The Towering Inferno
Poster for the film with McQueen and Newman at the top, and the other stars at the bottom
Directed by	John Guillermin Irwin Allen (action sequences)
Produced by	Irwin Allen
Written by	Novel Richard Martin Stern Thomas N. Scortia Frank M. Robinson Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant
Starring	Steve McQueen Paul Newman William Holden Faye Dunaway Fred Astaire Susan Blakely Richard Chamberlain Jennifer Jones O.J. Simpson Robert Vaughn Robert Wagner
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Fred J. Koenekamp, ASC
Editing by	Carl Kress Harold F. Kress
Distributed by	USA: 20th Century Fox International: Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	December 14, 1974
Running time	165 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14,000,000
Gross revenue	$116,000,000

The Towering Inferno is a 1974 disaster film produced by Irwin Allen featuring an all-star cast led by Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. The film was adapted by Stirling Silliphant from the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson, and was directed by John Guillermin, with Allen himself directing the action sequences.

[edit] Plot summary

Architect Doug Roberts (Paul Newman) arrives from a vacation for the dedication of the newly completed Glass Tower (which he designed) in San Francisco. At 138 stories, the skyscraper is the tallest building in the world and a dedication party is planned. Upon his arrival by helicopter, he meets building financier Jim Duncan (William Holden). Duncan reveals his plans for additional skyscrapers across the U.S., but Roberts wants to focus instead on building communities in rural areas, which causes friction with his girlfriend Susan Franklin (Faye Dunaway) who has been given a major promotion for the magazine she works for and wants to stay in the city. During a romantic rendezvous between Roberts and Susan, building technicians in the main utility room conduct a routine check of the building's electrical systems. During the check, a circuit breaker unexpectedly shorts out and sends a power surge up into the building, culminating in the building's relay system breaker shorting out in a storage room on the 81st floor, causing a small fire that stays contained and unnoticed due to a combination of a lack of accelerants and the shortcomings of the building's security systems. Roberts is notified and presents a scorched wire from the utility room breaker to Duncan, who is baffled by the flare-up. Roberts goes to confront chief electrical engineer and Duncan's son-in-law Roger Simmons (Richard Chamberlain) over the flare-up. During a tense meeting with Roberts at Simmons' house, Simmons pleads ignorance and insists to Roberts that the building is up to code standards but does not admit to changing Roberts' specifications. Roberts is skeptical of the building's electrical system and demands Simmons bring the specifications to his office the next day and heads back to the building.

At the building's dedication ceremony, the building's Public Relations chief Dan Bigelow (Robert Wagner) orders all of the building's Tower exterior lights turned on to impress the visiting dignitaries and partygoers. Instead of attending the dedication ceremony Roberts and his assistant Will Giddings (Norman Burton) set about checking the building's various electrical systems looking for deviations from Roberts' specifications. When Roberts calls the main utility room to report a possible problem on the 83rd floor he is informed that the Tower lights have been activated, expediting a massive overload of the building's electrical system. Roberts assumes responsibilty and orders the lights shut off, then heads to the 81st floor with Giddings to check the electrical relay system, fearing the overload put immense strain on the system. As they arrive on the 81st floor, security discovers smoke emanating from the storage room where the relay system is located. The alarm is sounded and the fire department is notified. Giddings pushes a security guard out of the way when he opens the door, revealing the fire, which thanks to the activation of the Tower lights has now engulfed the entire room. Giddings suffers severe burns over most of his body and eventually dies. Roberts then tells Duncan about the fire, warning him that the faulty electrical system will cause fires to break out all over the building, but he dismisses the warnings and permits the party to continue, stating that a fire on the 81st floor cannot possibly spread throughout the building.

The firefighters arrive, but Battalion Chief Michael O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen) warns that the building is too high for his men to fight it effectively from the outside. O'Hallorhan heads to the 135th floor Promenade Room and orders Duncan to begin evacuating the guests, and Duncan reluctantly agrees. Simmons reveals to Duncan that he did indeed change Roberts' specifications, but at Duncan's behest to stay under budget as the building's construction costs were rapidly increasing. As the department struggles to fight the spreading fire from inside, the 300 party guests in the Promenade Room become trapped. The express elevators are rendered useless, as one stops on the 81st floor and its passengers are incinerated by the flames when its doors open. Roberts and Security Chief Harry Jernigan (O.J. Simpson) set about rescuing a trapped family on the 87th floor. Jernigan is able to take the mother down to safety in the lobby, but Roberts, building resident Lisolette Mueller (Jennifer Jones) - who informed security of the trapped family, and the family's two children are stranded in a stairwell when it explodes and collapses from a ruptured gas line. Roberts evacuates Mueller and the children safely from the stairwell but is forced to take them up to the Promenade Room due to the fire raging below them. Bigelow and his secretary/mistress Lorrie (Susan Flannery) are killed in Bigelow's office on the 65th floor when they become trapped by the flames. The building's other stairwell is inaccessible, as the door at the Promenade Room is accidentally sealed shut by cement in the stairwell. The lone scenic elevator which operates on the outside of the building and is untouched by the inferno becomes the preferred method of escape until the building's entire electrical system collapses under the strain of the overload and fails completely. Rooftop escape by helicopter is then attempted but high winds cause the helicopter to crash into the roof and explode, and the fuselage ignites a large fire on the roof. Escape by Breeches buoy to the roof of a neighboring skyscraper, the 102-story Peerless Building, has some success but is time-consuming and not sufficient enough to evacuate all the guests. Roberts activates a gravity brake on the scenic elevator, which will allow 12 people to escape the Promenade Room. Susan, Mueller, the children and a fireman are among those selected for the elevator. Susan professes to Roberts as she leaves she will follow him wherever he goes from here, even if it means giving up her promotion. As the elevator descends the building an explosion at the 110th floor rips the elevator off its track, leaving it hanging by a cable. Mueller falls to her death from the elevator during the explosion, but the remaining passengers are saved after an emergency rescue by O'Hallorhan.

With the spreading fire 15 minutes from the Promenade Room, a final plan is hatched to put out the approaching flames by exploding the million-gallon water tanks at the top of the building, which offers the best chance of survival. As Roberts reveals the plan to the remaining guests, the fire finally spreads to the Promenade Room by way of one of the stairwells, resulting in a panic and a overwhelming rush of guests to the Breeches buoy, which collapses to the street below, killing Simmons, Senator Parker (Robert Vaughn) and several other guests in the process. O'Hallorhan agrees to be dropped by helicopter onto the roof to meet Roberts at the water tanks to set the plastic explosives. The fire chief, trained for explosives, instructs the architect how to set the charges. The two men quickly finish and retreat to the restaurant. Everyone ties themselves down to avoid being washed away by the water rushing from the destroyed tanks. The plan succeeds and the water extinguishes the fire floor by floor. O'Hallorhan, Roberts, Duncan and most of the other partygoers survive, but the torrent of water claims several casualties when several people, including the Mayor, are swept out the windows.

In the lobby, Duncan reunites with his daughter Patty Simmons (Susan Blakely) who is distraught over her husband's death. Duncan consoles her and prays that a disaster like this never happens again. Harlee Claiborne (Fred Astaire), one of the building's residents and Mueller's date for the party is searching the lobby for her when he is told by the fireman from the scenic elevator that Mueller died in the rescue attempt. Claiborne refuses to believe this until Jernigan gives him Mueller's pet cat which he rescued from her apartment.

Outside the building, Roberts comments to Susan that he is unsure what will become of the building, but that perhaps it should be left alone as a symbol of the world's problems. O'Hallorhan joins them and states that though fewer than 200 people died, the casualties could have been much worse, and a worse disaster is possible if builders and architects are not willing to take fire safety and fire fighting into account more seriously with skyscrapers. Roberts looks up at the charred skyscraper and promises to consult with O'Hallorhan on such matters in the future.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Primary cast

• Steve McQueen as Chief Michael O' Hallorhan
• Paul Newman as Doug Roberts
• William Holden as James Duncan
• Faye Dunaway as Susan Franklin
• Fred Astaire as Harlee Claiborne
• Susan Blakely as Patty Duncan Simmons
• Richard Chamberlain as Roger Simmons
• Jennifer Jones as Lisolette Mueller
• O.J. Simpson as Harry Jernigan
• Robert Vaughn as Sen. Gary Parker
• Robert Wagner as Dan Bigelow
• Susan Flannery as Lorrie
• Mike Lookinland as Phillip Albright
• Carlena Gower as Angela Albright

[edit] Other

• Scott Newman (son of Paul Newman) as the young acrophobic fireman.
• Sheila Matthews as Paula Ramsey
• Jack Collins as Mayor Robert Ramsey
• Paul Comi as Tim
• Gregory Sierra as Carlos the bartender
• Don Gordon as Kappy
• Norman Grabowski as Flaker
• Dabney Coleman as Deputy Chief #1
• Norman Burton as Will Giddings
• Felton Perry as Fireman Scott

[edit] History

End of the closing credit crawl, illustrating the joint partnership between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. in producing The Towering Inferno.

After the success of The Poseidon Adventure, Warner Bros. bought the rights to film The Tower for $390,000. Eight weeks later, Irwin Allen discovered another skyscraper-on-fire novel, The Glass Inferno, and bought the rights for $400,000 for 20th Century Fox. In order to avoid having two similar films produced at the same time, the productions were combined, with a budget of $14 million (over $58 million adjusted for inflation 1974-2005). Each studio paid half of the production costs. In return, Fox was given the United States box office receipts and Warner Bros. the profits from the rest of the world.

Stirling Silliphant, who won an Oscar for his adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, was asked to combine the two similar novels into a single screenplay. Silliphant took seven main characters from each book and combined the plots for the storyline. In The Tower, a bomb in the main utility room of a fictitious 150-floor tower (the world's tallest) causes a power surge, which sets a janitor's closet on fire; the escape from the top floor is by breeches buoy to the adjacent 110-story North Tower of the World Trade Center, and is only partially successful (more than a hundred partygoers die when fire overtakes the restaurant on the top floor). In The Glass Inferno, a discarded cigarette sets the janitor's closet in a 60-story tower on fire; the escape from the top floor is by helicopter, and everyone left in the restaurant escapes.

The movie's 57 sets and four complete camera crews established records for a single film on the Twentieth Century Fox lot. In addition, Maureen McGovern was hired to sing the Oscar-winning love ballad, "We May Never Love Like This Again".

The movie was released the year the Sears Tower, the world's tallest building until 1996, opened in Chicago, a year after the two World Trade Center skyscrapers — the world's second tallest building at the time of the films premiere — opened in New York City, and not long after the 1972 Andraus Building and 1974 Joelma Building fires in São Paulo, Brazil. Both novels upon which this movie was based were inspired by construction of the World Trade Center towers and concerns over what would happen if fire broke out in a highrise tower. Although the two disasters were somewhat different — in particular, the fictional Glass Tower did not collapse — following the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, the film was often referred to by the media. Coincidentally, principal photography of the movie was finished on September 11, 1974.

The atrium of San Francisco's Hyatt Regency Hotel (at 5 Embarcadero Center) was used as the lobby for the fictional Glass Tower. This hotel features three glass-walled elevators identical to the glass-walled scenic elevator of the fictional Glass Tower. (This lobby and the elevators also featured in films such as Mel Brooks' comedy High Anxiety, in the Charles Bronson spy thriller Telefon, and in Time After Time.)

The Bank of America building at 555 California Street in San Francisco was used to double for the outside facade and plaza of the Glass Tower. The St. Francis Hotel stood in for the Glass Tower's security control room and water tank area. The Glass Tower itself was a matte painting in the opening shot and an 80-foot miniature fitted with propane gas jets for exterior fire scenes.

The Westin St. Francis hotel was the third and final location used for the ride aboard the scenic elevator, for a scene in which characters ride the elevator towards the Promenade Room. Once the elevator clears the wall in front of the windows of the elevator, the San Francisco skyline is visible and the Bay Bridge can be seen in its entirety.

There are many small parts in the movie played by actors who appeared in The Poseidon Adventure, which Irwin Allen also produced. In a touch of nepotism, Sheila Matthews, the actress who played the role of the mayor's wife 'Paula Ramsey', is Irwin Allen's wife. Jennifer Jones role of 'Lisolette Mueller', her last before retiring from acting, was originally offered to Olivia de Havilland.

Initially, the fire chief's role was relatively minor — the architect was the lead and hero — and Ernest Borgnine was planned to be Fire Chief Mario Infantino to Steve McQueen's architect Doug Roberts. However, when McQueen signed on, he requested the fire chief's role, and Paul Newman was signed to take the architect's role.

McQueen, Newman and Holden all tried to obtain top billing. Holden was refused as his star power was no longer considered in the league of McQueen and Newman. To provide dual top billing and mollify McQueen, the credits were arranged diagonally, with McQueen at the lower left and Newman at the upper right. Thus, each actor appeared to have top billing depending on whether the poster was read from left to right or top to bottom.^[1] Technically, McQueen has top billing and is mentioned first in the film's trailers; however, at the end of the movie, as the cast's names roll from the bottom of the screen, Newman's name is fully visible first, something McQueen apparently didn't catch. This was the first time that this type of "staggered but equal" billing had been used for a movie, although the same thing had been discussed for the same two actors several years earlier when McQueen was going to play the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (McQueen ultimately passed on the part and was replaced by Robert Redford, who didn't enjoy McQueen's status and took second billing to Newman.) Today, it's become understood that whoever's name appears to the left has top billing but this was by no means the case when The Towering Inferno was produced and the procedure was new.

In the DVD commentary, it is pointed out that because both McQueen and Newman were promised the same pay and identical number of lines of dialog, one actor had to go back to the studio to shoot additional scenes to equalize the final number of lines of dialog.

The movie's opening credits included a dedication to "the firefighters of the world".

[edit] Music

The score was composed and conducted by John Williams, with orchestrations by Herbert W. Spencer and Al Woodbury. It was recorded at the 20th Century Fox scoring stage on October 31 and November 4, 7 and 11 in 1974. The orignal recording engineer was Ted Keep.

Source music, heard in various portions of the film, include instrumental versions of the songs "Again" by Lionel Newman and Dorcas Cochran, "You Make Me Feel So Young" by Josef Myrow and Mack Gordon, and "The More I See You" by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon.^[2]

A brief snippet of a cue from Williams’ score to “Cinderella Liberty” titled 'Maggie Shoots Pool' is also heard as source music in a scene when William Holden's character converses on the phone with Paul Newman's character. In actual fact it is not the recording featured on the original soundtarck album of that film but a newer arrangement recorded specifically for "The Towering Inferno". An extended version of the tune is heard ostensibly as source music in a deleted theatrical scene that is sometimes shown as part of a longer scene from the TV broadcast version.

One of the most sought-after unreleased music cues from the film is the one where Williams provides some low-key lounge music during a party scene prior to the big announcement of a fire in a storage room 50 floors below. Chief O’Halloran orders Duncan to evacuate the party; the music becomes louder as Lisolette and Harlee are seen dancing and Duncan lectures Roger. Titled "The Promenade Room" on the conductor's cue sheet, the track features a ragged ending as Duncan asks the house band to stop playing. Because of this Film Score Monthly could not add this cue to their expanded soundtrack album.

The Academy Award winning song "We May Never Love Like This Again" was composed by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschorn and performed by Maureen McGovern who appears in a cameo role as lounge singer in the film and on the soundtrack album of the score which features the actual film recording plus the commercially released single version. Additionally, the theme tune is interpolated into the film's underscore by John Williams. The song's writers also collaborated on the Academy Award winning tune 'The Morning After' from "The Poseidon Adventure" which coincidentally was also sung by Miss McGovern, although hers was not the vocal utilized in the film version.

The first release of portions of the score from "The Towering Inferno" was on Warner Brothers Records early in 1975. An near complete release of the score then came on the Film Score Monthly label (FSM) on 1 April 2001 and was Produced by Lukas Kendall and Nick Redman and was the first official release of the soundtrack on the compact disc format. Whilst several minor incidental cues were lost, FSM's version was an almost-completely expanded version which was lovingly remixed from a combination of album masters held at the Warner Bros. archives and the multi-track 35mm magnetic film stems held at 20th Century Fox studios. Placed back into chronological order and restoring some memorable action cues it became one of the company's biggest sellers. And as a limited only run of 3000 copies were made, it sold out within months of its initial release. Even today, it still commands top-dollar prices on e-bay.

Reports that this soundtrack and that of the movie "Earthquake" (also composed by Williams) borrowed cues from each other is not accurate. Careful listeners may notice that the version of the 'Main Title' cue featured on the FSM disc is in fact the film version. It differs from the original soundtrack album version slightly. There is a different balance of instruments in two spots, and in particular the snare drum percussion is much more prominent than the album version which also feaures additional cymbal work. Although the album was not a re-recording as is commonly believed, the original LP tracks were recorded during the same sessions and several cues were combined to make a more enjoyable listening experience. The choice to utilize the film version was a brilliant one probably because the sound quality, at the time of the FSM release, was reportedly so much better than the quarter inch WB two track album master. ^[3]

[edit] Awards

[edit] Award wins

The film won three Academy Awards, two BAFTAs and two Golden Globes.^[4]

• Academy Award for Best Cinematography - (Fred J. Koenekamp & Joseph F. Biroc)
• BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - (Fred Astaire)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - (Fred Astaire)
• Golden Globe Award for Most Promising newcomer – Female – (Susan Flannery)
• Academy Award for Film Editing - (Carl Kress & Harold F. Kress)
• BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music - (John Williams)
• Academy Award for Best Song - (Al Kasha & Joel Hirschhorn) for the song "We May Never Love Like This Again"

[edit] Award nominations

• Academy Award for Best Picture
• Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor - (Fred Astaire)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - (Jennifer Jones)
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction - (William J. Creber, Ward Preston, Raphael Bretton)
• Academy Award for Original Music Score - (John Williams)
• Academy Award for Sound - (Theodore Soderberg & Herman Lewis)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song - (Al Kasha & Joel Hirschhorn) for the song "We May Never Love Like This Again"

[edit] See also

• Skyscrapers in film
• List of firefighting films
• Thunderbirds (TV series) episode "City of Fire", 6 January 1966. See List of Thunderbirds episodes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: The Towering Inferno

• The Towering Inferno at the Internet Movie Database
• The Towering Inferno at Allmovie
• The Towering Inferno Website
• DVD Review: The Towering Inferno (Special Edition) at The-Trades.com
• Irwin Allen News Network (The Irwin Allen News Network's Towering Inferno page)
• Various releases of music from the film, on LP and cd