Disaster At The Theatres: The popularity of '70s disasters films

The fall of 1974 was a grand time for lovers of enormous movie spectacles featuring all-star casts and disasters — either natural or man-made.

A half-century ago today, “Airport 1975” starring Charlton Heston and George Kennedy opened in theaters. A month later, “Earthquake” starring (checks notes) Charlton Heston and George Kennedy was released.

And then, a month after that, it was “The Towering Inferno” starring Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

A Deluge of Disaster Flicks

There are times that Hollywood charms us all with productions full of charm and innovation. And then, there are times that Tinseltown jumps on the bandwagon of something that’s a proven ticket seller.

The early 1970s often seemed the latter. “Airport” was released in 1970, about the aftermath of a bomb going off on a passenger jet and featuring Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, George Kennedy, Jacqueline Bisset and Helen Hays. The film earned more than $100 million and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Two years later, “The Poseidon Adventure,” about an ocean liner flipped upside down by a tsunami and featuring Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Red Buttons, earned $84 million domestically and was nominated for eight Oscars.

By that time, everyone wanted in on the action. Universal Studios, the makers of “Airport,” began planning a sequel that it originally wanted as a made-for-TV movie. At the same time, it hired Oscar-winning “The Godfather” screenwriter Mario Puzo to develop a screenplay about the ultimate earthquake striking Los Angeles. The idea was that such a story could be spread out over a larger area, instead of being confined on a plane or a ship.

Part of the catch: Universal had signed up some of the same actors to appear in both “Airport 1975” and “Earthquake.” The movies would have to be filmed one after the other.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. bought the movie rights to Richard Martin Stern’s “The Tower,” about efforts to rescue those trapped in a fire in a skyscraper just a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. And 20th Century Fox bought the rights to “The Glass Inferno” by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson — also about people trapped atop a skyscraper that’s caught fire.

Irwin Allen, who had produced “The Poseidon Adventure” for Fox, realized how similar those two stories were and urged Fox to team up with Warner to make a single film.

Allen brought in his scriptwriter from “The Poseidon Adventure” to hammer out a script and set out hiring his own cast of Hollywood luminaries to compete with Universal.

The Making of Three Huge Disaster Films - Nearly at the same time

“Airport 1975” is about a small plane that collides with a passenger 747, smashing its cockpit and incapacitating its crew. George Kennedy, from the first “Airport” film, returned. Charlton Heston played the pilot who saves the passenger jet, but he joined the “Airport 1975” production just 15 hours from completing his work on “Earthquake.”

Universal Pictures paid American Airlines $30,000 a day to rent a 747 to make this picture. All the exterior shots and one interior shot were filmed in just two days at the Salt Lake City airport in Utah. In August 1989, the small plane shown in this film really did collide with another aircraft, killing the occupants of both small aircraft.

Mario Puzo was paid $125,000 to write the first draft of “Earthquake” in the summer of 1972, but departed the project in early 1973 when he was signed to begin work on “The Godfather Part II.” The writer who was hired to finish the screenplay went through 11 drafts before filming started in February 1974.

Both Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were asked to star in “Earthquake” but both were already committed to “The Towering Inferno.” Charlton Heston turned down the role of Brody in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” to play the lead character. At the last minute, Audrey Hepburn had to drop out, so Ava Gardner played Heston’s wife.

“Earthquake” used a unique gimmick: “Sensurround,” which was sound at 120 decibels — roughly equal to a jet takeoff — piped into the theater using special speakers to shake the audience during quake scenes. The sound cracked ceiling plaster in theaters around the nation. It would be used in only three more films by 1980.

Allen wanted McQueen to play the skyscraper’s architect. McQueen signed on, but only if he could play the fire chief instead. McQueen reportedly counted lines of dialogue to make sure Newman didn’t get more than he. Both McQueen and Newman were paid $1 million plus 10% of the box office receipts for their work on the film.

McQueen performed some of his own stunts, including one in which he leaps from a helicopter to the top of the burning building. At another point during production, an actual fire broke out. McQueen pitched in to help extinguish the fire.” “My wife is not going to believe this,” a firefighter told him. “Neither is mine,” McQueen replied.

In the script, it’s explained that a dockworkers’ strike has caused only one exterior scenic elevator to be installed. This was later edited out, creating a small plot hole. The elevator used was real — one of two in San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, also seen in 1974’s “Freebie and the Bean,” “Telefon” and “High Anxiety” in 1977 and “Time After Time” in 1979.

How They Did At The Box Office