suspended for punching a fellow cop. Another small quake traps two scientists, burying some measuring thingamajig. Miles Quade, a pseudo-Evel Knievel, has a dangerous stunt setup. Just read the cast list; it’s endless. Thankfully, the filmmakers cut 30 more minutes of character setup to get to the actual movie. Walter receives confirmation of his numbers and warns the mayor. However, the mayor doesn’t want to worry people, so he only alerts the National Guard and the police.
Is Walter onto something? Or are we just wasting our time? Why not both? In case you thought Hollywood’s creative bankruptcy was a recent development, here’s a movie whose sole purpose is to capitalize on the success of Airport. Universal had a Mario Puzo screenplay, but they found it too expensive and shelved it. But while Fox got their cash-in out first with The Poseidon Adventure, Universal jumped back on this. While they beat The Towering Inferno to theaters, Inferno beat out Earthquake critically and financially.
Also, like so many movies these days, the cast is needlessly stacked to give the film legitimacy. Even Walter Matthau makes a cameo but demands to be credited as Walter Matuschanskaysky to avoid tarnishing his reputation. And, as you can see, these plots have nothing to do with the rest of the movie—they’re little melodramas meant to connect us to the characters without any consideration for themes or cohesion.
It isn’t until about an hour in that we get all the good set pieces as the 9.9-scale earthquake devastates the city. It all looks pretty great except for the elevator sequence, which freezes, and an animated splotch of blood shoots at the screen. A pane of glass falls on someone’s face—that scene made me squirm.
This film involved a significant number of injuries to the stunt people—falling concrete, falls from 60 feet, motorcycle crashes, concussions, and broken bones. The filmmakers claimed to take every precaution, but the facts speak for themselves. Worse still, the filmmakers didn’t use an elevator scene that injured several stunt people over multiple takes. Instead, we get the weird animated blood sequence.
If I’m being honest, my favorite aspect of this movie is Ava Gardner’s theatrics. She knows she’s in schlock and doesn’t give her performance the same labored levity as others.
The grocer obsessed with Rosa is the scariest part of this movie — he made my skin crawl.
I don’t think these disaster movies are for me, but lord knows I’ll keep trying.