The Towering Inferno is on Netflix Streaming
If you haven't seen it since it came out in the 70's when, like me you were a teen, er baby, um thought in your parents head you should check out what is arguably the penultimate disaster movie. I'll reprint what I wrote in an Amazon review many years ago:
"Architect Paul Newman and owner William Holden have just completed their crowning acheivement; the 138 story Glass Tower. Unbeknownst to them, baddy builder Richard Chamberlain skimped on the building specs. He wired the building with tinsel or something; as soon as someone plugs in a hair dryer, the fuses go pop (why do the put the fuse boxes in the room used to store the oily rags and paint cans? Why do they need oily rags and paint cans on the 86th floor? Is there an oily rag and paint can room on every floor, or do people have to share?) and the all-star barbeque begins."
A little harsh. Yes, the cheese factor is high (the sets I referred to as "Frank Lloyd Wrong") and to modern audiences some of the plot holes are pretty evident. But there are shots in this that in this post 9/11 world where we are more aware of the issues facing first responders can't help but resonate. Oddly the building itself it prescient: we don't have 138 stories of mixed use, but the idea of a tower that combines residential on a narrow top and offices on a wider base was way ahead of its time in the 70's.
It's a perfect popcorn movie for a rainy night like this one in LA.
Image: Wikipedia
